Eighth ICES Dialogue Meeting. "How to use the sea: Management interactions with special reference to the Baltic and its fisheries"

At the end of the twentieth century when Man has, for

decades, been a major environmental and climatic influence

on the earth on a global or at least regional scale,

one cannot assume that a sea surrounded by nine highly

industrialized countries with an intensive agriculture could

- as a whole - still be in a 'natural state'. In part, the

anthropogenic influences have 'only' accelerated (or

slowed down) natural processes, for example,

eutrophication, erosion/abrasion and weathering, by mainly

physical and chemical disturbances (loading of nutrients

and heavy metals, shipping, fishing, especially bottom

trawling, mining). However, in addition, xenobiotics

and radionuclides contribute to new threats for the ecosystem,

its compartments or even for Man as a consumer of

sea-