BALLERINA stands for:
BALLERINA stands for:
BALTIC SEA REGION ON-
LINE
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION
RESOURCES FOR
INTERNET
ACCESS
- A regional effort to share environmental information using Internet/World Wide Web
Editor: Sindre Langaas, UNEP/GRID-Arendal
UNEP/GRID-ARENDAL
The first BALLERINA (BALtic Sea Region On-line Environmental Information
Resources for INternet Access) workshop brought together about
65 representatives of a wide variety of government, academic,
and non-government organisations from the Baltic Sea region to
Swedish Environmental Protection Agency headquarters on June 13-14
to discuss the development of an Internet-based environmental
network in the region. Participants at the workshop expressed
wide support for the BALLERINA initiative, and in particular stressed
the idea of using BALLERINA as a tool in the development of a
Baltic Sea regional Agenda 21.
BALLERINA is to be developed as a co-operative partnership effort
among institutions and organisations that produce and disseminate
environmental information about the Baltic Sea and its drainage
area. To an increasing extent, much information about the environmental
state of the region is already available by Internet. Yet, that
same information is currently not easy to find. The workshop
discussed and provided guidelines on how to make the BALLERINA
initiative the main gateway for environmental information on the
Baltic Sea region on the Internet. BALLERINA will through a number
of World Wide Web pages structured according to Geography, Environmental
Topic, and Institutions act as a 'switchboard' for various sources
of existing and upcoming Internet information sources about environmental
and sustainable development issues in the Baltic Sea region.
During the course of the two-day workshop, working groups discussed
a series of aspects of the BALLERINA initiative, including institutional,
informational, capacity building and financial dimensions. A
wide variety of ideas and concrete proposals were presented by
each of the working groups to the entire workshop. Representatives
from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,
Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine and USA participated in
the working groups of the workshop.
Several workshop participants presented existing examples of environmental
work of their organisations on the Internet. Those organisations
included the CIESIN Estonian Center, UNEP/GRID-Arendal, TallinNet,
the Finnish Environment Institute, the European Environment Agency
and the Regional Environmental Centre (Budapest).
The Director of the Great Lakes Commission, Carol Ratza, presented
the experience of the Great Lakes Information Network (GLIN).
The BALLERINA initiative will be able to draw on the experiences
of GLIN as a successful electronic network concerning the environmental
issues of international waterbodies.
A BALLERINA interim steering committee was designated and approved
by the workshop for further organisation and realisation of the
BALLERINA initiative.
The BALLERINA workshop was sponsored by the Swedish Environmental
Protection Agency and UNEP/GRID-Arendal.
The first BALLERINA (BALtic Sea Region On-line Environmental Information Resources for INternet Access) Workshop brought together around 65 participants representing 35 institutions from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine, and USA at the premises of the Swedish EPA June 13 - 14, 1996. The workshop was organised jointly by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the GRID-Arendal centre of the United Nations Environment Programme.
The aim of the BALLERINA workshop was to discuss the development of an Internet-based environmental network in the region, named BALLERINA. In particular, the workshop discussed to provide guidelines on how to make the BALLERINA initiative the main gateway for environmental information on the Baltic Sea region on the Internet through the use of a series of World Wide Web pages with a co-ordinating function of the many existing information sources now available about the environment in the Baltic Sea region.
The workshop was composed of four half day sessions consisting of a number of plenary presentations, and a number of working group and plenary discussions dealing with specific topics. The four half day sessions were chaired by Mr. Bo Libert, Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, Mr. Leo Saare, Estonian Environment Information Centre, Mr. Svein Tveitdal, UNEP/GRID-Arendal and Mr. Guntis Pukitis, Latvian Environmental Data Centre. The presentations aimed at putting the BALLERINA initiative into a national, regional, and global context. The discussions focused upon a number of main issues related to the development of BALLERINA. These issues were outlined in a Background Paper. Presentation and discussion sessions were mixed during the Workshop. In this Meeting Report we have grouped the presentations and the discussion & conclusions separately, into two parts.
In addition to the Meeting report, we have attached the plenary presentations, the background document, list of participants, and workshop program.
Workshop participants, representing some 35 major environmental information centres around the Baltic Sea, at a number of sessions broke into small working groups to discuss, outline and agree on several dimensions of BALLERINA development. The dimensions discussed were:
Reports from each of the 5 working groups to the full workshop are condensed below into general workshop recommendations.
