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Каспинфо сентябрь 2000 |
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Название: Материалы на английском Главные Пункты: *Азербайджанской общественности запрещают защищать животный мир Каспия: работающая в стране компания BP не позволяет НКО вести экологический мониторинг в местах бурения. * Более 20 министров окружающей среды встретились в Норвегии для обсуждения самых острых экологических проблем. * Программа <Каспийское море>: Угрозы экологии Каспия от добычи и транспортировки нефти - многочисленны и их число продолжает увеличиваться. * Пресс-релиз о результатах семинара ИСАР <Взаимоотношения НПО и транснациональных корпораций>, Алматы, 10-12 сентября. (20.09.2000) Полный Текст Материалы на английском МАТЕРИАЛЫ НА АНГЛИЙСКОМ ***** Azeri Society is not allowed to protect the Caspian Wildlife BP as one of the most powerful Foreign Oil Company working in Azerbaijan is being developed a huge oil resources in Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian sea. As result of this a big pollution of the Caspian is going on. According to reliable source closed to the Azerbaijan State Committee on Ecology as result of only the drilling all drilling muds and cuttings have been discharging from Chirag and Shah-Daniz oilfields, both in deep and shallow waters. Besides of this a lot of waste waters both from offshore and Sangachal terminal are being discharged into the Caspian. As result of this activities we can observe a big seal mortality and decreasing of fish and other fauna population. But Azeri society is isolated from the Caspian protection. BP does not allow for NGO and any other public/scientific society to carry out any public monitoring or participate in any environmental protection activity, in spite of that David Woodward, president of the company promised to do this several times. As State Committee on Ecology source said the FOCs working in Azerbaijan are conducting a local monitoring using exclusively foreign specialists. And results of such kind of monitorings are not given to the public society. Society has no any access to this information. BP along with others FOCs in Azerbaijan is continuing pollution of the Caspian sea as it has been carrying out by State Oil Company in Soviet time. Caspian flora and fauna asks for help. Pan-Caspian Environmental NGO Alliance ___________ ***** Management report "The Future of Oil and Gas in the Russian Far East" is now available for oil and gas professionals from Russian Petroleum Investor, Inc. web site http://www.rpi-inc.com Anticipated Developments and Implications for Investors, Suppliers, and Service Providers While other oil provinces in Russia stagnate, the Russian Far East is poised to attract tens of billions of dollars in foreign investment. With their abundant natural resources, proximity to growth markets of Asia-Pacific, and easy access to export routes, Sakhalin and other regions of this vast territory continue to offer significant opportunities to foreign investors. Over the next decade, foreign oil companies alone are expected to invest $20 billion to $30 billion in the Russian Far East. Billions more will be spent on transportation, engineering, communications, housing, power-generation and other infrastructure projects. All the major industry "players," including Exxon, Mobil, Shell, Kvaerner John Brown, Daewoo, Caterpillar, Halliburton, Mitsubishi, Marubeni and Mitsui have made major commitments to projects in Sakhalin, Magadan, Khabarovsk, Kamchatka, and Primorye. Many more are in the pipeline. But these projects represent only a small sampling of opportunities available to foreign investors. Local authorities and international industry experts project regional investment requirements at over $50 billion by the year 2020. But doing business in the Russian Far East poses great risks, and only executives who are well informed should pursue opportunities in this part of the world. This is why FT Energy, together with RPI, Inc., has published the most authoritative report to date on this region: The Future of Oil and Gas in the Russian Far East: Anticipated Developments and Implications for Investors, Suppliers, and Service Providers The report addresses the principal issues facing foreign energy companies and service/supply organizations active in the Russian Far East. It allows the reader to develop a strategic approach to the region as a whole, while simultaneously providing an understanding of the tactical issues associated with each individual region. Report Highlights List of Contents Also check out other products form RPI, Inc. FSU Energy Portal Products RPI and WTE Consulting Services Contacts Breaking News RPI and PlanEcon Electronic Daily Newsletter Include Your Product Special Request RPI and FT Energy Company Reports 2000 Russian Oil and Gas Statistics Yearbook Management Reports The Future of Oil&Gas in the Russian Far East The Future of Central Asian Gas The Future of Russian Gas Export The Future of Iran's Oil and Gas Industry Russian Oil Industry Analysis - Executive Briefing prpeared for Indian Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. August 1999 Client Studies Maps ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PRESS NOTE INFORMAL MINISTERIAL MEETING ON THE ENVIRONMENT BERGEN, NORWAY 15-17TH SEPTEMBER, 2000 More than 20 environment ministers from around the world will meet this week to discuss international