What will happen to the Aranda brand?

By Anna-Stina Nykänen
     
      What will happen to the marine research vessel, the Aranda, if the Finnish Institute of Marine Research (FIMR) is shut down? This is a worry for the whole nation. The Aranda is a focus of media attention. Its voyages are a matter of public interest. Thanks to the Aranda we know that part of the bottom of the Baltic Sea is dead.
      The Aranda fights for the environment. It is a hero. A symbol: something like the sailing ship Suomen Joutsen in Turku.
      Don’t the decision-makers know what kind of a brand they are destroying?
     
When it is reported in the news that the Aranda is going out to sea, it evokes lofty emotions in people’s hearts: a small craft out there is bobbing on the waves, checking up on the state of a large sick patient, and reporting on changes that might threaten its survival.
      Marine researchers are also regarded with fascination. They work busily around the clock on the vessel with their ultra-modern equipment, raising to the surface samples giving off an ominous stench, picking through the various worms living on the bottom. Then they return, faces all weatherbeaten, to land and to their state-of-the-art laboratory. If FIMR is shut down, they will lose that, too.
      The Aranda calls to mind adventure movies, science fiction novels, nature documentaries, and Jacques Cousteau.
      Yes, the image may be romanticised, but so what?
      At least the Institute is known, and its work is appreciated by the public.
      How many other institutes could boast the same?
     
Any advertising agency that one might name would appreciate the Aranda brand.
      Such an image cannot be achieved even with lots of cash.
      For all that, the closing of the FIMR is being justified by economic efficiency.
      The work would be divided among the Meteorological Institute and the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE).
      Those who work on the Aranda would be dispersed.
     
Should Jacques Cousteau also have listened to a consultant’s advice and given up his red cap and handed over the work to some Pierre and Edouard?
      After all, they might have been top professionals in marine ecology just as well.
      The trouble is, they were not known.
      What happened when the employees of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs were moved to a new institute? Nothing but quarrelling.
     
The Finnish Institute of Marine Research requires an international network.
      In such an effort, a recognised name is important. Science circles are opposed to the closure of the institute.
      The nation has its own feelings. The dairy company Valio angered the public at large by selling off its ice cream production to Nestlé.
      It didn’t help a bit that Valio insisted that the quality and the people who produce the ice cream would not change.
      Now a similar “Don’t shove my friend around” movement has been stirred up like the nasty sediments of the Baltic.
      The closure of FIMR has been called a murder.
      And what's worse, the victim is a Finnish celebrity.
     
What if the decision were to be cancelled?
      The baboons of the Helsinki Zoo on the island of Korkeasaari were spared after a public outcry. Now even experts defend the decision to reverse the FIMR decision.
      The decision-makers, Centre Party ministers and inland natives Anu Vehviläinen (from Joensuu) and Kimmo Tiilikainen (from Ruokolahti), could change their minds.
      It would not be an embarrassing climbdown.
      On the contrary, it would increase the credibility of politicians. And heaven knows, that is in short enough supply these days.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 25.5.2008


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Winter storms improve oxygen situation at bottom of Gulf of Finland (29.1.2007)
  Gulf of Finland in record-poor shape; bottom is dead and oxygen low in many areas (18.8.2006)
  Initiative for new sea centre to support marine research (14.1.2008)
  WWF: Finland falls short of target in protecting Baltic Sea (27.5.2007)

See also:
  Dramatic response to calls to do away with Helsinki Zoo baboons (11.10.2004)
  Valio sells its ice cream and baby food businesses to foreign buyers (25.5.2004)

Links:
  Finnish Institute of Marine Research