Sindre Langaas, Ph.D., BALLERINA network co-ordinator
UNEP/GRID-Arendal, c/o Dept. of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
E-mail: langaasgrida.no WWW: http://www.baltic-region.net/
The Baltic Sea Region (BSR), here defined as the drainage basin of the Baltic Sea, can be characterised with the following basic facts -
The BSR has since the early 1970'ies had extensive environmental co-operation, mainly driven by the increased multiple type pollution to the Baltic Sea and the recognition of these problems as truly transboundary, thus demanding joint solutions (Westing 1989). The establishment of the first Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area in 1974 is a result of this recognition. The convention was the first international agreement to cover all sources of pollution, both from land and from ships as well as airborne. It was revised in 1992.
Until the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the unification of the two German states, the Baltic international environmental focus, as catalysed by HELCOM, was more or less exclusively directed towards the protection of the marine environment and activities on or in the Baltic Sea itself. The breakdown of the Communist regimes around 1990 has allowed for new and expanded activities and initiatives in the region. Of particular importance has been the increased possibilities to explicitly consider various economic and sectoral activities in the drainage basin, both when it concerns joint environmental management activities and exchange of data and information. This has also lead to a flourishment of new region initiatives and networks. See Stålvant (1996) for a quite comprehensive overview of the various actors and initiatives operating on the international level in the BSR.
Another clear trend in the BSR is the increased understanding and recognition of the inter-connectedness between economic development and environmental problems. This is influenced by the increased international trend to seek much broader solutions to environmental problems than some decades ago. The concept of sustainable development, as re-invented by the Brundtland Commission in 1987, has been crucial to this understanding. Thus, the various international high-level initiatives started in the BSR this decade have had the broader sustainable/economic development - environment linkage as a starting point when considering the environmental problem issues of the region. Baltic 21 is probably the best and most recent example of this (Kristoferson and Stålvant 1996).
Further, as a consequence of the broadened sustainable development perspective but also for other reasons, terrestrial ecosystem and natural resource issues are now being considered at a BSR level. In these cases the drainage basin delineation of the BSR becomes less relevant. Baltic 21, for example, look into sectors such as energy, industry, agriculture, fisheries, transport and tourism, while regional scientific networks exist for issues like biodiversity (Ingelög et al. 1993)
The answer to this question inevitably depends upon the view of the stakeholders of the BSR and their specific on-going (and forthcoming) decision-making processes. Historically, when considering the sharing of and access to environmental information for international, transboundary eco-regions, such as the BSR, the focus has been put on the governmental and intergovernmental bodies and their high-level decision-making needs. In the BSR, such bodies are represented by actors and initiatives such as the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), the Baltic Seas Fisheries Commission, and the Vision and Strategies around the Baltic Sea 2010 (VASAB 2010) initiative, and their governmental representatives. As an example, the HELCOM Secretariat has as one duty, as specified in paragraph 22 of the 1992 Convention,
"..i) to receive, process, summarize and disseminate relevant scientific, technological and statistical information from available sources;"
Although not explicitly stated, it is understood that the main target group for the information is the Contracting Parties, i.e.. the BSR governments, to the Convention.
In contrast, the very recent initiative Agenda 21 for the Baltic Sea Region (Baltic 21) started in 1996, has taken into account the more recent thinking about public participation and public access to environmental information (Kristoferson and Stålvant, 1996). Such thinking are now firmly recognised in an European context, still in many cases more on the conceptual than on the practical level (UN ECE 1995, Hallo 1997). The foundation for such reasoning is, besides the democratic aspect, the recognition that the actors or stakeholders on the environmental arena basically are individuals, being consumers of goods and services, acting as members of NGOs, being voters, being employees of various types of industries, and so on. Thus, for the individuals to 'think globally (or transboundary) - act locally' require a continuous provision of environmental information to guide in the everyday decisions to be made. In the BSR, humans as consumers, homo consumus, can in many respects be looked upon as key stakeholders and determinants for many of the environmental issues of the BSR, including the excessive nutrient pollution to the Baltic Sea.
