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# 1, 1997

AXE UNDER THE BENCH

Robert MOISEEV, Candidat of Economic Scince

It was known for decades about the potential availability of rich oil and natural gas resources in the shelves of the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk. The attempts at exploration and drilling of oil in the Sea of Okhotsk off shores of Magadan region and Sakhalin have been made for the recent ten years. It was given much coverage by the press. However, there was no broad scale movement in defense of the Sea ofOkhotsk. A possible reason might be that, according to Russian ethics, "paper can stand everything", while as for the oil spills in the sea shelf, thank Goodness, we were spared. Only a bunch of scientists objected. But who cares about their opinion?
On January 24, 1994, the Deputy Chairman of Rosgeolkom (Russian Committee on Geology) approved the Russian Far East Program on Licensing of Oil and Gas Resources Use till the year 2000. Experts of the Kamchatka Institute for Management of Natural Resources, in behalf of Kamchatka Governor prepared letters addressed to the Russian President, Chairman of Russian Government, and Chairman of Rosgeolkom with a request to call off the Program and hold a series of discussions, as well as issue recommendation to make decisions on such issues on the national level, not within a certain department.
In October of 1995 we knew about another program under way, the Program of Exploration and Combined Development of Hydrocarbon Resources of the Russian Far East Sea Shelf. Next step was the Concept of Research and Development of the Hydrocarbon Resources in Sea Shelf of the Russian Far East and Russian North East (the Sea of Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk, the Bering Sea, the Chukotskoye Sea, the East Siberia Sea), issued in 1996.
The preliminaries over here are passed as promptly as possible as, understandably, oil drilling programs are sure to receive a very hefty funding. But to spend this money reasonably one should study the problem in all aspects so as to determine where's and when's, and how's of oil and gas resource development without possible damage to the established ecological systems.
The resources are rich: biological, mineral, fossil energy, transport, recreational, chemical etc. The ecological systems of the region are complex and diverse.
There is one more organization capable to carry out impartial and diversified research, the Russian Academy of Sciences and its Far Eastern Branch.

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