BP and Exxon continue to ignore requests to join consultations with an international scientific panel to work to protect the world’s most endangered whales, threatened by oil and gas development around Sakhalin Island in Far East Russia.

The Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel (WGWAP), including 11 prominent international scientists, has been in consultation with Shell and Gazprom subsidiary Sakhalin Energy over developments that may impact upon gray whales. However, BP, Exxon and Rosneft, another Russian petroleum giant, did not respond to requests to participate.

The panel, convened by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in February has called for a moratorium on oil and gas development after Sakhalin Energy representatives acknowledged that the numbers of gray whales observed in the Piltun feeding area off Sakhalin were notably less than in any previous year since monitoring began.

“The continuing refusal of BP, Exxon and Rosneft to even consider joining other parties on the gray whale advisory panel is hampering conservation efforts and the flow of information–with potentially disastrous consequences for the whales,” said Heather Sohl, WWF Species Officer.

“On the one hand, we have Shell and Gazprom at least looking at their plans to see if impacts on whales can be reduced and on the other hand we have BP, Exxon and Rosneft not even telling scientists what their plans are.”

Even before these latest observations raised alarm bells, a total of only about 130 western gray whales and just 25 breeding females were thought to remain, with the species listed as critically endangered both in Russia and on the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species.

The listing in Russia imposes obligations for the special protection of such species and their habitats by minimizing activities that could lead to population decline or habitat destruction.

The WGWAP said in its report published in February that: “This scarcity (of gray whales) may have been related to underwater noise produced during onshore pile driving activities undertaken by Exxon Neftegas Limited (ENL) on the northern Piltun barrier split adjacent to the Odoptu block”.

The Panel had previously noted in a letter to Prime Minister Putin that they “have been hampered by the unwillingness of ENL to allow open consideration of gray whale data collected under its partnership arrangement with Sakhalin Energy.”
A number of NGOs including WWF-Russia last month wrote to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, requesting a moratorium on all oil and gas project construction and surveying activities in the area that may negatively impact the dwindling gray whale population until a committee has investigated the scale of the impacts on the whales.

Last year also saw the Elvary joint venture between Rosneft & BP conducting seismic surveys immediately to the north of the whale feeding area. The company chose to ignore recommendations from the panel, failing to conduct any real “noise monitoring” of their activities.

Yet another call for BP, Exxon and Rosneft to cooperate with the advisory panel is expected tomorrow, when the panel meets in Geneva to review the latest data on the whales.

A proposal to create a Sakhalin Marine Federal Wildlife Reserve for key gray whale habitat along the Piltun Spit is currently under review by Russian authorities, with WWF-Russia last year lodging the required environmental and economic justifications, and this year conducting public consultations.

The reserve would also protect Piltun Bay’s shallow waters critical not just to the nutrition of gray whales but also to sustaining rich fishing grounds. Adjacent coastal areas are important for migratory birds and are in the “shadow list” of the Ramsar international convention on wetlands.

However, oil and gas development and associated shipping and pipeline infrastructure is already threatening to fragment the proposed reserve. The environmental policies proposed by Sakhalin project development partners have been judged inadequate by the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

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Editor’s notes

The Panel’s letter to Putin, and other public statements on this issue by IUCN, are available at: www.iucn.org/wgwap/public_statements/

At the last WGWAP meeting (December 2008) the Panel made inter alia the following recommendations:
1) “the Panel urgently requests that government agencies and officials in Russia, IUCN, Sakhalin Energy, other companies active in all aspects of the oil and gas industry on the NE Sakhalin shelf, lending institutions, the Group for Strategic Planning on Western Gray Whales, non-governmental conservation organizations, and all other interested parties make a commitment to cooperate and collaborate with the Panel by providing the types of information and data as outlined above.”
2) “The Panel further recommends that a moratorium be implemented on industrial activities, carried out by Sakhalin Energy and all other Sakhalin-based oil and gas companies, that might be expected, in the absence of independently verified mitigation measures (such as those developed by the Seismic Survey Task Force for seismic surveys), to disturb gray whales in and near their main feeding areas during the primary summer/autumn feeding season (July through October), This moratorium should remain in place until: (i) a satisfactory management plan is in place and (ii) the information flows required for its successful operation are functioning.”

