Global
Environmental Problems in the Caspian Region
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The Caspian
is the largest inland body of water on the planet, with a surface area of
384,400 km2, a volume of 78,700 km3, and a coastline nearly 7,000 km long.
It measures 1200 km from north to south and 200-450 km from east to west. The
Sea is fed by numerous rivers, but it is the Russian Federation's Volga River
which supplies about 82% of the Caspian's annual volume. The Volga is also
one of the major (but not the only) conduits of pollutants to the Caspian,
and its delta is among the major breeding grounds for sturgeon. The Caspian
is considered to have three sections: north, middle, and south. The extreme
northern end is relatively shallow (5.2 m average depth) when compared
to the southern part (980 m average depth).
For much of
the twentieth century, the Caspian was politically shared by two countries —
the Soviet Union and Iran — in accordance with the 1921 Treaty of Moscow.
With the breakdown of communism in the 1980s and the breakup of the Soviet
Union in December 1991, three newly independent republics were added to the
list of Caspian littoral states. Today, five
countries border the Caspian: the Russian Federation, Azerbaijan, Iran,
Turkmenistan and Kazakstan. The Russian Federation coastline on the Caspian
is divided among three of its administrative units: the Republic of Kalmykia,
the Republic of Dagestan, and the Astrakhan Oblast. Two other countries,
Georgia and Armenia, in the surrounding (circum) region are also within the
basin, although they are not on the Caspian's coastline. There are other
politically disputed regions in the basin such as Nagorno-Karabakh, Osetia, and,
of course, the Russian Federation's Republic of Chechnya. Years ago,
political scientist Robert Dahl (1982) wrote about domestic political issues
in terms of their conflict potential. He noted that some issues generated
cooperation, while others generated conflict. He discussed these issues in
terms of "cleavages." Applying his logic to the international
scene, one can take the Caspian as an example. If each of
the five governments which directly border the Caspian easily changes its
alliances with or allegiances to some of the other Caspian states with
respect to various political, economic, environmental, legal and social
issues as they arise, then the likelihood increases that each would tend NOT
to strongly oppose the various policies of the other four Caspian countries:
At some point in the future each government might need the others as allies
in support of a particular policy in which it has a keen interest. Dahl
referred to these situations as crosscutting cleavages (with cleavages
being viewed as political differences). Thus, given a set of politicized
issues, members would shift their positions, sometimes cooperating with
specific nations and, at other times, opposing those nations. In the long
run, it pays to cooperate with these other nations, as there is a good chance
that the nations in the region will be on the same side of a given issue at
some point. Dahl also
referred to reinforced cleavages among groups (in this case, Caspian
states, or even the more inclusive circum-Caspian states). These occur when
sets of states tend to continually be on the same side of various
controversies or issues or have formed an alliance that causes them to
support each other's positions consistently. This means that the division
between the opposing groups becomes more rigid, and higher levels of
political or military conflict become more likely. In the case of reinforced
cleavages, the chance for regional compromise is lowered. The general
points about political and other cleavages raised by Dahl (who was dealing
with domestic politics and democracy) are as follows:
At first
glance, it appears that at present there may be relatively few crosscutting
cleavages in the region. Yet these are needed to foster coalition-building in
the region and cooperation (as opposed to conflict) on a broad set of issues. Global
Environmental Issues Interest in
global environmental issues during the past two decades has grown
considerably. Much of it has centered on the degree to which policymakers at
the national level should be concerned about global environmental changes and
their worldwide impacts on managed and unmanaged ecosystems and on societies.
The most obvious global environmental issues include global warming
and stratospheric ozone depletion. Such issues could be global in cause (the
burning of fossil fuels) or they could be global in effect (again, fossil
fuel burning, ozone depletion) or both. However, there are environmental
problems that are called global, but are really regional, national, or
sub-national. These include desertification, acid rain, water and air
pollution, biodiversity loss, coral bleaching, and tropical deforestation. In
fact, these can be considered global issues, because they result in
widespread interest around the globe. The Caspian region is an area
affected by several environmental changes, some of which are of local cause
and local or regional in effect. Although some of those environmental changes
are locally caused, they are clearly of global interest. Setting The Caspian
is known globally for two key natural resources — oil and natural gas
reserves, and a caviar-producing fish population (sturgeon). Both are highly
valued export commodities, the sale of which can produce sorely-needed
foreign exchange which, in theory at least, can be used for economic
development purposes by the governments of the Caspian's littoral states.
