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サハリンⅡ開発に関する融資機関宛NGO要請書
サハリンII第二期工事への融資を検討している融資機関（欧州復興開発銀行、国際協力銀行、米国輸出入銀行、英国輸出信用保証局）に対して、各国のNGOが要請書を提出しました。
この要請書は、サハリン先住民族からの独立「民族学的アセスメント(文化影響調査）」の要求、ニシコククジラの独立レビュー、そして南部コルサコフの住民の生活環境において生じている様々な問題について、各融資機関の対応を求めるものです。
以下、レターの全文です。
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Friends of the
Earth Japan ● Friends of the Earth Netherlands/Milieudefensie
CEE Bankwatch Network ● Friends of the Earth EWNI
Pacific Environment ● PLATFORM
Sakhalin Environment Watch
Urgewald ● WWF Russia
February 1, 2005
Jean Lemierre
President
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
London, England
(via email)
Patrick Crawford
Chief Executive Officer
Export Credit Guarantee Department
London, England
(via email)
Kyosuke Shinozawa
Governor
Japan Bank for International Cooperation
Tokyo, Japan
(via email)
Philip Merrill
President and Chairman
Export-Import Bank of the U.S.
Washington, DC
(via email)
Dear sirs,
Thank you again for your due diligence on the Sakhalin II project.
We write concerning three issues that deserve your immediate attention:
・ Sakhalin indigenous organizations' demand for an independent cultural
impact assessment (ethnological ekspertiza) and compensation fund;
・ Royal Dutch/Shell's refusal to consider alternative designs to protect
the critically endangered Western Gray Whale;
・ Ongoing project impacts on the city of Korsakov.
INDIGENOUS CULTURAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND COMPENSATION FUND
On January 21, 2005, we received a copy of a letter to you from Pavel
Sulyandziga, Vice President of the Russian Association of Indigenous
Peoples of the North, Siberia, and Far East (RAIPON). Mr. Sulyandziga's
letter urges you to exercise your authority to require that the Sakhalin
II project provide for an independent cultural impact assessment,
and support compensation in the form of a development fund for indigenous
people that are negatively affected by Sakhalin II. We join the call
of RAIPON and the Sakhalin indigenous peoples for this independent
assessment and development fund. We urge you to intervene and to enforce
your policies by requiring the completion of the cultural impact assessment
and development fund as a prerequisite for further consideration of
financing for Sakhalin II.
Russian indigenous leaders--with members of the Nivkh, Uilta, Nanai,
and Evenk peoples--have been driven to protest by blockading oil and
gas development activities on Sakhalin Island. From January 20-24,
2005, hundreds of Sakhalin indigenous peoples endured minus 30 degree
Celsius temperatures to stand in defense of their rights and against
the negative impact of oil and gas projects (see links to news stories
below). Indigenous leaders are justifiably concerned about the impacts
of these projects including, inter alia, harm to fisheries, reindeer
pastures, and forest animal populations. Indigenous leaders indicate
that compensation provided so far by oil companies is insufficient,
and that they do not trust the oil companies' environmental, social
and health impact assessments. They report that some companies, including
Sakhalin Energy, have rebuffed their attempts to create a meaningful
dialogue, sending public relations staff to meetings rather than company
officials with any authority to remedy their concerns. This has also
been the long-standing experience of other NGOs and community groups
with Sakhalin Energy.
The protests undertaken by the indigenous leaders represent a very
serious escalation of conflict, and it is another indication that
the Sakhalin II project has failed to provide minimal environmental
and social safeguards necessary to comply with the policies of your
institution. We stand in solidarity behind these indigenous leaders
and echo their call for you to enforce your policies and to require
Sakhalin II project sponsors to provide for an independent cultural
impact assessment and indigenous peoples development fund.
PA-B PLATFORM ALTERNATIVES
Our organizations applaud your institutional support for the convening
of the Independent Scientific Review Panel (ISRP) to assess Sakhalin
II project impacts on the critically endangered Western Pacific Gray
Whale. The success of the ISRP rests in part on Royal Dutch/Shell's
fulfillment of commitments to provide the Panel with information it
needs to perform its assessment. The ISRP Terms of Reference include
a directive to assess project design alternatives and additional mitigation
measures. Royal Dutch/Shell has recently provided the ISRP with a
Comparative Environmental Assessment (CEA), which we had hoped would
provide the Panel with some of the information it needs to meet this
directive, including assessment of alternative subsea pipeline routes
and platform locations.
The CEA is also supposed to be part of larger Environmental Impact
Assessment (EIA) addenda that your institutions require and have committed
to make publicly available. However, Royal Dutch/Shell has decided
to conceal the CEA until sometime after the ISRP concludes its review.
Royal Dutch/Shell has stated that it is withholding the CEA so the
ISRP can review it without it being "subject to external pressures
that might arise from a public debate on the CEA's content and conclusions."
This is curious, given that the scientists involved are quite used
to conducting independent scientific work concurrent with parallel
discussions between citizens and governments, including long-standing
dialogue between non-governmental organizations and your institution.
Meanwhile, we are more deeply concerned about what is apparently not
in the CEA. According to Jamie Walls of Sakhalin Energy, the CEA does
not include any comparative assessment of alternative locations of
the PA-B platform, which is currently planned to be located adjacent
to Western Pacific Gray Whale feeding grounds. As a consequence, the
CEA does not present alternatives and mitigation measures that the
ISRP needs to fulfill its TOR, and that your institution's environmental
policies require.
