russia

Whilst international investors and oil industry representatives have been meeting today in Moscow to hatch plans to drill for oil in the Russian Arctic, Greenpeace Russia activists peacefully occupied the entrance to the conference to ensure that they heard a different message: Arctic oil drilling is dangerous and reckless. Don’t invest in the destruction of this fragile ecosystem.­­­ 

In early March, our colleagues in Russia visited Noyabrsk, in the middle of the West Siberian oil fields, to bear witness to a long-lasting battle between local indigenous communities and oil companies, and to document the widespread pollution caused by oil exploration.

Martin Hojsik, leader of the Toxics Water Pollution Project at Greenpeace International, writes on the concealed costs of pollution - on people, planet and profits.   

A large chunk of northern Russia is tundra where the ground is hardened by the arctic conditions into permafrost. Yet even in these harsh climes humans manage to thrive - like the Nenet people, whose nomadic reindeer-herding way of life takes them across north-west Siberia.

But as climate change takes hold, the permafrost is melting, releasing large quantities of carbon dioxide and methane. It's causing problems for the Nenet, altering the availability of their reindeers' food as well as prompting other changes in the local eco-system.

Bottom trawling, possibly the most destructive fishing method yet devised by man, is to be regulated across the whole North Atlantic ocean. The process, which involves dragging nets weight down by metal girders across the seabed, is notorious for its wastefulness. Besides legitimate target species such as cod, plaice and sole, vast quantities of corals, sponges and other deep sea creatures are destroyed as bycatch. The devastation caused is so great that Greenpeace has been calling for some time for a moritorium (suspension of activity) on bottom trawling. Now it looks as though some progress may be being made.