«PROTECTED MARINE AREAS»

MARINE RESERVES MAY PROMOTE PRESERVATION
OF GRAY WHALE

Protected marine areas have never been a top priority in Russia. At the same time, by imposing protection status on large sea areas we have made considerable progress. The Dalnevostochny State Marine Reserve has allowed us to minimize the negative impact of recreation, poaching and ocean shipping in the Gulf of Peter the Great. A small marine reserve in the Vostok Gulf is preventing the sand extraction projects so disastrous for the coastal area. Due to the timely establishment of a 30-mile marine mammals protection area, the Komandor Islands Shelf is the only area of the Bering Sea still undisturbed by the fishing industry. Attached to the Komandorsky State Nature Reserve, this area is of great value for monitoring natural changes in ecosystems.

Today we face a problem that we cannot solve without protected marine areas: the problem of the Okhotka-Korean gray whale population. Gray whales are distinct from other whale populations because of their unique way of living. They feed on seabed bottom invertebrates in shallow coastal waters and travel thousands kilometers from feeding to breeding grounds.

The Eastern Pacific population numbers over 20,000 whales. They winter near the California coast while their fattening grounds are located near the Bering Strait.

For many years it was believed that whalers had killed off the Okhotka-Korean (Western-Pacific) as well as the Atlantic gray whales. But in the 1970s a small group of gray whales (around 200) was discovered in the Western Pacific; every summer these animals turn up near the northeastern coast of Sakhalin.

By coincidence, the gray whales favor a shelf area in the Far East where considerable oil and gas resources have been extracted. The first commercial oil was produced at the Sakhalin-2 project (contractor — Sakhalin Energy) on the Molikpak stationary oil platform built in the autumn of 1998. The drilling of over 10 wells is done from the platform. The oil is pumped through an underwater pipeline to a floating oil reservoir where tankers berth on a regular basis.

Molikpak is situated 24 km from the shore, beyond the area where the whales usually gather. However, this platform, from which bore solutions and other industrial waste is dumped and on which helicopters land, cannot but impact negatively on coastal ecosystems (even in a no-emergency case). And that is only the beginning of the problem. Nearly every year, the Sakhalin-2 and Sakhalin-1 projects allow contractors to drill additional new exploratory holes. In the northern area of the whales’ fattening grounds, in the Odoptu oilfield run by the Sakhalin-1 project, shelf oil is extracted from the shore using the direct drilling method.

Two more platforms that will soon be built even closer to the gray whales’ habitat than Molikpak.

The development of Sakhalin Shelf oil resources has made whale research vital. Meanwhile, the involvement of American companies (Marathon Oil — a former shareholder in Sakhalin-2, and Exxon — a leading shareholder in Sakhalin-1) in these projects has made it possible to put the gray whale on the agenda of the Russian-American Commission on Scientific-Technological Cooperation (Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission). On February 7, 1997, the Commission adopted a Statement “On Measures to Ensure Biodiversity Conservation in the Sakhalin Island Area”. The Okhotka-Korean Gray Whale Population Monitoring and Research Program was drafted in 1998. Sakhalin Energy provided the main funding for its implementation; some Russian institutes also contributed. Although the program was slow to research such crucial aspects as the whales’ feeding base and toxicology, the work of Russian and American scientists has given us new information about the state of this small population.

First of all, the population turns out to be really small. Photo-identification works launched in 1998 show that some 100 whales have come to the Sakhalin shore in the recent years. Observations were done from the lighthouse at Piltun Lagoon (in the middle of their fattening grounds). It was found the number of whales in this area began decreasing in1995. Beginning in 1999, researchers observed incidents of exhausted whales whose number increased by 27 in 2000. At a recent session of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in London, a special meeting was devoted to the gray whale. Recent data on its population presented to the Scientific Board of the IWC was very discouraging: the proportion of male and female whales is 2:1; most newborns are also male. This shows that, according to the IUCN guidelines, the gray whale should be regarded as critically endangered.

The resolution of IWC Session 53 (July 26, 2001) stresses the necessity of reducing the mortality of the gray whale as a result of anthropogenic impact to zero, and calls on Russia, Japan and other countries “to take active measures to stop the anthropogenic death incidence of the population and to minimize anthropogenic disturbance in migration corridors as well as in fattening and breeding grounds”.

But what practical measures can be taken when most aspects of the problem remain obscure? We do not know whether the decline in the whales’ health is due to the noise made by the stationary oil platform, or to exploratory drilling, or to the constant presence of vessels and helicopters, or to the dumping of drill solutions and drilling wastes or to some other source of pollution. It may be that the whales are also negatively impacted in their wintering places (the exact location of which no one knows). We cannot afford to wait for the answers — by then the population may have disappeared altogether. In August 2001, geological and engineering work (using seismic-acoustic surveys and soil test selection) was done from on board three vessels in the whales’ feeding grounds at Sakhalin-1.