environment and development issues. The meeting is chaired by Norway's Minister of Environment, Ms Siri Bjerke, and co-chaired by Ghana's Minister of Environment, Mr Cletus A. Avoka. Key agenda issues are: - climate change - sustainable energy - preparations for the 10-year review of the Rio Summit : Earth Summit 2002* - institutional questions. URL www.earthsummit2002.org INTERNATIONAL DIALOGUE SESSION The dialogue session is open for accredited press. For the first time in the history of this series of Ministerial Meetings, the event will incorporate a dialogue session between Ministers and major group representatives of Non-Governmental Organisations (incl. women and indigenous peoples), Business & Industry, Trade Unions and Local Government. Co-ordinated by UNED Forum, it is hoped that this session will demonstrate the value of co-operative multistakeholder dialogue in high-level, international decision-making, as well as identifying key issues to be addressed by both governments and stakeholders. Representatives have been asked to consult their global colleagues and produce position papers on the key issues. Poverty Eradication will be the overarching theme of the dialogue session, specifically addressing: 1. Access to Water for Basic Needs 2. Access to Energy for a Sustainable Future Introduction to Issues The session is built around the concept of a poverty-energywater nexus. There are intrinsic links between sustainable access to water and energy and the satisfaction of basic needs. Despite the extensive water and sanitation investments made in recent decades, 1.2 billion people globally are without access to safe drinking water, and 3 billion people are without basic sanitation. 2 billion people lack access to adequate, affordable and convenient sources of energy. Freshwater Issues to be addressed incl: Resource Management; Ecosystem Protection; Financial Investment and Regulation; Institutional Reform; Appropriate Technology Energy Issues to be addressed incl: Climate Change; Tax/Subsidies; International Cooperation; Education; Energy Efficiency Press Conference Venue: Radisson SAS Hotel Norge Opening address by Ms. Siri Bjerke, Norwegian Minister of Environment Friday 15th 11:00am Launch of the World Resources 2000-2001 Report "People and Ecosystems - The Fraying Web of Life". The press is invited to lunch at Hotel Norge immediately after the press conference. Friday 15th 13.45 - 14.30pm Presentation by Mr. Jonathan Lash, President World Resources Institute Friday 15th 14.30 - 18.00pm Multi-stakeholder Dialogue Session Co-ordinated by UNED Forum The following two days of meetings are closed to all but Ministers and their delegations. Sunday 17th approx. 13.00pm Press briefing will be given at the closing of the Ministerial Meeting For more information on the Dialogue Session, please contact Danielle Morley, Project Co-ordinator UNED Forum Email dmorley@earthsummit2002.org To attend the conference, please contact Lisbeth Falkenberg, Ministry of Environment, Norway Tel.: + 47 22 24 57 11 Fax: + 47 22 24 27 72 Email: lisbeth.falkenberg@md.dep.no For Participants list and further programme details, visit www.miljo.no ___________________________________________________________________________ DISTRIBUTED BY THE ASIA PACIFIC FORUM OF ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNALISTS(APFEJ) P.O.Box26,434/3-SriJayawardenapura,Sri Lanka. http://www.oneworld.org/slejf phone:(+94-1)829519(4 lines)Fax:(+94-1)826607 Email: sobacine@sri.lanka.net Post message; environmentaljournalists@egroups.com Subscribe; environmentaljournalists-subscribe@egroups.com Archive; http://www.egroups.com/group/environmentaljournalists ***** The "Caspian Sea" programme The ecological threats to the Caspian Sea from oil exploration and transport are enormous and growing 3.3.1 Introduction The problem. The Caspian Sea is seriously threatened by pollution. It is a multi-national problem and the Volga contributes considerably to the pollution load of especially nutrients. Much of the coast is considered to be moderately polluted, but parts of the Caspian adjacent to Azerbaijan are extremely polluted, particularly Baku Bay and the waters of Sumgayit. Regional initiatives. Although the Caspian littoral states and FSU have been involved for many years in scientific investigation of the environmental problems of the Caspian Sea, there have been few positive actions to ameliorate the degradation of the region's environment. The lack of any formal regional framework within which to determine and carry out positive actions is currently hampering efforts. Agreement is further hampered by the presence of large oil reserves below the sea, and the disputes over the status of the Caspian as a sea or lake, which will affect ownership of the resources. However, in 1994 a Regional Committee for the Rational Exploitation and Conservation of the Biological Resources of the Caspian (the Regional Committee) was established. International donor support. Shortly afterwards, in April 1995, agreements were reached between the Caspian littoral states and a joint World Bank and United Nations mission, which defined a first phase of a Caspian Sea Environment Programme (CSEP). A meeting held in Istanbul in May 1997 introduced the Tacis project and the potential Global Environmental Facility (GEF) project to the riparian countries. Since then UNDP has been preparing the GEF project, which was supposed to run in parallel