Hundreds of popular articles in international magazines and newspapers have
been written about these resources from political, economic, biological, and
environmental perspectives, as suggested by the headlines in the following graphic.
Oil
exploration around the sea began in the mid-1870s in the Baku region of Azerbaijan.
By the turn of the twentieth century, its contribution to the world's total
oil supply was estimated at 10%. The USSR's Republic of Kazakhstan began in
1979 to exploit a major oil reserve along the Caspian. Since then, estimates
of oil and natural gas reserves have grown sharply, with each of the littoral
states keen on exploiting those reserves for export. Today, several foreign
oil and gas companies have entered into various arrangements with the
littoral states for exploration, production and transport of oil and gas
resources with the hope of being able to export large quantities to markets
around the globe. Supplies of
sturgeon and their eggs (caviar) have dwindled sharply in the 1980s and 1990s
because of overfishing. The recent sharp decline has been blamed on the
breakup of the Soviet Union and therefore the lack of management of this
living marine resource, although the species showed signs of stress during
communist rule as well. Taken for the export value of their highly valued
roe, both by legal and illegal means around the Caspian, sturgeon numbers
have been pushed to such low levels that conservationists and governments
outside the Caspian region feared the possibility of extinction of the
Caspian sturgeon populations, which make up 90% of the world's total of that
species (De Meulenear and Raymakers, 1996). While all of the sturgeon species
are threatened, the three Caspian species are most endangered: Beluga,
Russian sturgeon, and Stellate sturgeon. It is not
possible to address the region's environmental issues or issues related to
natural resource abundance or availability in the Caspian basin without
recognizing the importance of political, cultural, and legal issues.
Separating political and economic considerations from environmental
considerations in the Caspian is not necessarily helpful to an improved
understanding of the problems that the governments along the Caspian shores
face. To do so would be similar to Soviet Union decisions made for land use
in the Aral Sea basin to push for all-out cotton production, decisions which
were divorced from any serious consideration of the environmental
implications of such an agricultural strategy. An over-focus on cotton
production has had grave long-term economic, environmental and human health
consequences for regional inhabitants (Glantz, 1999; Glantz and Zonn, 1991).
Thus, as in all cases where resource exploitation has a possibility of
adversely affecting the environment, policy makers must consider the setting
in which those environmental issues are embedded. Legal
Aspects Inability to
reach agreement on the legal status of the sea among the now five littoral
countries is a major obstacle to intergovernmental cooperation on a variety
of issues. As noted earlier, until 1991, the Caspian was an inland body of
water shared by two sovereign countries: the Soviet Union and Iran. While
some of the five littoral states view the inland body of water as a sea,
others consider it to be a lake. To a person on the street there may be
little importance attached to this distinction. However, to international
legal scholars and to those seeking to claim ownership of Caspian hydrocarbon
resources, this distinction is crucial. From an environmental standpoint, it
is also crucial to determine national responsibility for environmentally
sound management and exploitation of the various natural resources in the
Caspian. the Caspian
were a sea, then the norms of international law of the sea would apply to its
use and management. This means that countries could claim the territorial sea
as well as establish other zones as national jurisdiction, e.g., an Exclusive
Economic Zone and the continental shelf. Each country would then be
responsible for the control and management of living and non-living natural
resources in these areas. the Caspian
is viewed as a lake (i.e., a body of water with no natural outlet to the
global oceans), then the way its resources would be divided among the
littoral states initially depends on the agreement of littoral states. One of
the approaches could be like a slicing of a pie. The edges of the national
borders on the coastline would serve as the points from which lines are drawn
to a middle point or middle line in the center of the lake, with each country
taking ownership of the sea and seabed within its "slice," as shown
in the following maps.
