The Ministry of Agriculture aims to make responsible bioeconomy and circular economy an integral part of the foundation of Finland’s competitiveness and wellbeing by 2030. The Ministry wants to be a facilitator of renewable and sustainable food and natural resource economies and a producer of reliable information resources.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has issued a decree on the conservation values of declining and threatened fish. The decree is related to an amendment to the Fishing Act that entered into force on 1 May 2019. Under the amendment, the value of illegal catches of threatened or declining fish species shall be forfeited to the State based on the value of the species in question in connection with fishing offences and violations.

Alien species pose a global threat to biodiversity, and the plants and animals in Arctic regions are especially vulnerable to their adverse impacts. Alien species can flourish and spread in their new environments, displacing native species and threatening the entire Arctic ecosystem. To help prevent this, Finland, Sweden and Norway have launched a communication campaign explaining how to prevent alien species from spreading to the Arctic region using a few simple measures.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Finnish Border Guard and the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment for Southwest Finland carried out a joint fishing supervision operation in the southern part of the Baltic Sea on 9–20 March 2019. The pre-selected focus areas of the operation were salmon fishing and trawling for Baltic herring and sprat.