to the Tacis project to form a complete Caspian Environment Programme. This Tacis project is financed within the framework of the European Union's Tacis inter-state environmental action programme, and is based on the initial CSEP agreements. Strategy and action plan. The 1st phase of the Caspian Sea Environment Programmme CSEP has the objective to promote sustainable development and management. The specific objectives have been defined as: 1 To foster the collaborative spirit between the countries in the region, which has weakened in recent years, as a result of the collapse of the USSR and the relative isolation of the Islamic Republic of Iran; 2 To reinforce institutional capacity, strengthen national, regional, and local environment agencies, improve pollution monitoring capabilities, establish networks for regional emergency response contingency planning, and public awareness; 3 To develop common approaches to national environmental reviews, status and trends reports, the preparation of legislation and harmonisation of standards, strategies for the conservation of natural resources and the coastal zone management. This should be encouraged through the preparation of a Caspian Sea environmental priorities study, which will be a comprehensive and short to medium-term analysis of necessary investment and other actions; and 4 To define on the basis of this study urgent investment possibilities and implement feasibility studies on these investment possibilities An important element in the strategy is to get international agreement on a Framework Convention for the marine environment of the Caspian. Since 1995, the UNDP has been working towards this goal. 3.3.2 The Tacis support The Tacis project and the UNDP/GEF project have similar aims and modalities, and they are intended to form two complementary components of the Caspian Sea Environment Programme (CSEP). Work on preparation of the CSEP was initiated by UNDP under its project development facility stage (PDF). However, preparation of the GEF component was considerably delayed and is expected to be in full swing only after completion of the current Tacis contract in the beginning of 2000. This delay caused the project to suffer considerably in its effectiveness and efficiency. Due to the above mentioned delays with the GEF component, the main expected results from the Tacis project, set out in the TOR presented presented in May 1997 in Instanbul, were amended, and down tuned after the inception phase of the project as follows: Establishment of the Programme co-ordinating unit (PCU); Establishment of four thematic centres (dealing with desertification, sea level fluctuation, fisheries, data gathering); Work towards the preparation of the Strategic Action Plan (rather than a prepared Strategic Action Plan); Work towards the preparation of an urgent investment portfolio (rather than a prepared urgent investment portfolio). The following organisations/institutions take part in the project: Institute for Fisheries (Astrakhan), Caspian Sea Inspectorate (Baku), Caspian Institute for data information and management (Baku), KazNIIMOSK (Almaty), Institute for Desert Flora and Fauna (Ashkhabad), Ministries/Committees for the Environment in five countries of the Caspian Sea, and the PCU. The conclusions, learned and recommendations presented below are based on file and dossier studies, background papers prepared by NIS experts for this evaluation and interviews by the evaluation team with some 20 representatives of different stakeholders in Moscow, Baku and Almaty. 3.3.3 Conclusions Relevance The Caspian Sea Environment Programme is the single biggest environmental project in the region. Unlike the Aral Sea crisis, the environmental problems are severe, but the solutions seem to be more manageable. In terms of EU environmental policy the programme is very relevant. Effectiveness and efficiency The effectiveness of the interventions appear to have been quite limited so far. Because of co-ordination problems between the donors in the Programme, the initially defined outputs in the programme will not be reached at the end of the project. The fact that the UNDP contribution in the programme started very late was the principal cause for the downgrading of the initial expected outputs from "submitting a Strategic Action Plan and Project Investment Programme" to "working towards the SAP and PIP". The project is implemented well by the contractor and the "revised workplan" is likely to be implemented as planned. A serious problem is the lack of (reliable) data and poor exchange of data. This prevents making a proper inventory of problems. The maximum fee level for NIS experts applied for Tacis contracts has been mentioned as a barrier for utilising top national experts on the project team , thus lowering efficiency. Impact of the Tacis assistance: The Tacis assistance can be credited with two positive developments: Countries and relevant institutions involved are talking again and mistrust between them is reducing; For the first time, environmental issues of the Caspian Sea are being tackled in an integrated way and in a joint effort. Project cycle management The project cycle management from the side of the Commission is considered to be inadequate. Contracting procedures are slow and the long periods in contracting and revision of contracts seriously hamper the efficiency in project progress. The Commission does not show clear leadership