The 9th annual seminar awarded Axel Wenblad, former head of the Swedish National Board of Fisheries (Fiskeriverket), with their leadership award for his work on the new proposed Swedish legislation for Marine Spatial Planning and Regulation. Also, the WWF Baltic Sea scorecard for 2011 was launched, which evaluates how successful each of the Baltic countries have been in implementing the environmental agreements and conventions which they have signed up to.
During his presentation on marine spatial planning and during the panel discussion, Axel leaned on his experience with fisheries policy to stress the situation in the Baltic Sea could certainly be improved, but that “we have been lousy at managing our fish resources”. He stressed that “fisheries needs to be on the agenda of the Prime Minister, and not just on the Agriculture minister’s table”, and this would demonstrate the required leadership to solve the problems of the Baltic. Jan Eliasson picked up on this theme by stressing that there is political potential for a Baltic government to lead on the environment of their shared sea, and gave the example of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region as an opportunity for leadership to take place.
For the Baltic Sea scorecard, countries were evaluated for their management efforts in five categories; eutrophication, hazardous substances, biodiversity, maritime activites and integrated sea use management. Germany and Sweden achieved the highest grades with a C, whereas the other 7 states were deemed to have failed with their management responsibilities are received an F. A link to the report can be found below.