The Baltic Sea Region (BSR) faces enormous challenges including growing transport, new installations, fishery declines, severe marine pollution, excessive nutrient input, and the effects of climate change. But novel technologies and growing knowledge also provide opportunities for new uses of marine ecosystems, which should not only be valued for their commercial appeal but for their potentially significant contribution to solving its environmental problems: macroalgae cultivation, blue biotechnology, innovative fish and mussel mariculture solutions, and wave energy are among such new possible uses.
These new uses and technologies have, however, not been tested sufficiently within the fragile conditions of the Baltic Sea and their cumulative impacts on the environment, economic feasibility and regional applicability are not yet fully understood. It is thus currently difficult for decision-makers to judge which uses are most desirable and what actions are necessary to create a framework beneficial to their development while discouraging potentially damaging uses.