in this project, and the Commission services (Task Manager) have insufficient capacity to adequately respond to project implementation problems. These and other weaknesses in the project management capacity of the Commission are raised in progress reports, monitoring reports and are mentioned by almost all parties interviewed. A telling sign for the inadequate communication between the Commission, the Contractor and the Tacis monitors is the disagreement between the contractor and the monitoring team on a formal issue i.e. should the monitors take the original objectives and planned outputs of the TOR, or should they take the inception phase workplan as the target setting framework for monitoring project implementation and progress? Lessons learned There is to limited involvement of -and poor communication between -other relevant line Ministries at the on-set of the Programme (especially in relation to the Convention of the Caspian Sea). Internal communication (within institutions involved) needs considerable improvement; Geo-political/economical discussions and interests hamper the drafting of common environmental action (Caspian Environmental Convention still not completed and agreed upon); Environmental issues are low on the political agenda of the litoral countries of the Caspian Sea. The aimed for framework convention needs agreement on clean methods of oil exploration, and shipping. the Gurev nuclear power plant, the Volga river pollution, coastal management etc. Given the fact that these are the drivers of the economy of the litoral states, it may prove very difficult to get agreement on an environment convention. More difficult then in the Black Sea where tourism and fishing are two strong win-win sectors. 3.3.4 Recommendations On-going Tacis support for the CSEP is fully justified. The project is implemented well, and has high visibility. At this stage in time, the Tacis project and the other international assistance programmes are the only guarantee that the Caspian environment will (at least somehow) remain on the political agenda of the countries involved. Any further follow-up activity will need to anticipate on the identified institutional difficulties and stress the importance of drafting a high quality SAP, which is to be agreed upon by all relevant institutions and littoral states. The process of drafting this SAP would need to systematically involve the research institutions currently involved in the thematic centres, the international oil industry, NGOs the littoral Governments and the international donor community, in order to raise its acceptability. Integration of the Volga river into the Caspian Strategic Action Plan is desirable and needs serious consideration in TIPE programming. ***** Press Release ISAR Seminar Brings Together Environmental NGOs of the Caspian Region Representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from the Caspian Basin (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan) met in Almaty, Kazakhstan September 10-12 to participate in the seminar, ТDeveloping Principles for Interaction between NGOs and Transnational Corporations (TNCs) in the Caspian Region. The seminar was jointly organized by ISAR (Initiative for Social Action and Renewal in Eurasia) and Green Salvation, an environmental NGO based in Almaty. Designed as a response to NGO concerns about the increasing influence of TNCs throughout the Caspian Basin, the seminar provided NGOs with a forum to discuss past experiences of interaction with TNCs. The seminar participants also examined the informational and legal aspects of interaction with TNCs and discussed joint strategies for developing solidarity in action. During the seminar, representatives from organizations in the Russian Far East, Kyrgyzstan, and the US shared their experiences and knowledge about effective collaboration among NGOs in other regions where the activities of TNCs have a significant influence on the environment. As a result of these discussions, a memorandum on NGO solidarity in interaction with TNCs was developed and will be distributed widely in the near future. On the final day of the seminar, the NGO participants and representatives from TNCs extracting natural resources in the Caspian region (BP Amoco, Kumtor, OKIOK, Shell, Tengizchevroil, Texaco) participated in a roundtable session. During the course of the dialogue, the NGOs expressed their common concerns about the increasing oil and gas extraction in the entire Caspian region. They also discussed various issues related to interaction with TNCs, particularly the question of access to information. All of the TNC representatives participating in the forum stressed the readiness of their companies to support independent environmental monitoring. The seminar was the second in a series organized through ISARХs Caspian program. The first seminar, held in Baku, Azerbaijan this March, resulted in the creation of a public environmental monitoring network. The next seminar will address the role of NGOs in creating alternative paths of development for the Caspian region and will be held in Astrakhan, Russia in January 2001. ISARХs Caspian Program is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Open Society Institute, Trust for Mutual Understanding and Academy for Educational Development. Kate Watters ISAR-DC 202-387-3034 Caspinfo Service - Additional information on ISARХs work in the Caspian region is available in English at |