Protect Baltic

07/07/2026

🌊 How do we know if marine protected areas (MPAs) are actually protecting nature?

🐟 Are fish populations recovering?
🦢 Can seabirds benefit?
⚓ Is there a reduction in human pressures?
📈 Do management measures making a difference?

The answer lies in monitoring.

In PROTECT BALTIC, a review has examined 111 monitoring programmes and projects across six Baltic Sea countries, creating one of the most comprehensive overviews to date of how Baltic Sea MPAs are monitored.

The findings reveal both strengths and gaps. While environmental monitoring is generally well developed across the region, only around 20% of monitoring activities are specifically designed to support MPA management and conservation objectives.

💬 As Georg Martin from the University of Tartu Estonian Marine Institute puts it:

"We cannot manage what we do not monitor. Monitoring is how we understand whether protected areas are really protecting biodiversity and whether management measures are actually working."

The review will help shape future monitoring guidelines for Baltic Sea MPAs, supporting more coordinated, targeted and effective protection across the region.

Read the full article at: https://protectbaltic.eu/f/we-cannot-manage-what-we-do-not-monitor

What do you think is the biggest challenge for monitoring protected areas: funding 💰, coordination 🤝, data 📊, or something else? Let us know in the comments ⬇️

25/06/2026

⏳ Final days to share your voice for European seas 💙

For MPA DAY 2026, we’re asking people across Europe what they value most about the sea — from wildlife and wellbeing to memories made along the coast 🌊

Your response will help highlight why marine protected areas and healthy seas matter for people and nature alike.

📝 Our survey closes on 30 June 2026
🔗 https://forms.office.com/e/4JuJAG9qiw

Thank you to everyone who has already taken part 💙

12/06/2026

💙 What do you love most about European seas?

🐬 Wildlife
🏖️ Coastal memories
⛵ Time on the water
🌿 Healthy ecosystems
💭 A sense of wellbeing and connection

As part of MPA DAY 2026, we’re gathering voices from across Europe to celebrate the value of our seas and why protecting them matters.

If you haven’t already, we’d love to hear from you 👇

📝 Take our short survey
🗓️ Open until 30 June 2026
🔗 https://forms.office.com/e/4JuJAG9qiw

11/06/2026

🌊 MPA Highlight: Matsalu Bay, Estonia 💙🖤🤍

Where river and sea meet, Matsalu Bay is constantly reshaping itself.
In western Estonia, the Kasari River flows into the Baltic Sea through floodplains, reedbeds, shallow lagoons and wetlands that change with every season. Here, freshwater and seawater mix, sediments settle, and millions of migratory birds stop along one of Europe’s great flyways. 🐦🌾

Part of Matsalu National Park and connected to the Väinämeri marine protected area, this coastal ecosystem supports an extraordinary diversity of life — from submerged vegetation and spawning fish to cranes, geese, swans and wetland birds. 🐟🦢

What makes Matsalu remarkable is not that it is untouched, but that its natural connections still function at a large scale. Seasonal flooding continues to shape the landscape, wetlands remain connected to the sea, and ecological processes are still allowed to unfold naturally. 🌱💧

Across much of the Baltic coast, rivers have been constrained and wetlands drained. Matsalu remains one of the rare places where the dynamics between river, wetland and sea are still intact.

Explore the MPA Highlight here 👇
https://maps.helcom.fi/portal/apps/storymaps/stories/d3e15b837b734f6ea61dfd7bc41f7948

04/06/2026

🌊 Protecting the Baltic Sea requires more than simply designating marine protected areas. Effective conservation depends on whether ecosystems and biodiversity are actually recovering in practice.

Through PROTECT BALTIC, researchers and practitioners are developing two new tools to better understand and improve marine protection across the region:

🧭 MANEA – a method for assessing how effectively individual MPAs are managed
🗺️ AMMEA – an automated regional assessment tool that maps management coverage and gaps across the Baltic Sea network

Together, these approaches support stronger cooperation, shared learning, and more evidence-based marine management across borders. 🤝🌍

By improving transparency, comparability, and adaptive management, PROTECT BALTIC is helping shift the focus from protection on paper to real ecological outcomes for the Baltic Sea. 🐟🌱

Find out more: https://protectbaltic.eu/news/f/beyond-paper-parks-managing-baltic-mpas-effectively

29/05/2026

🌊 Europeans, what’s your favourite thing about the sea? 💙

From unforgettable coastal memories to marine wildlife and peaceful moments by the water — we want to hear what European seas mean to you 🌍

Your voice can help strengthen support for healthier seas and marine protected areas for future generations.

