Work has begun on a 4,130 km oil pipeline — the longest pipeline in the world’s largest country — in Siberia. The plan is to feed the growing demand for oil in China and other energy-hungry East Asian countries.
The government of Sakha Republic, better known as Yakutia, backs the pipeline and argues that the whole region will benefit economically because of it. But the area’s indigenous Evenk people are complaining that their age-old way of life is in danger.
At first Nikolai Martynov, an ethnic Evenk, thought natural resources would bring his people wealth. But he says thousands of reindeer have been “driven away by the building work for the pipeline and other projects and we have fewer and fewer”. “Selling the meat and fur is no longer profitable,” says Martynov, who has been a deer herder for 45 years.
He lives in Khotustir, a community located near the pipeline, which is home to 2,000 people. The Evenk live in villages scattered across an expanse of Siberian forest known as “taiga”. They have an unreliable income and depend on the nature around them — or on a small amount of manual labour offered to them by the energy companies.
Densely forested hills stretch as far as the eye can see, but the region also boasts a gold mine and there are plans to exploit uranium too. Railway workers are busy constructing a new track linking the capital Yakutsk with the main southern Siberian network.
The River Aldan is also being exploited as an energy source. One firm plans to construct no less than five hydroelectric power plants. It promises jobs. But Martynov is not convinced. “The last time the company employed people from my village, our salaries dried up. We are still owed four months’ wages,” he says.
The company that is building the oil pipeline forecasts that oil consumption in China and its East Asian neighbours will grow by more than 50 per cent by 2010 and more than double by 2020. It recently announced there would be jobs for more than 1,000 Chinese construction workers, but only 200 for indigenous people.
Pavel Anisimov, leader of the Khotustir community, says he is disappointed the work has started on the pipeline, even though the final agreement between the firm and the government of Yakutia has yet to be signed.
According to a Yakutia government spokesman, “a contract will be signed, compensation to the indigenous people will be granted. The whole republic is set to gain from the revenue.”
Originally, the pipeline would have run just 800m from the shores of Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest body of fresh water and a unique home for many rare species. But after protests from environmentalists Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the pipeline would be rerouted well away from the lake.
Viktor Kuznetsov, executive director of the Association of Minority Peoples, said since 2001, the number of reindeer in the Irkutsk region — on which the Evenk economy depends — has diminished by 10 per cent.
BBC News