Participants agreed that there is general acceptance for the idea of BALLERINA as a special interest network for environmental information providers from the Baltic Sea region. It's goal is to better serve the needs of those asking for Baltic environmental information.
The workshop participants unanimously agreed upon the Agenda 21 as the ideological framework for BALLERINA. In particular, it was stressed the BALLERINA should he promoted as a tool for the Baltic region Agenda 21 that was agreed upon at the Visby Baltic Sea States Summit to develop.
BALLERINA will be in the public domain. Issues such as standardisation or harmonisation will take place within sub-regional projects, and not be a part of BALLERINA's task. Any partner institution publishing the results and data on a public WWW system will then make it a part of the BALLERINA system.
Participants described a very wide potential list of BALLERINA users, including: decision makers, managers, academia, media, educators, researchers, students, and the general public. It was recognised that the main target groups initial
It was considered of great importance that BALLERINA will get the general support and endorsement of the Helsinki Commission, EEA and UNEP. In addition, it will be most valuable to have recognition and support for the initiative expressed at the Ministers of Environment Meeting scheduled for October.
BALLERINA should be 'owned' by the institutions providing the information and data, not the countries. Partners should be involved from the whole Baltic Sea drainage basin, and involve all partners.
The groups generally agreed that lead technical and editorial/managerial parties should be sought among the existing Baltic Sea environmental information community. It was not deemed necessary to establish BALLERINA as an independent organisation, but rather to rely on existing organisations to lead the co-operative initiative. It was considered important that the 'mother institution(s)' should be a recognised institution able contribute to the success of the mission.
All types of BALLERINA partner institutions should be represented on the board, including government agencies, NGOs, and the commercial sector. Agreement on democratic rules for which institutions should be on the board needs to be defined.
Several groups agreed that regular meetings are important. Such meeting will help build personal and institutional networks and capacity.
BALLERINA per se is not a content development project. Partner institutions will develop WWW products and services within the already existing mandates of their institution, or other sub-regional projects. BALLERINA will provide links to these freely available data and information source under a new regional umbrella. In short, the BALLERINA WWW pages should act as a regional navigation system or 'switchboard' for environmental information.
Documentation of board and lead party efforts should be available for all interested parties and collaborators via an Internet list server/mailing list and via the WWW.
There is no reason to set up BALLERINA as a standard-making body since the BALLERINA partnership is based upon voluntary participation and contributions. However, commonly used guidelines for Internet publishing should be promoted, e.g., Last revised date, Page editor, etc. English should be the common language for BALLERINA-linked resources.
From a technical perspective, a shared, not dedicated BALLERINA server at the site of the lead parties is an appropriate solution. Publishing in other media will also be valuable, including CD-ROM, diskette and print. BALLERINA server content could in some cases be mirrored within countries if this will help access speed. Physical server location is not viewed as a problem. Funding may help determine the actual location of BALLERINA regional server.
In some cases, improvement of information infrastructure is very important. Internet is not a priority in some countries, and funding will be needed to improve access for some key persons.
While basic technical infrastructure is important, providing information in a user-friendly format is also an important infrastructure question. A particularly important role for BALLERINA will be development of a user-friendly regional search engine.
User training preferably should be left on a national level, with currently underway initiatives. However, BALLERINA may assist with HTML and WWW training of information providers, and assist in publishing on-line training materials for distribution across the region.
For some, funds will be needed to create substance and participate in the network.
BALLERINA could maintain different pathways to the data and information provided at various partner servers:
A good search engine would be valuable. The BALLERINA lead parties should not act as censors. All the participating institutes are responsible for the quality of their own information, not the BALLERINA lead parties. BALLERINA is not an editorial board for content placed upon BALLERINA partners WWW servers..
BALLERINA may supply links information services and products such as:
For many interested parties in the Baltic region, e-mail access will be all that is available. BALLERINA should provide some services that support these users as well, such as list servers and e-mail newsletters.
To address all the issues included in Agenda 21, BALLERINA should look at also the natural resources / economic side as well as environmental quality.
BALLERINA should highlight success stories - particularly on municipality level/ and cases of environmental auditing in industry.
The BALLERINA interim steering committee should outline expected financial needs for a BALLERINA pilot project. It is expected that 2-3 people will be needed to work directly on BALLERINA, costs will include web site hardware, training, travelling, equipment grants, seminars and Internet access for some partners.
