Backgrounder

What’s the threat?

From beginning to end:

  • Seismic surveys repeatedly fire explosive low frequency blasts that kill fish, larvae and eggs in close proximity. They are also thought harmful to marine mammals. Seismic surveys can reduce fish catch rates by as much as 80 percent.
  • Drilling releases large amounts of contaminated drilling muds that leave behind high levels of heavy metals. Studies have shown that drilling discharges cause widespread long-term harm to the bottom dwelling creatures that are food for commercial fish species, and can smother corals, shellfish and fish eggs.
  • Infrastructure development and increased international shipping associated with oil and gas development bring their own hazards, such as alien species hitching a ride on the hulls and in ballastwater and pipelines and platforms that destroy habitat and obstruct fishing.
  • Potentially most devastatingly, there are the potential spills associated with oil development, whether from tankers, pipelines, or other sources. There is no current technology that can adequately clean up oil spills in ice-covered waters. Even with the best will in the world, and the best available technology and techniques, accidents and spills can happen. They would be unwelcome anywhere, but we simply cannot afford for them to take place in these areas in the Arctic of high ecological, economic, and cultural value.

Lofoten-Vesteralen


  • The Norwegian government is due next year to make a decision on whether or not to open the area.
  • The call to make the area off-limits to oil and gas is backed by the Norwegian fishermen’s unions, science institutions such as the Norwegian Polar Institute and the Institute of Marine Research, and 67% of the Norwegian public (according to a recent poll).
  • Around 24, 000 people live in Lofoten in six communities. There are more than 1,300 people employed in fishing, fish farming and fish processing. About 270 people work full-time in the tourism sector. This means that more than 20 % of the Lofoten population works directly in fishing, fish farming or tourism.
  • A large oil spill in this region would have dramatic consequences for the wildlife in the area.Seabirds are especially vulnerable to oil spills, but oil is also lethal to fish eggs and larvae andmay have huge effects on recruitment and on the state of fish stocks.
  • The petroleum industry is an additional threat in a situation when climate change is already being observed in the Arctic. Any new petroleum development in Norway increases the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, fourth highest in the world in 2008.

Bristol Bay, Alaska

  • The Minerals Management Service (MMS) is proposing holding lease sales in 2010 and 2012.
  • Bristol Bay is home to the world's largest run of wild sockeye salmon. The value of the commercial sockeye salmon fishery was $106 million dollars in 2006 - with over 39 million salmon migrating through the area proposed for leasing on their way to spawn in the headwaters of Bristol Bay. The area proposed for development overlaps with out-migration routes for smolts and the migration routes for adults returning to rivers throughout western Alaska and the Arctic.
  • Bristol Bay is one of the most productive marine ecosystems in the world, including important nursery grounds for red king crab and Pacific halibut, staging areas and wintering grounds for tens of millions of seabirds, and a feeding ground and migration corridor for marine mammals including five endangered species.Theonly known summertime feeding grounds of the endangered North Pacific right whale overlap the area proposed for leasing.
  • A dozen State and Federal protected areas surrounding southeast Bristol Bay could be threatened by oil spills or other development related mishaps.
  • The US federal Minerals Management Service (MMS) predicted that offshore operations in Bristol Bay would result in at least one large oil spill (between 1,000 and 10,000 barrels) and numerous smaller spills.
  • WWF, together with local people and other organizations is urging the US legislature to reintroduce and pass the Bristol Bay Protection Act (H.R.1957/ S. 1311), when it meets later this month. The bill would permanently protect Bristol Bay from offshore oil and gas leasing and development.

West Kamchatka Shelf

  • Oil companies are currently allowed to explore and develop the area along the west of the Kamchatka peninsula, the west Kamchatka shelf.
  • The area has extremely high biological productivity. About 25% of Russia’s fish and other marine resources come from this area. Allowing oil activities in west Kamchatka could compromise Russian food security.
  • WWF Russia, together with other environmental NGOs has written to the Russian government calling for it to suspend all oil and gas activities on the shelf until protected areas have been designated.
  • WWF has joined in the Committee for the Conservation of the West Kamchatka Shelf that includes the Association of Kamchatka Indigenous Peoples and the Kamchatka League of Independent Experts.
  • The campaign to halt oil exploration and development has been supported by over 9000 people, and collection of signatures still continues.

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