Press releases

International Landscape Day will be celebrated on Sunday 20 October 2019. This year, the aim is to use Landscape Day to draw particular attention to the value of water in the landscape.

A circular economy makes it possible to significantly reduce the consumption of raw materials. The advancement of a circular economy requires ambitious quantitative goals for the reduction of the use of raw materials, according to the SYKE Policy Brief that was made public today. The Policy Brief will be distributed at the European Days for Sustainable Circular Economy conference in Helsinki 30 September–1 October 2019.

Living in the land of a thousand lakes, water plays an important role in the everyday lives of Finns. How is water represented in our everyday landscapes? Is it quietly flowing along in tiny streams along the route to your local market? Do you take evening strolls on autumnal shores? Do you pass a bog on your way to work? Do you walk your dog along a ditch in the mornings? Is it raining?

The Independent Group of Scientists appointed by the UN has assessed the state of global sustainable development as worrying. Although positive developments can be found in the world, certain issues may prevent further progress. The Independent Group of Scientists has identified six key issues and the means necessary to improve the direction. The Global Sustainable Development Report 2019 has been published today in New York.

In the Gulf of Finland, the areas suffering from oxygen depletion have expanded from last summer. The anoxic areas in the Baltic Proper are approximately similar in size than in the autumn of 2018, when the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute estimated them to be more extensive than ever before. The oxygen situation in the Bothnian Sea and the Bay of Bothnia is good, like last year, as indicated by the Finnish Environment Institute’s monitoring results from summer 2019.