Partner institutes should basically produce information with their own financial resources. BALLERINA may promote this by providing training, and some funds to stimulate that valuable information are being published on-line.
Sources will depend to some extent on who the lead parties are. And, substance has something to do with funding, and may lead to sources.
IUCN - International Union for Conservation of Nature could be a model for mixing governmental and NGO organisations.
Private funding could be an option, with a membership fee related to the BALLERINA logo sold to commercial contributors. There will need to be a mechanism to set a limit here, perhaps related to clean technology.
Data providers that sell their data, could pay a fee to make their data available via BALLERINA.
Tourism information; environmental information on industry - could provide a forum for industry to present their performance on environmental questions (auditing reports).
Mr. Svein Tveitdal, Director UNEP/GRID-Arendal, proposed a temporary institutional solution for the autumn of 1996, to be able to officially launch BALLERINA in 1997. This proposal was based upon experiences from the development of an Arctic Data Directory (ADD), which also required a temporary institutional solution. The proposal incorporated the establishment of a BALLERINA Interim Steering Committee with a limited mandate. The main task of the BALLERINA Interim Steering Committee would be to elaborate on:
This proposal was accepted by the BALLERINA Workshop participants
An Interim Steering Committee was nominated and accepted. The members are:
Mr. Bodin, whose responsibilities include Baltic environmental issues, welcomed participants and provided an overview of the historical political and environmental framework in the region. He began with the establishment of the Helsinki Convention and the foundation of the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) in 1972 with a direct charge "to protect the marine environment of the Baltic Sea." This convention, revised in 1992, has played an important role over the past 20 years. Bodin also noted that HELCOM and other institutions within the Baltic environmental institutional framework including the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and the International Baltic Sea Fisheries Commission, have a long tradition of co-operation.
The 3-4 May 1996 Visby Baltic Sea States Summit of the region's political leaders underscored this commitment to co-operation with a "Presidency Declaration'' which included three action programs: 1) People to people democracy; 2) economic development; and, 3) environmental action. The Presidency Declaration included a joint objective for constant improvement of living and working resources for peoples within the framework of sustainable development and the natural environment. The presidents also discussed nuclear safety, oil and the need of an Agenda 21 for the Baltic region.
An Agenda 21 for the Baltic Sea region could address sustainable development, environmental and natural resource issues, but not all the issues in the Global Agenda 21. For the Baltic Agenda 21, the focus should be on a strong coupling of economic development and environmental protection issues. A likely starting point of such a Baltic Sea region Agenda 21 would be the 20-21 October 1996 Meeting of Ministers of the Environment in Stockholm. This agenda could build on the Visby Summit, and also include a long-term strategy specific to the region, which includes checkpoints for the future, at such events as the Baltic Summit 97, UNGASS 97, and Rio follow up meetings.
Recent initiatives also point to new possibilities for Baltic co-operation, with the recently introduced "employment bill" in the Swedish legislature including a $1 billion SEK set aside for adoption of an "ecocycle society" and another $1 billion SEK set aside for the Baltic Sea region, a commitment to environmental investment in the region, to be overseen by the Prime Minister's Baltic Council.
There are a number of new challenges on the horizon, with many dynamic developments underway. Therefore there need for information is great. The question is, can BALLERINA help with the development of an Agenda 21 for the Baltic Sea region?
Mr. Langaas provided background on the BALLERINA initiative, provided an overview of the types of information available via the Internet now in the region, stated project objects and aims, and expected outcomes of this meeting. The BALLERINA concept is a co-operative network of agencies and organisations based on the idea of institutional partnership open to IGOs, governmental institutions, NGOs, academia and the commercial sector. Highly structured standards and procedures are not anticipated. The BALLERINA initiative web site is available at: http://www.grida.no/ballerina/
Ms. Ratza outlined the GLIN Internet-based regional environmental information sharing model and discussed the progress the bi-national Great Lakes region is making in using the World Wide Web and other Internet-based tools to link agencies and organisations to promote the sustainable development of that region. She offered GLIN as a model for the BALLERINA initiative, and outlined services to different categories of users, including the management community, policy makers, students, researchers and also benefits to participant agencies and information providers. During a demonstration of the GLIN Web site, Ms. Ratza stressed that information and data holders in the region are completely responsible for presentation of their own data and information and the GLIN service serves as a regional index or front-door to the collection of reputable sources of information. GLIN does not function as a data and information quality control agent, or service agency to place other's information on line. The GLIN web site is accessible at: http://www.great-lakes.net. A copy of Ms. Ratza's remarks are provided in attachment b.
