Preventive action in the protection of the Baltic Sea : Do the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan and An Agenda for the Baltic Sea Region – Baltic 21 advocate preventive action in protecting the Baltic Sea?

Abstract: The Baltic Sea is a sensitive and unique ecosystem that has been strongly affected by human activity in the area. It is an important cultural and natural resource that contributes with several economic benefits. Among the many documents aiming to protect the Baltic Sea, this thesis concerns two of the action plans; An Agenda for the Baltic Sea Region – Baltic 21 and HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan, which are two of the most recognised documents aiming at protecting the Baltic Sea area. The two documents was analysed using three different types of text analysis. As the main goal in all environmental protection is to urge preventive action in protecting the environment, the two documents will be analysed with the aim of investigating whether preventive action is advocated in the protection of the Baltic Sea, even though the region is threatened and have many problems from an environmental point of view. The two documents differ structurally as their approaches differ. The HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP) has an ecosystem approach, whiles the Baltic 21 has sustainable development as its primarily approach. The results of the study further show that preventive action is advocated in both documents. However, the BSAP presents a cleared preventive approach and suggests more preventive action than Baltic 21. Baltic 21 lack a clear connection to the Baltic Sea and instead focus in the whole Baltic Sea area. There are few clearly preventive action presented in the protection of the actual Baltic Sea in Baltic 21. Instead the Baltic 21 shows a vague argumentation and few actions aiming at preventing environmental harm to the Baltic Sea.