European nations under pressure to save the critically endangered Baltic harbour porpoise

CCB • September 11, 2020

At a meeting of northern European nations held online this week, the issue of the critically endangered harbour porpoise population in the Baltic Sea was discussed and debated. The population in the central Baltic Sea numbers in the low hundreds and needs urgent action to stop it from going extinct. Recently, the EU Commission has put pressure on the member states to implement strict measures to protect the porpoises.

The countries gathered at a meeting of ASCOBANS [1] , a regional agreement established to conserve small whales including dolphins and porpoises. They passed a resolution which commits to a detailed conservation plan for the population and to swiftly implement actions to address the primary threat to the remaining Baltic porpoises: the incidental bycatch in fishing nets. They also identified that other imminent threats, including chemical and noise pollution urgently need to be mitigated.  

Ida Carlen, who coordinates the Baltic harbour porpoise Recovery Plan, comments: ‘ The situation is really urgent but we have some new hope with the recent movement within the European Commission to act on bycatch, the ICES advice on bycatch mitigation [2] , published before summer, and now this new resolution. We see that ASCOBANS has an important role in acting as a coordinating expert organization, providing key focus for the development of mechanisms to address pressing issues related to small cetacean conservation ’.

The ASCOBANS meeting also passed resolutions on a number of key threats to small whales including dolphins and porpoises across the agreement region which includes the Baltic, North and Irish Seas and adjacent Atlantic area, including noise pollution, overfishing and marine debris.

Taking part in the meeting were leading conservation and animal welfare organizations including Coalition Clean Baltic (CCB), Humane Society International (HSI), Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU), OceanCare, Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). In a joint statement they reaffirmed their support for the ASCOBANS agreement. They also highlighted the recently released open letter [3] to world leaders from more than 300 experts from more than 40 countries, calling for global action to protect whales and dolphins from the threat of extinction.

The following delegates are available for comments:

CCB is looking for a Network Officer to join our team at the CCB International Secretariat

By CCB • April 9, 2025
Coalition Clean Baltic – CCB is a politically independent network, uniting 27 environmental non-profit organizations, as well as partners and experts from 11 countries surrounding the Baltic Sea. The main goal of CCB is to promote the protection and improvement of the environment and natural resources of the Baltic Sea region by encouraging new and constructive approaches and engaging people to become part of the solution instead of part of the problem. CCB Secretariat is based in Uppsala, Sweden.

Attacks on NGOs: 570+ Organisations Join Forces to Defend Civil Society

By CCB • April 7, 2025
European civil society organisations (CSOs) are currently facing an attack coming from certain Members of the European Parliament. Spearheaded by some MEPs from the European People’s Party (EPP) and by far-right groups, this attack resorts to misleading arguments to fabricate a scandal. This portrayal has been amplified through the media, with notable exceptions of articles that attempted to clarify this misleading narrative. European CSOs are crucial to ensure the voices of citizens from different parts of Europe are heard in the EU institutions. Attacks against civil society are unfortunately not new and are exacerbated by this harmful idea. Furthermore, for-profit corporate lobbying is through the roof when compared to non-profit advocacy. In 2024, the 50 corporations with the largest lobbying budgets collectively spent nearly €200 million on lobbying the EU alone (66% more than in 2015). Comparing this to the funding environmental NGOs receive under the LIFE programme - €15.6 million annually of a €700 million yearly budget - truly shows the weakness of this ‘scandal’. This is why over 570 civil society organisations from 40 countries, including all EU Member States, have joined forces to call on those in power to act now and ensure that civil society is adequately funded and enabled to share our crucial perspectives . In this statement, we address: The source of this false narrative; Inaccurate claims made about how CSOs obtain and use funding; Why it’s paramount that CSOs receive sufficient funding; The need for civil dialogue to enable CSOs participation. Democracy is about the right of citizens to be collectively heard for building an inclusive society and a shared European future; properly funded independent CSOs are a crucial tool for that. We call on decision-makers to ensure civil society organisations can thrive and play their role in interacting with policy-makers in order to have a more fully informed decision-making process. Read the full statement here . -END Civil Society Europe (CSE) is the coordination of civil society organisations at EU level. Through its membership, CSE unites EU-level membership-based organisations that reach out to millions of people active in or supported by not-for-profits and civil society organisations across the EU. CSE was created by several civil society organisations as a follow-up to the European Year of Citizens and was established as an international not-for-profit under Belgian law in 2016. Since then, it has become the point of reference for EU institutions on transversal issues concerning civil dialogue and civic space.