This study done last winter on behalf of the Swedish government by the environmental council, a high level committee of the environmental ministry. Topics included improved exchange of environmental information; improved access, use and exchange of environmental data; and development of electronic conferences for discussions on environment and policy. The final report will be presented to Minister of the Environment on 14 June 1996. A copy of the report is available in Swedish at: http://www.environ.se/itima/itima.htm. A copy of Mr. Hammarsten's remarks are provided in attachment c.
Mr. Mölder presented remarks on the Internet and Environmental Information Dissemination: An Estonian Perspective. Mr. Molder provided a general picture of Internet connectivity in the region, and identified the Internet bandwidth connecting the Baltic Countries to each other, ranging from very high bandwidth between Stockholm and Helsinki, to 64 k link between Stockholm and Tallinn.
He identified the types of services provided by the each of the major Internet connectivity providers in the Estonia, and the sectors which they service. While there is currently no up-to-date and specific development plan for information technology in place in Estonia at present, there is a large education initiative (Tiger Leap) underway to bring the Internet into the schools. Internet connections have grown very quickly in Estonia, with some 150 different web servers active with more than 450 home pages for different organisations. Every day one new service or one new company homepage is announced in Estonia. Web pages exist for the president's office, bank and two largest news services. The first ministry on line was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with others following soon, including the Ministry of the Environment. In addition to the 10 current services providers, and hopefully by the end of the year, it is hoped that the cable TV company will offer home Internet connections through this system.
Moolder went on to list available Internet service providers in Latvia and Lithuania. In Latvia, the public service, LATNET serves government, universities and commercial services. There are also some commercial providers, including LvNet-Teleport, connecting the Russian-speaking community in Latvia. In Lithuania LITNET serves educational and research communities. OMNITEL serves business and commercial community. This year, TIAPNET another commercial provider started, while another service exists for government users. Copies of Mr. Moolder's slides, and a list of the most well known WWW sites in these three countries are presented in attachment d.
Mr. Tveitdal provided the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) perspective on the Internet and environmental information dissemination. He noted that as of yet, 5 years after Rio, decision makers have not been able to do much to stop climate change, and environmental health continues on the decline. UNEP is trying to provide information for environmental decision making, particularly to improve environmental awareness. UNEP was established as a result of a meeting in Stockholm in 1972. UNEP's role in the UN system can be compared to the Ministry of Environment in a system. UNEP focuses on the environment, works to increase awareness and to put environmental issues on the agenda. As with a ministry of the environment, UNEP is quite weak compared to the major players in UN. It is the only major UN agency headquartered in a developing country - Nairobi, Kenya. As of January 1, 1997 this site will be the 4th headquarter of the UN, joining New York, Geneva and Vienna.
The ideological platform for UNEP is Agenda 21. Chapter 40, Information for Decision Making, is the principal chapter for UNEP/GRID. The chapter puts a $2 billion (US) per year price tag on environmental information for decision making. We are still not there. More action and resources are needed to develop this information in a sustainable development context. The GRID network was set up to bridge the gap between scientists and decision makers, using GIS, remote sensing, data base technologies, and telecommunications. After 10 years, there are now 11 GRID centres in the world, and more than 5000 environmental GRID data sets.
On a global level, UNEP is preparing 'Global Environmental Outlooks.' The first will be presented in Nairobi next January. At the regional, and national levels, the UNEP strategy is to facilitate ongoing processes but not to take main responsibility for providing the information. There is great UNEP interest in the BALLERINA workshop here today. It is likely that this will also be a model for UNEP efforts in other areas, such as the Aral Sea region, which is much worse off than the Baltic Sea. With 17 of 20 fish species dead, and other degradation, information there is urgently needed to try to reduce the catastrophe.
The idea of establishing an Internet based network to assist in the development of a Baltic regional Agenda 21 plan is a novel idea which may well be copied elsewhere. Therefore, UNEP will follow theses developments closely, and also the potential use of Internet in this connection.
Tveitdal finally demonstrated the on-line Norwegian State of the Environment (SOE) report (http://www.grida.no/soe95/). The structure of the Norway SOE is based on the Pressure - State - Response model. This indicator based on-line SOE report is a model for other countries who want to develop state of the environment reports on the Internet, and as such should be developed for all countries around the Baltic Sea.