All WGWAP recommendations and meeting reports can be found at www.iucn.org/wgwap/meetings/

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photo by Theresaf

Lack of law enforcement against illegal trade in Indonesia threatens the survival of orang-utans and gibbons on Sumatra, according to a new study by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network of IUCN and WWF.

Despite considerable investment in wildlife conservation, there has been an increase since the 1970s, in the numbers of the critically endangered orang-utans being captured, mainly for the pet trade. An estimated 2,000 orang-utans have been confiscated or turned in by private owners in Indonesia in the last three decades, but no more than a handful of people have ever been successfully prosecuted.

“Proper enforcement of laws protecting orang-utans is critical in Indonesia,” said Heather Sohl, Wildlife Trade Officer for WWF-UK. “With their population numbers declining, action against this illegal trade has to be made a priority.”

Records of orang-utans and gibbons put into rehabilitation centres serve as an indicator of how many of these animals were illegally held. Between 2002 and 2008, the newly opened Sibolangit rehabilitation centre in Sumatra took in 142 Sumatran orang-utans, while its predecessor, Bohorok rehabilitation centre accepted just 30 animals between 1995–2001 (when it closed), and 105 orang-utans between 1973–1979.

“When the first rehabilitation centres were established for orang-utans and later for gibbons it was hoped that with more apes being confiscated, levels of illegal trade would fall,” said Vincent Nijman, the author of the report, based at Oxford Brookes University.

“But with hundreds of orang-utans and gibbons present in such centres, and dozens added every year, it is hard to view these numbers as anything other than an indictment against Indonesia’s law enforcement efforts,” he said.

Orang-utans, which can weigh up to around 90 kilograms and reach 1.5 metres in length, end up in such centres after they become too old and too big to be held as pets. But owners of the reddish-brown coloured apes do not face any legal consequences.

Meanwhile numbers continue to decline in the wild, with the most recent estimate of just 7,300 Sumatran orang-utans surviving.

“Confiscating these animals without prosecuting the owners is futile,” said Chris R Shepherd, Acting Director of TRAFFIC Southeast Asia.

“There is no deterrent for those committing these crimes, if they go unpunished. Indonesia has adequate laws, but without serious penalties, this illegal trade will continue, and these species will continue to spiral towards extinction.”

The report also documents the 148 Sumatran gibbons and siamangs and 26 Sumatran orang-utans kept in Indonesian zoos.

The report recommends that the root causes of trade be examined and that laws be better implemented for the protection of orang-utans, gibbons and the island’s other wildlife.

Sumatra’s wildlife is also threatened by habitat loss due to deforestation, logging, land conversion, encroachment, and forest fires. WWF is working to reduce the destruction of wildlife habitat in Sumatra by working with industry to ensure High Conservation Value Forests are not converted for agriculture, empowering local communities to manage natural resources in a sustainable way, and providing alternatives.

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Editor’s notes

TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, is a joint programme of IUCN (the International Union for Conservation of Nature) and WWF, the global conservation organisation.

• An assessment of trade in gibbons and orang-utans in Sumatra, Indonesia is the first TRAFFIC report to examine the trade in apes in Sumatra. It follows earlier reports published in 2005 into such trade in Kalimantan: Hanging in the balance: An assessment of trade in orang-utans and gibbons on Kalimantan, Indonesia and in Java and Bali: In full swing: An assessment of trade in orang-utans and gibbons on Java and Bali, Indonesia.

• Under national legislation, penalties for illegally possessing orang-utans include a fine of up to IDR100,000,000 (USD9,000) and imprisonment for up to five years.

• In July 2007, the Supreme Court of Indonesia hosted the country’s first national “Judiciary Workshop on Wildlife Crime and Prosecution” as part of a government commitment to step up its fight against organized poaching and trafficking of wild animals and plants.

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