Given the two extremes of the range of stakeholders and decision-makers in the BSR, the IGOs and the homo consumus, it is quite obvious that the scope and extent of possible types of environmental (including natural resources and sustainable development) information is virtually infinite. Thus, the ability of any BSR specific environmental information system to provide all the required information to the decision-makers at the low and high levels are impossible to achieve. In most cases, closed or internal spheres of information flow for the various stakeholder groups will have to provide the necessary input to the decision-making processes at both the low- and high levels. In an Internet context, this is commonly being termed Intranet. Yet, some commonalities in information needs can be found when it concerns the interfaces between the various stakeholder groups. These commonalities then can provide a first compromise solution to and practical delineation of the scope and content of a environmental information system to be designed. UN ECE (1995) has defined environmental information as
"..any information on the state of water, air, soil, fauna, flora, land and natural sites, and on activities or measures adversely affecting or likely to affect these, and on activities or measures designed to protect these, including administrative measures and environmental management programmes."
Given the above definition, one possible structural framework for various types of (state of) environmental information when it concerns the BSR environmental issues, is the P-S-R framework, or:
Pressure/Driving force State of environment/natural resource stock Societal response
This framework is commonly being used in State-of-Environment (SoE) or Sustainable Development reports (see Rump 1996, EEA 1997). The information in SoE reports are often based upon selected quantitative and aggregated indicators. SoE reports are available or under development for most of the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea, but good ones are currently missing for the Baltic Sea and the drainage basin itself (Denisov et al 1997). Within the Baltic 21 and the HELCOM, moves are now being taken to provide the BSR community indicator based regional reports. To better address the needs of individuals as stakeholders and actors, it further may be recommended to include environment and human health related issues, such as dietary advice on fish consumption.
Indicator-based SoE reports are typically brief and selective by nature. They ideally should be complemented with more detailed quantitative and qualitative information in both textual and graphical formats about the environmental issues, their pressures or driving forces, the state, distribution and dynamics of the issue or natural resource stock, and the societal and stakeholder responses to alleviate the of the environmental issue. In this context, scientifically and monitoring based information is crucial.
Basic key facts about the BSR, are another type of information needed as a fundamental background information for many decisions to be made. When dealing with international ecological or transboundary regions, the access to such information is neither straightforward nor simple. This is due to the fact that these regions transcends administrative and statistical units (Langaas 1997a). For example, when the 18 billion ECU Baltic Sea Joint Comprehensive Environmental Action Programme (JCP) was elaborated in the early 1990'ies, neither the distribution nor the total amount of population and land cover for the entire and major BSR watersheds were known. It was not until a major research project in 1992 - 1994 created a comprehensive and seamless Geographic Information System (GIS) database of the entire BSR, that such basic facts became available (Sweitzer et al. 1996). Another good example of basic facts is the on-line BASICS statistical database comprising environmental, natural resources and sustainable development statistics about the BSR (Langaas 1997b).
Furthermore, detailed information about the various stakeholders and their different activities to reverse or improve the various (negative) environmental issues, should also be shared. This includes the various international agreements and initiatives at the high level, as well as at the grassroot levels.
The advent of the Internet and in particular its World Wide Web component has made possible many new and fascinating avenues for environmental co-operation and communication. In fact, the Internet, with its integrated web-like structure, is ideally suited for use in collective efforts to build better communications and foster collaboration among the environmental research and management communities in international eco-regions, such as transboundary rivers and waterbodies and their associated catchment areas, possibly encompassing many jurisdictions.
With its relatively high simplicity (for the end-user) and steadily increasing diversity of tools and services offered to communicate, visualise, present, publish, various types of data and information it has proven to be a most revolutionary tool in Environmental Information Management.
Internet-based information sharing efforts now take place in many parts of the world. The Great Lakes Information Network (GLIN) (http://www.great-lakes.net/) in the bi-lateral Great Lakes region of North America and the BALLERINA initiative from the Baltic Sea region (http://www.baltic-region.net/) are two examples. Thre remaining part of this paper will deal with the BALLERINA (BALtic Sea Region On-line Environmental Information Resources for INternet Access). The BALLERINA initiative was proposed as a regional response to chapter 40 of Agenda 21 in 1996 and discussed thoroughly at a workshop held in June 1996. With financial support from the European Environment Agency, the Ministries of Environment of Norway and Sweden and the Swedish EPA, BALLERINA has in 1997 started its operational work. The First Annual BALLERINA Conference with some 80 participants was held in Riga, Latvian in May 1997. This meeting confirmed the great interest in BALLERINA.
