EU aims to clean up European seas by 2021 European scientists
and policy makers met at the Baltic Sea and European Marine
Strategy conference in Helsinki, Finland, this week to discuss
how to achieve good environmental status for European seas in
the next 15 years. ESA took part by demonstrating the potential
of Earth observation for monitoring and implementing marine
policies. The conference, held 13 to 15 November under the
auspices of Finland's European Union (EU) Presidency, addressed
the EU’s newly proposed marine strategy, which stresses the need
to apply an ‘ecosystem approach’ to improving the state of the
Baltic Sea and Europe's other troubled seas. In his opening
speech, Finnish Environment Minister Jan-Erik Enestam said:
"This ‘ecosystem approach’ will require us to have a holistic
view and a good understanding of the linkages between marine
ecosystems and human activities that have an impact on those
ecosystems. "This kind of management of human activities […]
will require swift information exchan