From the perspective of readers based in England, the environmental problems of the Baltic Sea may seem a distant topic of concern. From an environmentalist’s perspective, the disregard which pollution problems show for national boundaries is well recognized, and the disastrous state of the Baltic area, consisting of the Sea and its drainage basin, is an outstanding illustration of the vital importance of international co-operation if progress is to be made. Essentially, the problem is the familiar one of how to mobilize nations with different economic and political priorities to agree to, and act upon, concerted measures for the improvement of a common resource. However, the particular context is an extreme one and the urgency of international co-operation between the states bordering the Baltic is made evident from a brief review of the alarming state of the regional environment.

The Baltic area has received an appallingly graphic catalogue of environmental abuses over many years. Instances are cited of rivers so polluted that they are unsuitable even for industrial abstraction, areas where life expectancies are some 10 years less than in neighbouring states, and industrial towns where one in three children are born with pollution-induced abnormalities. The reasons for this grave state of affairs are self evident. Environmental mismanagement of industry has allowed the indiscriminate dumping of mercury, asbestos, chlorine compounds and phenols which permeate every environmental medium and pass into the bodies of the inhabitants of industrial towns in the region. As a conse