Posted on 09 February
2011
Rome, Italy: Colossal deep-sea gas fields
in the eastern Mediterranean’s Levant Sea
are causing a scramble to start drilling
– while concerns for irreversible damage
to outstanding marine biodiversity, as well
as legally binding restrictions on deep-sea
exploitation, are being ignored.
“The deep-sea floor
in the Levant is teeming with life of a
very special and unique kind. WWF strongly
condemns blind drilling on biodiversity
hotspots that could cause irreversible damage,”
said Dr Sergi Tudela, Head of Fisheries
at WWF Mediterranean.
“These unique marine
ecosystems are particularly fragile, and
vulnerable to external interference – they
have evolved in a highly stable, low-energy
environment which has led to the creation
of exceptionally rare ecosystems.”
The recently discovered
Leviathan gas field, 135 km off the coast
of Israel, is the world’s biggest deepwater
gas find in a decade – with an estimated
volume of 16 trillion cubic feet of gas
– while the West Nile Delta gas field, discovered
earlier this year, lies in Egyptian waters,
80 km northwest of Alexandria.
But on these two areas
sits a unique and delicate marine ecosystem,
whose rich biological communities host rare
species of deep-sea sponges, worms, molluscs
and cold water corals – some of which are
thousands of years old.
The Levant Sea is protected
by such laws as a Mediterranean-wide ban
on destructive trawl fishing beyond the
depth of 1,000 metres by the UN’s General
Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean,
and encompasses two deep-sea Fisheries Restricted
Areas where other potentially harmful activities
are also limited – in recognition of the
sea bed’s value and fragility.
The Nile Delta area
hosts a unique biological community which
relies on gases seeping from the sea bed,
rather than on sunlight like most life on
Earth – and has been shortlisted for designation
as a Specially Protected Area of Mediterranean
Importance (SPAMI).
The European Union’s
Marine Strategy Framework Directive, meanwhile,
calls on EU Member States to protect the
marine environment at European and international
levels from any human activity that is likely
to have a significant impact on the marine
environment – and specifically to achieve
or maintain good environmental status across
the Mediterranean, including the Aegean-Levantine
seas.
WWF is calling on the
eastern Mediterranean states – particularly
on Cyprus, Egypt, Israel and Lebanon – and
on the European Union, to ensure that the
highest environmental standards are set
regarding current and prospective developments
in deep-sea floor drilling for gas and oil
in the eastern Mediterranean, including
exploratory drilling and future commercial
exploitation.
Environmental Impact
Assessments (EIAs) must be urgently carried
out – and acted upon. To avoid irreversible
damage, industrial development and drilling
should be ruled out on deep-sea areas deemed
to harbour the most valuable biological
communities and unique species.
“Careful and comprehensive
Environmental Impact Assessments should
be carried out specifically to account for
the potential effects of drilling on the
integrity, structure and functioning of
these deep-sea ecosystems – before any gas
explorers even set foot in this part of
the Mediterranean,” said Tudela.
“Once a deep-sea community
has been drilled through, it can take a
millennium or more before the unique micro-ecosystem
grows again – so the most fragile and valuable
species and under-sea areas must be left
untouched by gas development.”
Several legally binding
agreements oblige countries to go through
comprehensive EIAs before oil and gas exploration
in the region can be approved, the most
recent being the Offshore Protocol – or
the ‘Protocol for the Protection of the
Mediterranean Sea Against Pollution Resulting
from Exploration and Exploitation of the
Continental Shelf and the Seabed and its
Subsoil’, which entered into force in December
2010.
This Offshore Protocol
states that any potential deep-sea exploitation
activities – including oil or gas exploration
and development drilling – must be subject
to authorisation based on a thorough EIA.
Controls are even higher for specially protected
areas, like the zone housing these new gas
fields.
