Speech held at the 22nd Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference, Pärnu, on the 26th of August 2013

Dear chairman, honoured participants, 

   

What innovation does the Baltic Sea Region need to become sustainable? My answer is: land-based fish-farming, or more broadly speaking "Closed Containment Aquaculture". I will elaborate on this briefly. Within the Common Fisheries Policy of the European Union, developing aquaculture is considered to be one of the answer to challenges such as depletion of fish stocks and overfishing. Large-scale Aquaculture - or fish farming - is, however, not an unproblematic solution for our Baltic Sea - a shallow, semi closed ecosystem.  

As of today, open-net cages are mostly used for fish-farming. Environmental NGOs rightly consider this to be a high-risk aquaculture method as they allow for free and unregulated exchange of phosphorous between the farm and the environment. On the other hand: Open fish farms can provide jobs, income, food - but at the direct cost of the environment. This is not sustainable. It is not environmentaly sustainable - and I would argue that it is not either sustainable economically. If we would cover the coastlines of the Baltic with open-net fish farms, it would not take long before it would be impossible to bath, not adviceable to swim and very difficult to convince someone to rent a cabin or hotell room next to "Mare Nostrum". Eutrophication is bad business.  

It is for this reason I am happy about the amendment from the European Parliament to our resolution (para. 11) on supporting research and development in blue, marine technologies, such as aquaculture. It is needed. This technology is emerging -  four Atlantic Salmon facilities are today either under construction or just starting production, one in each of Chile, Denmark and the eastern U.S., and Vancouver, Canada. 

For my own part, I hope that the time one day will be ripe for a Baltic Agreement on promoting only Closed Containment Aquaculture in the Baltic Sea. In the shorter run, I hope that the European institutions, in particular the European parliament, will make environmentally sustainable aquaculture one of the top priorities of its Common Fisheries Policy. Since we do have the capacity and the technology to be the forerunners of Closed Containment aquacalture. We only need to focus our resources. 

Thank you for your attention.