The LIFE Project “Marine Protected Areas in the Eastern Baltic Sea” was implemented by the NGO “Baltic Environmental Forum - Latvia”, project manager: Ms. Heidrun Fammler (heidrun.fammler@bef.lv) and 20 partners from 7 countries from 1 August 2005 until 30 November 2009. It had a financial volume of more than 3 million Euros, which were co-financed by the European Commission’s LIFE programme, the Ministries of Environment respectively their Environmental Funds from Latvia, Estonia and Finland, the Ministry of Defence Lithuania and by all project partners. More than 160 persons from the 20 project partner organisations allocated approximately 23 000 working days to the successful implementation of the project. The project wanted to contribute to the protection and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in the Eastern Baltic Sea and in this context to the implementation of the European Union’s network of protected areas, called Natura 2000.

Its main objectives were: to get better information about species and habitats of European importance in the coastal waters of the Baltic States; to assess if major threats endanger them; to propose new areas with special nature values to be designated by the national authorities for protection under the European Natura 2000 frame; and, to elaborate protection and management proposals for these sites. Furthermore the project wanted to increase the awareness among concerned stakeholders and the general public in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania on Natura 2000 issues, marine protected areas and biodiversity in general. It also wanted to facilitate cooperation with Russian colleagues and experts from the Northern and Western Baltic Sea region.

The project has been attested having achieved a lot of valuable outcome for the Baltic States and the direct beneficiaries of the results, the three ministries of Environment, have expressed their satisfaction with the work.

In this web-site you can get the wider information about the project partners, project activities and main results. Also we invite you to visit the instructional portal www.visitbalticsea.net where the information about the nature values in the Baltic Sea is summarized, publications prepared in the frame of project are available and it is possible to see the a set of video clips “See the sea”