To allow us to simultaneously carry out conservation activities and collect new information for analysis, we must establish a marine reserve (zakaznik). Specialists at the All-Russian Research Institute of Marine Fishing Industry and Oceanography presented a plan for a marine reserve in 1997. The following border and protection regime was proposed.

The northern border should run one kilometer south of the southern border of Okha City, while the southern border should run along the latitude of the Chaivo Gulf. The protected area should be 10 kilometers wide. In order to reduce disturbance factors during the whales’ stay in the marine reserve, we must:

• prohibit motor vessels of any tonnage from entering the marine reserve water area;
• prohibit any plane or helicopter from flying lower than 30,000 feet over the marine reserve or within a kilometer of its border;
• prohibit on-shore motor transport from coming within a kilometer of the shore without special permission and only with a marine reserve convoy;
• prohibit seismic tests from being conducted within the marine reserve or within a kilometer of its borders.

Any economic development or construction work conducted on the shore between May 1 and October 31 should be coordinated with the protection service. Standing industrial sites on the seashore near the marine reserve should be strictly prohibited.

The marine reserve plan was sent to the State Ecological Committee, but never reviewed (in fact the plan may never have reached former Department for Protected Natural Areas). Clearly, this first draft of the marine reserve plan had little chance of being adopted. The plan, the justification for the marine reserve, the evaluation of its infrastructure, manning table and transportation links, all needed more work. The proposed protection regime for the coastal area would have been opposed by local authorities and businesses; land plot allotment could have slowed the process.

The need for a marine reserve has been set forward many times. Unfortunately, a detailed study on its concordance has not been made. If in the late 1990s it was relatively easy to set up a PNA, now a reaction has set in and the authorities at every level refuse to cooperate. To set up a marine reserve for the gray whale we will have to start from the very beginning. But now we can use the publicity the gray whale problem has received in Sakhalin. The idea of establishing a marine reserve is supported (at least orally) by the federal department for environmental protection, the fishery industry authorities in charge of marine mammals, and the Sakhalin Energy Company. We could use the letter of the Interdepartmental Ichthyology Committee, with which the Government has already been familiarized, and the resolution of the International Whaling Commission.

According to the Federal Act “On Protected Natural Areas”, a federal marine reserve may be created within the system of the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) or may be subordinated to the State Fishery Committee. Both departments may be interested in taking the designated PNA under their authority: The MNR Department for Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety because the gray whale is listed in the Russian Red Book of rare and endangered species, and the State Fishery Committee because a marine reserve would allow it to better control the fish resources.

The State Fishery Committee may take the lead here because researchers and scientists from fishery institutes have long participated in monitoring the gray whales in Sakhalin, and local Fish Protection Inspectors could enforce the marine reserve protection regime. In any case, there should be an agreement between the Committee, the MNR and other shareholders developed in a form of a supplement to the Marine Reserve Statement. The agreement should specify how these structures are to cooperate on the marine reserve regime protection, whale population monitoring and additional sources of funding. The Sakhalin Region Administration, conservation NGOs (WWF, in particular) and even concerned oil and gas companies (for instance, Sakhalin Energy) may also enter into the agreement.

The marine reserve is envisioned as seasonal, which means that the restrictions listed above will apply only during those periods when the gray whale shoal near northeastern Sakhalin is most numerous and most vulnerable. The protection regime of the marine reserve should be justified and easy to enforce.

Its external border should be defined based on data relating to the regular distance of whales from the shore. This distance should not exceed 10 km from the shore. In accordance with the recommendations of the Scientific Board of the International Whaling Commission, during this period (June to September) test drilling works and oil explorations (primarily seismic acoustic works) should be prohibited. The marine reserve should be awarded the status of a valuable fishery economy water area with the proper dumping norms. Only in-shore vessels with proper fishery mandates should be permitted to enter the marine reserve. Oil tankers and vessels providing services to stationary oil platforms must travel along strictly established lanes.

The protection regime should be enforced on two levels: through licenses issued by federal authorities and their basin and regional executive authorities, and through permanent monitoring of the environment and the whale population at the local level. The Piltun Lighthouse survey (conducted over many years) may be of use on the second level. By establishing observation posts in at least two more places (along the northern and southern marine reserve peripheries) it would be possible to cover 30% of the fattening area. After special training, either Sakhalin State Fishery Committee staff, or whale researchers, or NGO volunteers could act as observers here. Researchers and NGO volunteers would have to be given the authority of public fishery or nature conservation inspectors in order to record violations of the protection regime in accordance with the current legislation. Public initiatives to save the gray whale could be supported through grants: the world conservation community has taken a great interest the fate of the gray whale off Sakhalin.

But the first step toward saving the gray whale should be taken today by arranging a working meeting of representatives from the Ministry of Natural Resources, the State Fishery Committee and NGOs to draft a Marine Reserve Statement.

V. A. Spiridonov,
WWF Russian Office

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