Today as I row out to the island where we searched our nets in the 70s, the flounder have disappeared. The visible depth of the murky waters has been cut in half and toxic cyanobacteria pay a visit to our summer paradise each summer. Thread algae formations and the lack of oxygen are suffocating the richly diverse species. Eutrophication has become an unwelcome serpent in this paradise.

Whose fault is it? Many Finnish journalists suggest that Russia is to blame. The hunt for foreign scapegoats is underway. It is only recently that the debate has turned its focus to the emissions from Finnish agriculture and the need for protective zones or sediment pools in the vicinity of the Archipelago Sea. Russia certainly still accounts for a large portion of the phosphorous and nitrogen emissions into the Baltic Sea. However, in hunting for foreign scapegoats we miss out on the environmental-political breakthroughs currently taking place in Russia. The reports in the mass media tend to play down the significant steps forward. One such step forward took place last September when the central waste water treatment facility in St. Petersburg began removing phosphorous from the water.

At the beginning of March, Russia arranged the ninth International Baltic Sea Conference in St. Petersburg. At the conference, various ways of reducing emissions in the Baltic Sea were discussed. Last November, Russia gave its wholehearted support to the HELCOM demand for national emissions ceilings for phosphorous and nitrogen. In Kaliningrad, the international finance institutes have received promises that the local financing share of the city’s new waste water treatment facility would be secured. The political will is loud and clear. The Baltic Sea must be saved - with Russian support.

When I worked as a journalist in the 1990s, I took part in an excursion to Själö with Russian environmental journalists. Researchers from the University of Turku gave a long and good report regarding the effect of eutrophication in the Archipelago Sea. The lecture was enhanced with photographs of bays blocked up with algae and wavering fish stocks. The Russian journalists had a hard time realising the seriousness of the situation. After all, the professional fishermen from the Archipelago Sea had plenty of fish in their nets. The journalists had never seen anything like it in their own home regions where the sea was practically dead.

For some reason, I will always think about that when I plan to go fishing with my daughters when summer approaches. Our girls are just as blissfully unaware of the flight of the flounder as the Russian journalists were almost 15 years ago. But deep down there is hope. With the help of Russia, we can bring the flounder back.