Making measurement visible

The issue has been however that measurement needs a yardstick. Especially since the large, and ecologically high-profile Baltic region has gathered a plethora of recommendations for monitoring of mammals and seabirds, fisheries, nonindigenous species and benthic habitats.

Given this, it is very easy to waste time and resources on reinventing the wheel – while other aspects get missed. Further, there’s a need to ‘show and tell’ what’s being done to comply with the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive which requires reporting of monitoring activities, and on top of this, there’s been a long term plan to get the Baltic to ‘Good Environmental Status’ (GES) by 2021.

However, recently there’s been an effort to pull all the information together on what is monitored, where, when, how and by whom. The main thrust of this initiative has been to make it easy to find, and easy to access says Ms Laurila: “Before this manual there were many places to look for information – now everything is on one web-site.”

So, the new manual makes everything that is being done more visible, and – usefully – has a direct link to the GES indicators as well.

By Stevie Knight