BP & Exxon ignore pleas to help worlds most endangered whales20/04/2009 00:30:37
Oil companies refuse to even talk about saving the world's most endangered whale
April 2009. BP and Exxon have continued ignoring 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.
However, BP, Exxon and Rosneft, another Russian petroleum giant, did not respond to requests to participate.
"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 Dr Susan Lieberman, WWF International Species Director. "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."
The panel, convened by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in February called for a moratorium on oil and gas development after "exceptionally low" counts for North Western Pacific (Russian) gray whales in a crucial feeding zone.
Just 25 breeding females
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."
Sakhalin Marine Federal Wildlife Reserve
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.
Threatened by oil & gas industries
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