The bleak autumn sunshine offers welcoming warmth as we approach a felling area in Gotsa in the proximity of Grodno in western Belarus. The local forestry company Grodno PLHO and the Grodno Region Forestry Board are responsible for the administration and clearing of the state-owned forests in the region.

During its chairmanship of the Baltic Marine Environment Commission (HELCOM), known also as the Helsinki Commission, Russia is seeking to broaden the international cooperation on the Baltic Sea and focus greater political attention on its ecological status.

The Commission’s Chairman, Igor Maydanov, suggests that the heads of state of the member countries should be involved in decisions that affect the Baltic Sea Action Plan.

The Nordic Environment Finance Corporation announced on Wednesday that its Carbon Fund (NeCF) has signed Agreements to procure emission reductions from a wind energy project in Jiangsu province, and a small hydro project in southwest China. The projects will be implemented under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). These are NEFCO's first projects in China.

NEFCO has agreed on purchasing carbon credits from two new energy efficiency projects in Russia, namely in Strezhevoy, western Siberia and Priozersk, in the Leningrad region. Both projects aim at refurbishing the district heating networks in the cities concerned. The project in Priozersk is co-financed with the Danish Energy Agency DEA and it will also replace heavy fuel oil with biomass in local heat production.

NEFCO's and Bank Lviv's joint loan facility aimed at promoting energy efficiency is now fully operational. NEFCO's Managing Director Magnus Rystedt and Vosnuk Mykola, Chairman of the Board at Bank Lviv, signed the agreement in Lviv, western Ukraine on Wednesday. 

The Ukrainian government and NEFCO signed a memorandum of understanding on Friday in Stockholm, Sweden. The MoU will facilitate NEFCO's future investments in Ukraine. The agreement was signed by the Ukrainian minister of housing and communal services, Mr. Alexey Kucherenko and NEFCO's Managing Director Magnus Rystedt.

The Nordic Environment Finance Corporation's NEFCO Carbon Fund (NeCF), a Public Private Partnership, announces a new investor into the Fund. 

Industrialiseringsfonden for Udviklingslandene (IFU) or the Industrialisation Fund for Developing Countries, offers risk capital and advice to businesses investing in developing countries. IFU is an independent, self-governing fund established by the Danish state to assist Danish investments in developing countries and manager for IØ (Investeringsfonden for Østlandene) investing in Central and Eastern Europe. IFU will invest €5 million.

NEFCO releases a video clip on carbon financing and the corporation's investments in renewable energy in Estonia. The video focuses at two projects, namely a wind park in Viru Nigula and a biogas project in Saaremaa in western Estonia. Both projects have been classified as so called Joint Implementation (JI) projects under the Kyoto protocol.

The most cost efficient way to address HELCOM's Baltic Sea Action Plan would be to focus on wastewater treatment in St Petersburg and Kaliningrad and to incinerate the manure generated from the existing 17 large poultry farms in the Leningrad region in Russia. This was stated by NEFCO at the International World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Nordic Environment Finance Corporation is to invest 700 000 euros in a wastewater treatment project in Sosnovy Bor, a city with 66 000 inhabitants some 80 kilometres west of St Petersburg, Russia.

The project is expected to reduce the annual release of phosphorus into the Baltic Sea by 22 tonnes. For its part, Finland, in accordance with last year's Helsinki Commission's Action Plan, has committed itself to reducing the annual flow of phosphorus into the Baltic Sea by some 150 tonnes.