Baltic Sea Conservation Foundation

14/10/2025

Application for the Frankfurt Spring School on Conservation Project Management is now open, and BaltCF is happy to support attendance by NGO representatives from the Baltic Sea Region financially. Have a look at the info on our scholarship grant!

https://baltcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Frankfurt-Spring-School-grant-conditions-BaltCF.pdf

Frankfurt Spring School is a fantastic opportunity to acquire the skills and knowledge needed to manage conservation projects. Interactive, hands-on and in an international group of students who share a passion for (nature/biodiversity/wilderness). Remember: The application deadline for the next Spring School is approaching: 15th of November!

Check all requirements here 👉 https://frankfurtspringschool.de/application/

13/10/2025

🌍 Call for Applications is Now Open: Planning Grants

The Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme is inviting Expressions of Interest for Planning Grants, offering up to US$120,000 in funding.

Planning Grants support the early stages of landscape and seascape restoration across Europe. Some examples include:

• Building strong collaborations
• Establishing biodiversity baselines
• Developing maps and strategies
• Preparing proposals for larger-scale funding

📅 Deadline: 20 January 2026
🌍Eligibility: Biogeographical Europe (see guidance document)

🔗 Learn more, explore examples, and apply:

Centuries of human activity have left many of Europe’s landscapes and seascapes ecologically degraded, fragmented, and vulnerable to climate change, with key species lost and ecosystems disconnected.

19/02/2025

New funding for Baltic Sea protection! Nefco has announced a new call for the Baltic Sea Action Plan Fund. Deadline is 18 April 2025. Check this out!

The Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP) Fund announces a new call for proposals opening on 18 February. The deadline for submissions is Friday 18 April.

The BSAP Fund is an early-stage financing mechanism aimed at facilitating and accelerating the preparation and implementation of projects that address key challenges facing the Baltic Sea. Established by Sweden and Finland in 2010, it finances both private and public sector projects across the Baltic Sea region, including cross-boundary initiatives. The fund is co-managed by the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) and Nefco - the Nordic Green Bank.

More information about the Fund can be found on: https://www.nefco.int/bsap



Helsinki Commission

10/02/2025

I'm happy to announce our latest addition to the team!

Helene is our new student assistant and will help us with the project concepts we're currently working on. With her background in biology and her keen interest in the Baltic Sea, we're looking forward to work with her on our new actions to improve the state of our little pond.

Welcome, Helene!

07/02/2025

Our partners at Viimsi vald in Estonia have started with the works for the reconstruction of two ponds in the WaterTreatmentPark project. The reshaped ponds will slow down and filter the stormwater flowing into the Baltic Sea from a 75 ha catchment, removing a projected 250 kg of nitrogen and 5.4 tonnes of suspended solids (containing heavy metals, hydrocarbons and other pollutants) per year.

Viimsi is a spearhead municipality in the region when it comes to stormwater treatment, and we are happy to contribute to this project!

06/02/2025

Our Baltic Sea Ghost Nets project with Ghost Diving Germany has ended. Between 2022 and 2024, a total of 8,495 kg of ghost gear was recovered, in addition to 1,720 kg of other waste (small items like sunglasses and shoes as well as boat batteries and a concrete mixer) that were also removed from the Baltic Sea. Moreover, a total of 41 POI identified by WWF Deutschland have been validated and marked in the GhostNetZero app.

Of the ghost gear, 825 kg were upcycled to new products by Bracenet. 2,065 kg were recycled, and 5,605 were incinerated.

We are happy that we could contribute to the removal of this derelict fishing gear and congratulate our partners to a successful project!

30/09/2024

Our partners from Ghost Diving Germany are on the finishing line of our Baltic Sea Ghost nets project. So far, 7,340 kg of ghost gear have been recovered, of which almost 700 kg have been sent to Bracenet for upcycling. We're happy to see that all of this harmful litter has been removed from the Baltic Sea and look forward to the remainder of the project!

20/09/2024

Our report for 2023 just got published!

Last year, we closed projects that created 40 km² of new Marine Protected Areas in Finland, rewetted 100 hectares of coastal bog in Lithuania, removed four tons of ghost gear from the southern Baltic Sea, and removed 18 barriers for migratory fish in Poland.

Also, we ventured into new territory: We purchased seven hectares of land in the Latvian Lake Engure Nature Park that was slated for the construction of a cottage complex, and we'll have it reintegrated into the park's protected zone. Moreover, we support CCB - Coalition Clean Baltic with their lawsuit against the illegal fishing quota for Baltic herring in 2024.

Have a good read athttps://baltcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/BaltCF-Annual-Report-2023.pdf

19/09/2024

Last week, BaltCF celebrated it's 10th anniversary in Gdansk with a conference on the future of funding for in the area. Together with reps from different grantmakers and , we worked on how private funders can improve the way they support environmental projects, with a focus on the Baltic Sea.

The group came up with the most effective ways to mess up project funding and then had to realize much of it was already widely in place. We used lego serious play to sculpt all the ways in which the funding system can be improved, and then spontaneously started to create a set of funding principles based on the agile manifesto. BaltCF will use all this input to create a collaboration proposal to other funders in the time to come - and maybe we'll see which of our darlings we should kill. Bureaucracy came up a lot.

We also had a round of project pitches where NGOs could present their ideas and projects in need of additional funding - and some may come out of it with additional resources to work with 😊

A big shoutout to all the different organisation reps for working on these ideas with us! See if you want to support CCB - Coalition Clean Baltic, Fundacja MARE, Zaļie.lv, Ghost Diving Germany, or Race For The Baltic!