Baltic Local Agenda 21 Forum
faces new challenges and opportunities

A BLA21F network meeting took place as a part of the Baltic EcoRe-gion partner meeting in Lahti on 22-24 September 2009. Baltic Local Agenda 21 Forum - BLA21F - is a way to carry out the Rio process on the local level. The Forum was founded in Lahti in 1997. Over the years, several development projects have been implemented as part of the network. The activities have focused on the Eastern part of the region. Nowadays, BLA21F network also forms a part of the Baltic 21 Eco-Region policy framework. Although joint activities and projects are ongoing, the network has recently lost some of its former activeness. The purpose of the meeting in Lahti was to come up with new ways to strengthen the network.

Creative presentation of a group work during the green drama activities. In the picture from left to right: Christine Jakobsson, Baltic University Programme, Dörte Ratzmann, BMU, Nina Hogmo, Norwegian Centre for Science and Education and Irma Tolonen, Lahti Region Environmental Service.

During the meeting, the network partners from Lahti, an Estonian nongovernmental organization EMI-ECO, and Region Zealand, Denmark, presented the current situation of Local Agenda 21 work in their own regions and gave examples of their recent activities. Furthermore, the presentations covered the trends, challenges and opportunities related to the local agenda work and the development of BLA21F network. In addition, green drama method was used in working towards common goals and developing common project ideas.

A holistic view of sustainable development, participatoryapproaches, regional learning and the intergration of Local Agenda 21 to other agendas are current trends. Getting greater stakeholder involvement from both citizens and the business sector, raising awareness on sustainable development and empowering people to act sustainably still present essential challenges to LA21 work. One key question is how a local government can use its many roles as a leader, regulator, service provider, consumer and change facilitator to promote sustainable development.

Recent economic downturn has seriously impaired cooperating resources, especially in the three Baltic states. This makes the development of the network difficult, but on the other hand, now these countries would need support provided bythe network even more. Getting new participants would substantially increase resources, opportunities to initiate activities and the exchanged know-how. Furthermore, new fields of activities, such as climate change cooperation, could be initiated.