The Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and Far East is appealing to the public and mass media to SUPPORT THE PROTEST ACTION OF SAKHALIN’S INDIGENOUS PEOPLES!

January 20, 2005 has been chosen as a day of Protest Action on the part of the Sakhalin Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, with the support of Sakhalin’s social movements and parties.

Two pipelines pumping oil and gas from the Okhotsk Sea shelf will cross
the length and breadth of Sakhalin Island. These pipelines will cross
1,103 rivers and brooks comprising salmon spawning areas and will split
the migration routes of wild animals and domestic reindeer in two. The
full length of the land pipelines will lie on seismic zones of potential
earthquake magnitude 8-9 and will cross 44 tectonic faults of different
types no less than 55 times. The potential for danger to the population
is clear and the impact these projects will have on Sakhalin Island’s
eco-system and close-lying areas of water is undoubted.

And yet these projects are already being implemented by transnational
companies Exxon, Shell, British Petroleum, Sakhalin Energy and their
subsidiaries, in serious violation of Russian legislation and
international standards.

The economic benefit for Russia of the production sharing agreements
signed between the Russian Federation and transnational companies is
challenged by experts. Eight years of oil and gas extraction on Sakhalin
Island have provided no benefit whatsoever to the island’s population.
Not even a supply of gas to Sakhalin’s settlements has been provided, as
was promised eight years ago. But half a million people have begun to
feel the damaging effects of project implementation. A key sector of the
economy – fishing – is suffering losses and phasing down.

The indigenous peoples of Sakhalin - the Nivkhi, Nanai and Ulta, who
have a traditional self-subsistence economy based on fishing, hunting,
reindeer herding and wild plant gathering – disproportionately suffer
the negative ecological consequences of project implementation.
Structural engineering has destroyed reindeer pastures and forests,
works on the shelf have led to an abrupt decline in fishing and fishing
limits for the indigenous population, while traditional handicrafts now
form virtually the indigenous peoples’ only source of livelihood.

Industrial companies take no account of indigenous peoples’ interests.
An analysis of published impact assessments showed that no consideration
was taken of the cumulative, long-term negative impacts on indigenous
traditional lifestyles. There is also an absence of long-term mitigation
programs or programs to adapt indigenous peoples to the serious
ecological consequences of the projects, which will be implemented in
Sakhalin for decades to come. The attempts of indigenous peoples’
organizations to negotiate with industrial companies with regard to
assessing the long-term economic, social and cultural consequences have
failed.

The absence of access to complete and reliable project information, the
disinformation contained in published project documentation and the
companies’ unwillingness to seriously dialogue with indigenous peoples’
organizations have forced them to commence a process of civil protest.

The Vth Congress of Indigenous Peoples of the North of Sakhalin Region,
held on October 29, 2004, came to the following decision: “To commence a
process of defence of our constitutional rights via protest actions
against oil companies violating indigenous peoples’ rights according to
the norms and principles of international justice and Russian
legislation