Swedish Baltic Sea Water Award 2009 Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), Finland HELCOM works to protect the marine environment of the Baltic Sea from all sources of pollution through intergovernmental co-operation between Denmark, Estonia, the European Community, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Sweden. HELCOM is governing the "Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area" (the Helsinki Convention) and has shown exemplary commitment to improving the Baltic Sea through the adoption of the Baltic Sea Action Plan. 2008 Prof. Krzysztof Edward Skóra, Hel Marine Station at the University of Gdańsk, Poland Professor Skóra received the award for his research which
Finland–Russia border Finnish reindeer fence. Unlike other Western countries, the government of Finland did not protect illegal border crossers but returned them to the Soviet authorities if captured. Illegal border crossers had to get through Finland to e.g. Sweden in order to defect to the West. In the Moscow Armistice signed on 1944 between Finland, Soviet Union and United Kingdom, a small peninsula towards the Gulf of Finland, Porkkala, was rented to Soviet Union as a military base. This created in effect a southern border crossing to the Soviet exclave, operating all the way to 1956. Border crossings were in and .