The overall aim of the BALLERINA initiative is to contribute to the sustainable development and thereby to the improved state of the Baltic Sea Region environment, by improving the availability and accessibility of relevant information on Internet for decision-making at all levels.
Main objectives are:
The institutional basis for the BALLERINA initiative is a large number of institutions with a mandate and interest in disseminating or communicating information (in English) on environment, natural resources and sustainable development about the Baltic Sea Region on Internet
The Annual BALLERINA Conferences, of which the first was held in Riga, May 1997, is the main forum for the BALLERINA partners to discuss and express their views concerning the development of BALLERINA. There, the following issues can be discussed:
In addition, the Annual BALLERINA Conferences should give ample time for presentations and discussion on various Internet projects, products and initiatives.
A strong lead party is required to have a dynamic, flexible and competent driving force underpinning the development of the BALLERINA initiative. At the First Annual BALLERINA Conference in Riga, May 1997, UNEP/GRID-Arendal and Stockholm Marine Research Centre were approved as lead parties for a period of three years.
A BALLERINA advisory board is required to have a limited but competent and supportive group of partner representatives to oversee the development of BALLERINA and to give the necessary guidelines to the lead party in-between the Annual BALLERINA Conferences. As such, a membership in the advisory board can be considered an honourable position and a highly important and substantive function with respect to the aim and objectives of BALLERINA.
The advisory board are composed of 12 persons, representing a wide range of institutional types, from most countries in the Baltic Sea Region, with competence and experiences in the range of activities critical to the success of BALLERINA.
The first version of the BALLERINA web site was launched on 29 April 1997, and is now continuously being updated. A section of the home page is shown below.
Figure. A section of the BALLERINA home page with some of the entry points to the information found through the BALLERINA web site - http://www.baltic-region.net/
The BALLERINA site offer possibilities to find relevant, Internet-available information about environment and natural resource issues through a coherent, well structured, comprehensive and logically built and guiding web site. It aims to function as a well-informed and continuously updated gateway to information of interest in a Baltic Sea Region perspective for a broad spectrum of suppliers and users of information within and outside the region. Several hundred annotated links to web sites in the BSR and elsewhere containing relevant information are found.
The ambition guiding the construction of the BALLERINA web site has been to make it customary for anyone looking for information about environmental, natural resources and sustainable development issues in the Baltic Sea Region first to consult the BALLERINA site and its links to relevant sources. In other words, completeness is a strong ambition.
Furthermore, BALLERINA aims to be a virtual meeting place, encouraging communication and exchange of information and experience between like-minded within the Baltic Sea Region and with people world-wide expressing an interest in the region.
Due to the different levels of capacities among the countries and institutions in the Baltic Sea Region both in publishing material on Internet but also to access on-line information, various types of capacity building activities and efforts are needed to improve this situation. These activities will primarily be targeted the CEE and NIS countries in the region. At the First Annual BALLERINA Conference in Riga, May 1997, the issue was discussed and a comprehensive package of various capacity building activities proposed. Obviously, any proposal concerning capacity building carefully needs to consider the specific needs of the institutions or countries concerned. Some components were:
During the 1990'ies, following the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the unification of Germany, and the broadened views upon the interlinkages between (economic) development and environment, major changes have taken place in the joint environmental co-operation and decision making in the BSR. These changes can be summarised in some main points:
Given these changes, the need for additional kinds of environmental information has expanded considerably compared to the earlier management regime rather strictly focusing upon the monitoring data of the marine Baltic Sea environment.
In response to the increased and changed needs for environmental information among the old and new decision-makers in the BSR, a comprehensive environmental information initiative based upon Internet has been designed. It has been named BALLERINA, which stands for
BALtic Sea Region On-line Environmental Information Resources for INternet Access. The objectives of BALLERINA are to
Although the BALLERINA network and web site has been operational for a limited time period, it appears to confirm the understanding that Internet is extremely well suited for use in collective efforts to build better communications and foster collaboration among the environmental research and management communities in international eco-regions, such as transboundary rivers and waterbodies and their associated catchment areas.
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Internet address: http://www.baltic-region.net/about/ballback.htm
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