📝 Our quick survey only takes a minute
🗓️ Closes 30 June 2026
🔗 https://forms.office.com/e/4JuJAG9qiw

20/05/2026

This week we’re in Prague, Czechia 💙🤍❤️ for the Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP) Europe Conference, presenting our work on the BALM ecosystem service cascade model 🌊

Being surrounded by so many ecosystem service experts has definitely sparked a lot of reflection (and a few moments questioning everything we think we know 🤯).

One thing we keep coming back to though is this: do we spend enough time understanding what species and habitats are actually doing before jumping straight to the services and benefits we receive from them?

Our BALM cascade approach helps unpack those connections 🔍
🔗 https://protectbaltic.eu/wp4%3A-ecosystem-services-1

From habitats and species → to ecological functions and processes → to ecosystem services → to societal benefits.

And that perspective has real potential not only for supporting biodiversity through Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) 🐟 but also for Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) ⚓ because better decisions start with a better understanding of how ecosystems actually function.

The more we work with the cascade model, the more it feels like an invitation to stay curious, challenge assumptions, and connect ecological understanding with practical planning 🌍

Looking forward to more discussions, debates, and probably a few more existential ecosystem-service conversations this week.

19/05/2026

🌊🇪🇺 Europeans, what do you value most about the sea? 💙

For Marine Protected Areas Day 2026, we’re inviting people across Europe to share what European seas mean to them 🌍

🐬 Marine wildlife
🏖️ Coastal memories
⛵ Time on the water
🌿 Healthy ecosystems
💙 Wellbeing & connection

Your voice can help strengthen support for marine protected areas and healthier seas for future generations.

🗓️ Our very short survey closes on 30 June 2026
🔗 https://forms.office.com/e/4JuJAG9qiw

12/05/2026

🌊 We’re at the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR) Networking Village in Tallinn! 💙🖤🤍

Come and meet our team and pick up our new leaflet showcasing how the project is supporting the protection of Baltic Sea biodiversity and ecosystems.
You can find it online here: https://protectbaltic.eu/publications

We’re highlighting a range of tools and outputs planned in the project that will support maritime spatial planning, including:
🗺️ Maps that show where key ecosystems are, how they're distributed, and how species move between them
📊 A matrix that shows which human pressures affect species and how these impacts occur
🐟 A model linking species, traits & ecosystem functions to societal benefits

Our tools help to identify areas of high ecological value, analyze cumulative impacts of human activities, evaluate trade-offs between uses, and strengthen ecosystem-based planning and decision-making across the Baltic Sea region.

📍 Find us at the Networking Village. We’d love to connect and exchange ideas!

11/05/2026

🌊 The Baltic Sea means different things to different people.

🐟 For some, it’s food and livelihoods.
🛶 For others, it’s recreation, memories, and identity.
💙 And for many, it has value simply because it exists.

But when decisions are made about protecting the Baltic Sea… whose values actually count? 🤔

A student team from the University of Helsinki explored this question by researching the values people place on ecosystem services (huge thanks to Kaisa Raatikainen at Suomen ympäristökeskus - Syke for support) and a survey.

The research highlights:
⚖️ Trade-offs in environmental decision-making
👀 Gaps between public perception and ecological reality
🗣️ Why some voices have more influence than others
🌍 The importance of more inclusive marine governance
💰 Economic values are often prioritized because they are easier to measure.
⚠️ Cultural, emotional, and community connections to the sea are much harder to quantify, and are often overlooked.

One key finding?
People care deeply about the Baltic Sea, but many feel they have little influence over decisions affecting its future.

📖 Read the full article: https://protectbaltic.eu/news/f/rethinking-value-whose-baltic-sea-counts

As pressures on the Baltic Sea intensify, decisions about how to manage and protect it often come down to a deceptively simple question: what is the sea worth, and to whom?