The European Environmental Agency was formed two-and-a-half years ago in Copenhagen to put environmental quality, environmental pressures and environmental sensitivity data and information to work. Recognising that information should be objective, reliable and comparable between different states, one task was to form EIONET - Environmental Information and Observation Network. EIONET is found on Internet as http://www.eea.dk/eionet/eionet.html. Institutionally EIONET includes a management board from member countries, links to scientific committees, EUROSTAT, the Joint Research Centre, and others, including national focal points in each country. The EIONET can be looked upon in at least two ways: 1) as an institutional network and 2) as a telematics network (both public and internal).
How will BALLERINA project fit with this picture? EIONET will not monopolise environmental information in Europe. It is not possible and not advisable. They will harmonise certain items, not everything. There will be strict quality control, setting their sources apart from NGO and University sources. There is a marine and coastal topic centre which will fit well with BALLERINA. It is best to work on all of these fronts, than to hold back on BALLERINA while this is developed further. BALLERINA is a nice initiative - a special interest network. While there is no concept within EIONET at this point supporting similarly special interest networks, this may evolve. EIONET also has plans to cooperage with existing initiatives in Central and Eastern Europe.
The Swedish EPA has funded the TallinNet pilot project as an example of an air quality monitoring network for information and exchange of data and experience. The pilot project is based on an Air Quality Management Project funded by SIDA (former BITS) which has given a concrete form to the sister-city relation between Tallinn and Göteborg in the area of environmental protection.
This pilot project provides on-line, near real time, data on monitored ambient air quality levels such as SO2, NOx and CO together with meteorological data for Tallinn via the Web. The aim of the project was to present decision makers with easy-to-understand information on complex issues such as the impact of urban air emissions (traffic, industry) on ambient air quality.
How did they accomplish the pilot project? Important components were the establishment of small, practical e-mail group, an ftp file server and a great deal of enthusiasm. The number of pilot project goals were far higher than the limited budget available, but the following technical functions were still able to present:
Achievements, final report and a proposal for the future are all available on TallinNet homepage. (http://www.online.ee/~tka/tallinnet.html).
This network connects partners with environmental information in Finland, Estonia and Russia. Since 1991, Finland has supplied partners with computers needed for environmental data. The rapid growth of the Internet has opened up new avenues to disseminate information. They are currently planning the second phase of the effort, targeted to come on-line in August.
Main activities of phase two will include:
A. Provision of environmental information system via the Internet (to disseminate information not only to decision makers but to the public as well, and to cooperage with other international projects). Environmental information provided will include thematic maps covering the region, graphs and statistics; in both the native language and English. there will also be organisational data about those working in this area, project information and agreement information.
B. Harmonisation of environmental data. This will entail agreement on a minimum standard, at least. This includes not only data management but also data collection and laboratory work. These activities have been underway for several years between Finland and Russia.
C. Exchange of primary data;
D. Environmental data system co-operation. Provision of a forum to discuss problems and exchange experiences.
EINER will establish two working groups: 1) an editorial group: to establish standard look of pages, agree on information presented on-line, work out co-operation between other national and international systems; and 2) a technical group to maintain technical system.
The Regional Environmental Centre was founded in 1990 as an independent non-profit nongovernmental environmental organisation. Its mission is to promote public participation in environmental decision making, and to assist central and eastern European countries in their transition to democratic society.
Mr. Roussev is project manager of RECNet. RECNet project goals are to promote the exchange of information, networking and co-operation among diverse interest groups, and to improve access to environmental information in the CEE countries.
RECNet structure: RECNet links the REC with regional offices in the 13 countries they cover. It provides access to environmental information from the region. The important part of the project is user training. RECNet communications and networking services include WWW, gopher, ftp and list server. All information is available via any of these tools. RECNet hosts about 30 different discussion lists dedicated to different environmental problems and topics in the 13 countries.
RECNet links to local offices today include basic e-mail, established since start up in mid-1995. Future plans include full Internet capacity for these offices. They have now started providing web space for NGOs. RECNet funded 3 major NGO networks in Czechoslovakia, Romania and Hungary, which now include business and government, and have grown to be self-sustaining. Currently they are starting a similar network in Slovenia and planning for one in Poland. RECNet provides end user training, including a training module, printed manual, 'train the trainers' efforts, hands on assistance, CD with full copy of the manual, CD with a full copy of the web site (for the many people who don't have full Internet access). Further informationa about RECNet can be found at http://www.rec.hu/.