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Our campaign aims to prevent the construction of oil pipelines in Lake Baikal’s catchment basin, and to promote sustainable development in the Baikal region. 1. Our planet’s resources for fossil fuels are limited. In the world today, energy saving technologies are being developed, and a transition to the use of renewable sources of energy has begun (wind, solar, mini-hydro and hydrogen fuel energy). 2. There is only enough oil in the Russian oil fields for the next 25 - 30 years. Alternative forms of energy have hardly been developed at all in Russia, and nothing is being done about the fact that the whole fuel and energy network is several times less efficient than the European average. The fact is that until Russia completely rebuilds its energy network, it has to rely on fossil fuels – in other words, we need our oil for ourselves. 3. Rebuilding the energy network will be inevitable because of the Russian economy’s dangerous dependency on the world oil market. Oil makes up around 40% of the Russian Federation’s revenue. This dependency on exporting oil is like a dependency on drugs, and in Russian is called “neftyannaya igla”, which means something like ‘the oil jab’. It is holding back the development of science and technology, as there are always raw materials –“ready goods” - available to sell for easy money. 4. On top of this, because of the way the system works in Russia, the budget does not receive all the necessary taxes on oil. The tax on using natural resources in Russia is so much lower than the world average, that the oil oligarchs are able to make enormous superprofits. To make things worse, oil companies have registered their firms abroad which means that without breaking the law almost all of their enormous profits go straight into their pockets and in fact does little for the Russian economy. According to government statistics, these off-shore companies account for 97% of their profits. 5. In Russia, unlike in other countries, there is no law to ensure that companies are held responsible for oil pollution. 6. The whole oil network is in a terrible state with about 80% of it in need of repair. There are tens of thousands of pipeline accidents every year. For example, the Krasnoyarsk-Irkutsk pipeline (laid down by the company “Transneft”) had 6 large-scale accidents between 1993 and 2003. In March ’93, because of a welding defect, there was a rupture in the pipeline near the village of Tiret. As a result there were over 30 000 tons of oil spilt, which flowed into the village’s water source. The clean up operation after the accident had to be paid for on the regional and local government budgets – it has now been ten years since their water was contaminated, and the problem has still not been solved. OUR DEMANDS TO THE PRESIDENT AND THE GOVERNMENT. 1. Deny permission to build new major pipelines for exporting oil as they are destroying the Russian economy and environment, 2. Respect the rights of the indigenous and old-resident people as required by the international obligations of the Russian Federation, 3. Find a way to develop Russia which is not dependent on selling crude oil and support the development of alternative energy and energy-saving technology (in compliance with the government’s Ecological doctrine of 31 August 2002), 4. Force industrial companies to take full responsibility for any harm they cause and to pay for using up resources within Russian borders, 5. Only make decisions on projects which affect the interests of the Russian people after environmental impact assessments and public hearings have taken place at every stage of project development, in full compliance with Russian legislation – and when no clear decision can be made, on the basis of a referendum. |
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“Transneft” oil company is planning to build a pipeline through Lake Baikal’s catchment basin – at the moment the project is still in its project stage, but their plans could completely change our future. Whether it will happen or not depends on us.