The VII International Environmental Forum "Baltic Sea Day" was held on 22-23 March in St. Petersburg, Russia

The tradition of such Conferences started in 2000. This year, over 500 participants came to the Forum from all Baltic States, Norway, France, UK, and the USA. The Forum also welcomed representatives of European Parliament, European Commission Environment DG, Nordic Council of Ministers, HELCOM, and many Consulates General located in St.Petersburg. Among the Forum participants, one could see deputies of the State Duma and of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.

The HELCOM Executive Secretary, Ms Anne Christine Brusendorff, present the concept of its Baltic Sea Action Plan at the Forum.

The work of the round table "The North-European Gas Pipeline Construction Project in the Baltic Sea - Ensuring Environmental Safety" attracted greatest attention. Indeed, this ambitious project of a pipeline 1198 km long and 44 inches in diameter going on the bottom of the Baltic Sea at depths down to 210 metres brought great environmental concerns.

CCB member and partner organisations based in St.Petersburg and Leningrad region took an active part in the Forum. Rustam Sagitov from the Baltic Fund for Nature co-chaired the round table "Conservation of the Marine Environment and Marine Protected Areas". Olga Senova from Friends of the Baltic made a presentation at the round table "Environmental Protection and Development of Tourism in the Baltic Sea Region". Representatives of the Centre for Environmental Initiatives, Neva River Clearwater and Green World also took part in the work of the Forum.

Coalition Clean Baltic publications, both in Russian and in English, were of very high demand among the Forum participants. All the publications were literally swept away from the table in the very first hour. The collection of posters prepared for the Live Baltic 2006 CCB ship campaign attracted great attention and made the lobby of the Conference much more interesting.