Integrating Biodiversity Conservation into Oil & Gas Development
Report
Increasingly, areas of interest for oil and gas development are also being recognized and valued for their biodiversity resources. Biodiversity, the complex web of genes, species, ecosystems and ecological processes that sustain life on Earth, provides human society with food, medicines, natural resources, ecological services and spiritual and aesthetic benefits. Yet, this biodiversity is under greater threat than ever before from human activities. While oil and gas operations are often not the biggest threat to biodiversity in an area, they can have a wide range of negative impacts on ecosystems. In some cases, company activities may also make a positive contribution to biodiversity conservation. With increasing demand for energy and the likelihood that oil and gas will be used to meet much of this demand over the next several decades, the risk to biodiversity from energy development projects is expected to increase.
The juxtaposition of energy needs and biodiversity values has led to some difficult challenges for both the energy industry and the conservation community. For energy companies, the challenge is to find a way to meet the public demand for abundant, low-cost oil and gas products and, at the same time, meet society’s expectations for corporate social and environmental responsibility, including biodiversity protection. Many leading companies are finding strategic, operational, reputational and financial benefits to including biodiversity conservation in their decision-making, policies and operations. For conservation organizations, the challenge is to be a strong voice for biodiversity conservation while working with industry to find the balance between the potential threats that oil and gas development represents and the opportunities for harnessing the influence, expertise and resources of energy companies for conservation efforts.
To meet these challenges, several leading energy companies and conservation organizations have come together to form the Energy and Biodiversity Initiative (EBI), to produce practical guidelines, tools and models for integrating biodiversity conservation into upstream oil and gas development. This report presents a summary of the analysis and conclusions of the EBI to date. While this report and other products of the EBI focus specifically on biodiversity, it is important to note that biodiversity conservation is an integral component of the goals of sustainable development. There are many other important issues surrounding energy development and its environmental and social impacts, including the rights of indigenous people, the dependence of local communities on biodiversity, overlaps between lands set aside for legal protection and lands customarily owned or used by indigenous people, the role of governments, the impact of oil spills associated with shipping and the contribution of use of fossil fuels to global climate change. While we have chosen to address only biodiversity issues in this Initiative, we recognize that biodiversity cannot and should not be considered in isolation, but can only be managed properly if it is considered in conjunction with other sustainable development issues and potential areas of impact, including social and economic considerations, pollution and health issues.
PowerPoint Presentation
This set of PowerPoint slides is a tool for raising awareness among collegues and partners of the importance of integrating biodiversity conservation into oil and gas development. These slides present basic background on biodiversity and oil and gas issues, discuss how to address the key questions that formed the framework of the Energy and Biodiversity Initiative (EBI) and provide information about the Initiative, including the EBI's recommendations.
This tool is designed to be adapted by the user for each need or situation, choosing only those slides that will be relevant for a particular audience or topic. While some of the slides that are specific to the EBI cannot be altered from the existing template, others that present basic arguments and ideas can be inserted into the user's own template or presentation. A detailed set of notes is provided with each slide or set of slides, to guide the user in creating his or her own presentation.
The set of slides can be downloaded from the EBI website.