This highlights the longer-term unwillingness of Sakhalin II project
sponsors to consider project design alternatives to protect the critically
endangered Western Pacific Gray Whale. For example, Sakhalin Energy's
Environmental Impact Assessment states that the proposal to move the
PA-B platform a sufficient distance east (away from the whale feeding
area) has been "declined as a technically viable option," and that
extended reach drilling is only possible up to 6 kilometers. Yet,
great strides have been made in extended reach drilling to reach distances
in excess of 10 kilometers. Extended reach drilling up to 11 kilometers
is being conducted by ExxonMobil's Sakhalin I project due in part
to environmental concerns. Concurrently, conservation organizations
have suggested an alternative PA-B platform placement at a safe distance
to the east of the currently proposed location. Yet, Sakhalin Energy
states it cannot possibly consider alternative locations for the PA-B
platform. Sakhalin Energy's CEA apparently presents no data to justify
this position.
We are as yet unaware of the extent to which Royal Dutch/Shell has
provided other information that the ISRP needs and that your institution
requires, such as assessment of cumulative impacts associated with
Sakhalin II. Requests over several years to Royal Dutch/Shell to present
this information have been rebuffed. Given that the ISRP is scheduled
to conclude its work by mid-February, Royal Dutch/Shell's willingness
to provide the Panel and your institutions with the information that
they need to meet your mandates is in serious question. Swift intervention
by your institution is necessary in order to persuade Royal Dutch/Shell
to seriously consider design alternatives to protect the Western Pacific
Gray Whale, including relocation of the PA-B platform.
KORSAKOV
We appreciate the attention that you have paid to social impacts of
the Sakhalin II project, including the negative impacts of the construction
of the Liquid Natural Gas plant on the city of Korsakov. We were recently
provided with a copy of a paper on these impacts by Lina Lazebnik,
of the Korsakov-based community organization "Knowledge is Strength."
Lazebnik's paper was written in response to queries from U.S. Congressional
staffers following meetings in October 2004 with committees with oversight
of public finance institutions, including EBRD and U.S. ExIm Bank.
Lazebnik's paper documents a number of very serious negative impacts
on Korsakov, including the overwhelming of the water, waste, housing,
medical and transportation infrastructure. Local authorities worry
that Korsakov might be without water during parts of the winter, and
along with it, electricity. Korsakov has suffered the brunt of 1,500
imported workers that have descended on the area, overburdening its
social services and increasing communicable diseases including AIDs,
tuberculosis and pediculosis.
Lazebnik demonstrates that much of these impacts are due to rampant
cost-cutting tactics by Sakhalin II contractors, harming the city
of Korsakov and project workers alike. She reveals that the promise
of employment for Sakhalin residents has fallen far short. She notes
that plans to compensate Korsakov are grossly insufficient to prevent
a worsening community crisis. By Fall 2004, another 1,500 workers
arrived, raising the total additional load on the infrastructure to
3,000 people. As a result, a local population that originally welcomed
Sakhalin II now looks at it with increasing aggression.
The damage to Korsakov and the socio-economic costs that the Sakhalin
II project have inflicted represent an obvious violation of your banks'
environmental and social policies, as well as the violation of the
human rights of Sakhalin residents. We urge your institution to intervene
to ensure that the Sakhalin II project acts quickly to mitigate the
financial and social toll it is exacting upon the city of Korsakov,
on indigenous people, and on the Island of Sakhalin as a whole.
Sincerely,
Doug Norlen
Pacific Environment
San Francisco, California
United States
Shoko Murakami
Friends of the Earth Japan
Tokyo
Japan
Dmitry Lisitsyn
Sakhalin Environment Watch
Sakhalin Island, Russia
Regine Richter
Urgewald
Berlin, Germany
Igor Chestin
WWF Russia
Moscow, Russia
Petr Hlobil
CEE Bankwatch Network
Prague, Czech Republic
Nick Rau
Friends of the Earth
England, Wales, Northern Ireland
London, England
Donald Pols
Friends of the Earth Netherlands/
Milieudefensie
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Greg Muttitt
PLATFORM
London, England
Press Coverage of Indigenous Peoples' Protest
1) Oil Giants Ignore Indigenous Peoples'
Protest Action; Clash with Labourers Suspends Protest, The Sakhalin
Times, January 27, 2005,
https://www.sakhalintimes.ru/more.php?id=1316_0_1_0_M
2) Sakhalin Natives Protest Industrial Invasion; Vladivostok News,
January 21, 2005, https://vn.vladnews.ru/News/upd21_2.HTM
3) Sakhalin Indigenous Groups to Picket Oil and Gas Facilities,
Novosti, January 21, 2005, https://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=5330092&startrow=1&date=2005-01-21&do_alert=0
4) Russian Islanders Protest Against Big Oil Firms; Reuters, January
20, 2005, https://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L20646468.htm
5) Oil TNCS Try To Suppress Indigenous Protests at Sakhalin, SEU
Times, January 19, 2005, https://www.pacificenvironment.org/russia/sakhalin_protest/SEUrelease19jan05.html
6) Indigenous People to Protest Against Oil and Gas Projects, The
Sakhalin Independent, January 27, 2005, https://www.sakhalinindependent.com/IMAGES/oilandgas/indigenous_people_protest.htm
For more information including pictures
of the protest see:
https://www.pacificenvironment.org/russia/sakhalin_protest/index.html
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