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| Images courtesy of MODIS Rapid Response Project at NASA/GSFC |
The Caspian Sea, the largest inland body of water on Earth with a total surface area of 371,000 square kilometres and one of the world's smallest seas, geographically represents the intersection of Europe and Asia. This explains the uniqueness of its biodiversity and the strategical importance of its enormous oil and gas supplies, which have been the main points of concern for Azerbaijan, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and Turkmenistan—the countries surrounding the Sea.
However, environmental issues have rarely been a high priority for the national governments, nor have they been a major concern for private companies operating in the region. Cooperation among States with respect to environmental issues is vitally important in order to prevent a dramatic decline of the Caspian Sea before it is too late, as has happened to the Aral Sea. (See UN Chronicle, Issue 1, 1999, page 38, "Dry Tears of the Aral".)
The area is home to 400 unique species, but the population of some of these species has been close to an unstable equilibrium, which means they will face extinction if the ecological situation does not change for the better. The reason for this threat is the agricultural run-off, saturated in chemical substances, that kills thousands of living species whose immune systems are sensitive to the changes in the water's composition. The situation has been worsened by the careless extraction of resources leading to the spills from the natural oil and gas drilling process. These by-products of commercial activity in the region have resulted in significant soil, land and water contamination. In addition, the construction of gigantic industrial refining complexes has led to the destruction of the coastal line, causing damage to many settlements surrounding the Caspian Sea.
The Volga and Ural rivers, which cross the territory of Russia and flow into the Caspian, have been the major source of untreated waste disposal into the Sea. Heavy industry has been responsible for contamination of these rivers, having disposed of sewage into the rivers for years. The financial difficulties many industrial complexes have been facing since the 1990s have made the installation of recycling devices impossible.
During the cold-war era, enormous natural resources in the Caspian basin had been the major source of economic prosperity for two surrounding countries: Iran and the Soviet Union. The region had become the world's oil production centre by the end of the twentieth century. Extraction of non-renewable natural gas and oil was so extensive that it was decided to extend drilling into the Caspian Sea. The overwhelming results of decades of over-exploitation of the Caspian resources and the neglectful attitudes towards potential environmental risks were first made known after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The consequences were the combined result of man-made activity and natural processes. Thus, the natural rise of the Caspian sea level, which has not yet been explained scientifically, creates additional concern for all surrounding countries. According to scientific data, the Sea has risen more than 2.2 metres since 1978, resulting in floods that have damaged a number of municipal structures and roads and destroyed human settlements. Climate change has also led to inevitable changes in the biological productivity of some species.
The Caspian Sea accounts for 90 per cent of the world's caviar production. The black caviar has always been a synonym of prosperity and a high living standard for those involved in the business. In the 1970s and 1980s, the rapid decline in sturgeon stock due to overfishing and water pollution became evident, but preventive measures were not taken in time. As a result, their population has been significantly reduced. Historically, Iran and the former Soviet Union were major caviar exporters.
The recent Caspian oil and gas boom also has had a devastating impact on human health. When western oil consortiums came to the region in the 1990s, citizens of surrounding States were promised prosperity, but in reality it has never reached them. Oil has been flowing through the pipelines to the West, bringing profits in the millions to companies operating in the region, while the population has been receiving none of the wealth.
Historically, many collective farms created during the Soviet Union period were located very close to the oil and gas reserve fields at a time when extraction of resources was not extensive. However, during the last decade, oil and gas extraction has expanded significantly into the steppes due to the rising number of commercial projects. Local communities are located very close to gigantic oil and gas fields, and as a result of short-sighted resource exploitation, local people have had to bear a heavy impact on their health.
Berezovka, one of the settlements located among the steppe lands of western Kazakhstan, is a vivid example. Only several kilometres away from Karachaganak, one of the nation's largest petroleum fields, Berezovka's population has been suffering from a number of illnesses (see graphs), and the mortality rate has steadily increased.
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| Source: Crude Accountability |
The results of a small study undertaken by Crude Accountability, a non-governmental organization which focuses on environmental protection and justice issues in the Caspian basin and which has implemented an environmental health programme in the area, are disturbing. Among nearly 200 students surveyed in 2003, unusual symptoms and illnesses included memory loss, hair loss and muscular-skeletal problems (see graphs). The lack of environmental education among the native Kazakh people and the insufficient health care in remote areas make the situation even worse. Berezovka is not the only village in the Caspian region that feels the negative impact of petroleum extraction on the health of its citizens.
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| Source: Crude Accountability |
There is no special environmental regulation to deal with situations similar to that in Berezovka. According to the norms of Kazakhstan's national law, the village must be relocated as a settlement in a "sanitary-protection zone", and people should be compensated for damages. However, few commercial firms are willing to provide compensation for the negative consequences of their businesses. The probable reason is simple: these companies are not willing to absorb the costs involved. But the reality is that people's lives are priceless and cannot be quantified in monetary terms.
Environmental regulations have only recently become a major concern in the former States of the Soviet Union and there are now hopeful signs that this will lead to greater environmental protection of the Caspian Sea.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, adopted in 1982, identifies navigational rights, territorial sea limits, the legal status of resources on the seabed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, the conservation and management of living marine resources and other important features. However, the Caspian Sea is beyond the jurisdiction of the Convention, and the norms of the international law of the sea do not apply to it. The Caspian needs specific legal regulation because of its uniqueness: it is neither a sea nor a lake.
More than ten years ago, the littoral Caspian States—Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation and Turkmenistan—agreed on two fundamentally important points: the exclusive rights to Caspian resources belong to them, and the Convention regarding the status of the Caspian Sea may be adopted only through the mutual approval of these States. In reality, the negotiations have been complicated because of a divergence of opinions on important international issues, such as navigation, fishery, natural resources and the environment.
The position of the States concerning the division of the Caspian deserves special attention. The Russian Federation suggested dividing the Caspian seabed according to a modified median line, while the water surface would remain for general use. In other words, the seabed and the water surface should be considered as objects with separate sets of regulations. Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan suggest similar bimodal schemes: the water area and seabed must be considered as separate objects and be subject to independent regulations. However, Iran proposed to either establish a condominium regime or divide the Caspian into five national sectors, including Iran's 20-per-cent share. These and other points of contention on various Caspian issues have complicated negotiations.
"Final adjustment
concerning the Caspian status will be achieved through bilateral and
trilateral agreements when the whole seabed of the Caspian Sea is divided into five zones."
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The first step towards the creation of an effective Caspian regime was taken by the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan in 1998 when they reached agreement on identifying sovereign rights regarding the exploitation of the Caspian interior resources. Four years later, in May 2002, they signed a Protocol to the agreement establishing the geographical position of the median line. Later that year, the Presidents of the Russian Federation and Azerbaijan also signed an agreement on the division of the contiguous Caspian seabed, which identifies the median line according to which the parties to the treaty would extract mineral resources. In 2003, a similar agreement was signed between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Finally, a trilateral agreement identifying the junction point of all the median lines was signed by the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, which specifies that the northern 64 per cent of the sub-surface boundaries were to be divided, giving 19 per cent to the Russian Federation, 18 per cent to Azerbaijan and 27 per cent to Kazakhstan.
The special representative of the Russian President in the Caspian region, Viktor Kaljuzhnij, stated that "final adjustment concerning the Caspian status will be achieved through bilateral and trilateral agreements when the whole seabed of the Caspian Sea is divided into five zones". However, there is still no agreement signed by all five littoral States, which leaves the Caspian status still undefined. |
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