Sweden is fighting the EU in a battle to save a national delicacy made of fermented herrings. Surstroemming, which is so stinky it has to be eaten outside, is thought to be unsafe by the European Union due to high dioxin levels in the Baltic Sea where the fish is caught. Read the full story

Geothermal power stations in Iceland will have to reduce their emissions of hydrogen sulphide in the wake of a new directive proposed by the Minister for the Environment. The proposed rules are the first step in the ministry’s plan to lower sulphur pollution from geothermal stations which are potentially harmful to health. Read the full story

Last week’s Baltic Sea Action Summit in Helsinki concluded with few binding commitments made and mixed reactions to the meeting’s outcome. Read the full story

An experiment currently underway in Greenland is trying to learn about the effect of glaciers on bedrock. This project has been organised and funded by global nuclear power companies who are planning to create a final storage facility for their radioactive nuclear waste hundreds of metres underground in bedrock caverns. Read the full story

The European Commission’s yearly report on the quality of Europe’s beaches has revealed that eight Swedish swimming areas did not meet the minimum water quality standards in 2008. Even so, the news isn’t all bad since the EU tested the water at 212 freshwater beaches and 258 coastal beaches in Sweden, and only eight failed. Read the full story

In an effort to preserve and improve the condition of the Baltic Sea, the Finnish government has announced its plan to hold a Baltic Sea Action Summit in 2010. Finnish President Tarja Halonen and Prime Minister Matti Taneli Vanhanen have invited the leaders of every Baltic Sea nation, along with key companies involved with the sea, to attend the summit in Helsinki in February 2010. Read the full story

The stock of common cliff-nesting seabirds in Iceland has dropped by 20 to 40 percent in the last two decades. The five most numerous species (except the puffin) were counted on bird cliffs in 2005-2008. The census was a rerun of a similar count in 1983-86.

When the results were correlated and compared, it became obvious that numbers had dropped – some seriously, mbl.is reports. Read the full story

The main issue on the agenda of the upcoming 5-nation conference on Arctic warming will be how to protect the polar bear as its natural environment slowly melts away. Denmark (for Greenland), Norway, the US, Russia, and Canada have decided to hold discussions behind closed doors due to the sensitive nature of the issue. Read the full story

The ozone layer above Sweden was much denser this February than usual following years of dire warnings of dangerously low levels in the stratosphere. Just one year after recording the second-thinnest ozone layer in its history for a February, Swedish meteorologists have now discovered the ozone layer is thicker than it’s been in decades. Read the full story

The cleanup at Iceland’s Keflavik airport military base has begun. Mbl.is reports that the former American base features Pcb polluted walls and buildings constructed with asbestos.

The Pcb walls are being burnt in a specially equipped incineration plant and the asbestos buildings are being demolished. Read the full story