Det talade ordet gäller

I am very pleased to be here it is exciting indeed to meet so many students from the Baltic Sea area, and from the riparian states of lake Victoria. You are here to work together with a very important project, on sustainable fishing. You are here to join hands and learn from each other.

Your project is important, for several reasons.

- First, it is important because you take part in the most significant political effort of our time the effort to secure sustainable development, worldwide. As you all know, we face great challenges on this planet, and we must respond to these challenges with co-ordinated action, across borders. We must co-operate to fight climate change, and to protect the natural resource base above all our biological diversity, including our fish stocks. We must co-operate to fight poverty and human degradation. And we must set in motion a peaceful everyday revolution to change, in depth, our current, unsustainable modes of production and consumption.

- Your project is important, second, because you show that co-operation is possible in spite of large distances. By building networks from the Baltic Sea to Lake Victoria, you develop the idea of partnerships and collaboration as the basis for our global efforts to secure sustainable development This idea of partnerships and collaboration was at the core of the World Summit for Sustainable Development that was held in Johannesburg, two years ago. And it can be developed in multiple ways. You show us one and by doing so, you will guide others.

- Your project is important, thirdly, because you use education as a tool for securing sustainable development.

The Johannesburg Summit underscored the need to integrate sustainable development perspectives into educational systems at all levels, in order to promote education as a decisive factor for change. In December 2002, The General Assembly decided upon The UN Decade 2005-2015 on Education for Sustainable Development. In May, the Swedish government contributed to the process, by organizing a big conference on Education for Sustainable Education in Gothenburg. It is our sincere hope that many students and many schools will do what you do here that they will develop projects that create awareness and stimulate co-coordinated action.

Education was pointed out the Johannesburg Summit as a prerequisite for sustainable development, both because knowledge is fundamental to social and economic progress and because education and learning are essential for achieving and understanding what sustainable development is about.

If there is no awareness of the challenges we have to tackle, there can be no basis for political action. Awareness is the key to being able to cope with the threat of an accelerated degradation of our ecosystems, which may eventually undermine functions that are vital for the existence of human beings on this planet. Every child and every adult must have a basic awareness that man and nature are intertwined.

You focus, within your project this time, on sustainable fishing. This connects directly to one of the main commitments that governments made in the Plan of Implementation at the WSSD in Johannesburg, where we promised to restore fish stocks to levels that can produce the maximum sustainable yield with the aim of achieving these goals for depleted fish stocks on an urgent basis and no later that 2015.

I am pleased that you have chosen the topic of sustainable fishing. It is a good idea, indeed, to bring students from Europe and Africa together to discuss these issues.

Already at the WSSD, Swedish and African delegations discussed the possibilities of working together on the management of shared waters, and in particular sustainable fishing, since we had similar experiences from our attempts to develop co-operation on sustainable resource management in the Baltic Sea and in Lake Victoria, respectively.  The fish community and its different parts is a major factor in all water ecosystems and, we have a lot to learn from one another.

I am convinced that co-operation, in the way you do it in the Baltic Sea Project, is the way forwards both to bridge gaps between countries and stakeholders, and to improve co-ordination between scientists and experts.

Water ecologists understood already one hundred years ago, that water problems, including the restoration of fish stocks, could only succeed if we approach the problem in an integrated way.
However, it was not until the 1950:s that aquatic scientists really started to work in an integrated way, and up to the present day, politicians have continued to treat every problem, as if it could be solved in isolation.

Today, we know, as politicians, that we must apply an integrated approach, an ecosystem approach, and we have started to discuss how this can be done in practice. In particular, we need to develop our cross border collaboration. Our seas are public goods, open to use for everyone, but with nobody responsible for the final outcome of unsustainable patterns of use. If we cannot agree on how to protect our seas, together, they will not be protected at all.

It took some time before Sweden started to act with real strength to protect the fish stocks of our waters. Now, however, the marine environment is on the top political agenda. Our government has worked hard in recent years to protect the cod stock. In particular, we have argued in international negotiations that no fishing at all is possible on the eastern cod stock of the Baltic Sea, in line with scientific advice. Due to strong pressure from other countries, within and outside the European Union, no agreement has been reached yet, however. Sweden will continue to work for a zero quota.
To succeed in this work is very important, in order to protect the ecosystems of the Baltic Sea, but also in order to support the global efforts to restore depleted fish stocks.

To conclude:

I am convinced that your project will contribute in significant ways to our knowledge about sustainable fishing, and to our common efforts to protect the Baltic Sea.

As young people, you can make a difference. You can look at our modern history with a critical distance, You have the power to change, on the basis of dialogue and knowledge, the course of history and our common future.

I wish you good luck in your coming work, and a fruitful continuation of the project at the next meeting in Mwanza in Tanzania.