The
importance of this legal determination relates to the management and
exploitation of the Caspian's natural resources such as oil, natural gas, and
the protection of living marine resources, especially fish (and, more
specifically, caviar-producing sturgeon). The Caspian states have changed or
modified their position with respect to the possible legal status of the
Caspian Sea over the last few years. Currently, Russia and Kazakhstan, having
signed a bilateral agreement on the delimitation of the northern part of
Caspian seabed, leaving the waters of the treaty area undelimited and in
their common use. Azerbaijan, supported by Turkmenistan, continues to insist
on the complete partition of the sea, both the seabed and the waters. Iran
calls for a joint development of the sea by all coastal states. However, this
status quo may change any day. The positions of the states involved, subject
to both external factors and internal politics, are not fixed in perpetuity. The
five countries are divided into two groups over the legal issue. Negotiations
continue to be held for the purpose of developing a legal instrument for the
Caspian that would be acceptable to the five states along the Caspian's
shoreline. With the
breakup of the Soviet Union in late 1991, exploitation of the sea's resources
has been undertaken at the national level with little concern for the
interests of other states sharing the Caspian. For example, as noted by
Turkmenistan's Deputy Foreign Minister Kepbanov (1998), Azerbaijan is seeking
to explore and exploit the seabed's oil reserves in parts of the Caspian, the
ownership of which other Caspian states consider still undetermined. As for the
fisheries, no single Caspian government is in a position to impose or enforce
restrictions on when or where fishing can take place, or how many sturgeon
their fishermen (or illegal poachers) should be allowed to take. In fact,
national governments apparently have little control over the poaching of
sturgeon by their own administrative units that border the Caspian (e.g.,
Dagestan). As a result, there has been an obvious over-exploitation of the
various species of sturgeon, and their numbers have been decimated. The high
potential for the annihilation of the Caspian sturgeon population prompted
various environmental groups worldwide to seek adding sturgeon to the
endangered species list. In accordance with the CITES (Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species), this action should lead to a ban
on the international trade of caviar, a highly valued,
foreign-currency-earning commodity. This was clearly a unique (and
last-ditch) effort to protect the remaining standing stock of sturgeon from
legal and illegal fisheries. As a result, Caspian sturgeon have received
protected species status (as of April 1998), and now the international trade
in caviar is monitored by the international community (US Fish and Wildlife
Service, 1998). When the
Caspian was a body of water shared between only two countries, certain controls
were in place on various uses of the sea and its resources. There was some
degree of monitoring of the sea — sea level, biological resources, water
quality, contaminants — even if little was done to correct the various
anthropogenically induced environmental problems that had been identified.
Today, reliable information on environmental conditions is difficult to come
by because of the abrupt end to sustained monitoring activities in the early
1990s. Sea Level
Changes In the 1860s
Cheleken was an island off the Caspian coast of Turkmenistan. The relatively
high sea level at that time cut it off from the mainland. A regional map from
1860 suggests a Caspian level somewhat similar to what it was in the early
1990s when Cheleken was also an island. However, for most of the twentieth
century Cheleken has been a peninsula because the Caspian's level dropped in
the middle decades of the 20th century (Berkeliev, 1996). It is a
scientific and environmental fact that the level of the Caspian has been
fluctuating on all time scales — seasons, years, decades, centuries, and
millennia. In the past 160 years alone it has fluctuated within a range of
3.5 meters (see, for example, D. Ya. Ratkovich, 1993).
In the early
1930s, the Caspian Sea level, which had been considered relatively stable,
suddenly began to drop precipitously. By the mid-1970s it had dropped about 3
meters. During this period, government officials were alarmed that the drop
to this lower level was not only permanent but might also continue its
downward trend. The decline in level would cause major problems for the
sturgeon fisheries, in that the sturgeon's feeding grounds in the shallow
northern part of the Caspian would disappear, replaced by exposed seabed. As
the Caspian's level dropped over those few decades, policy makers, thinking
the drop in level was permanent, allowed if not encouraged human activities
to encroach on the newly exposed seabed and the receding shoreline. The Soviet
government sought to slow down, if not arrest, the drop in Caspian Sea level
by planning in the early 1970s for diversions from Siberian rivers and for
the construction of a dam across the Gara-Bogaz-Gol bay (Golitsyn, 1994; see
also Feshbach and Friendly, 1992). This bay is at a lower level than the sea
itself and withdrew about 20 km3 per year from the Caspian. Water in the bay
would evaporate and residual salts and minerals were mined. However, by the
time the dam was actually built in the early 1980s, the Caspian level had
already reached an ebb and by 1978 had begun to rise. Between 1978
and 1995, the Caspian's level rose rapidly by a total of about 2½ meters. As
a result of the rise, settlements, agricultural lands, and infrastructure
that had been developed on the exposed seabed since the 1930s were
incrementally becoming inundated. Settlements and cultivated areas alike were
abandoned to the encroaching sea all along the Caspian's coastline, with each
of the littoral countries suffering differently from sea level fluctuations. For example,
the rise in the level of the Caspian in the past two decades by a few meters
makes a bad environmental situation worse. Mekhtiev and Gul (1997,
p. 83) wrote the following: "According to the data of Azerbaijan's
Meteorology Committee, there has already been inundation of several petroleum
deposits, 600 km of coastline with a loss of 20,000 ha of
agricultural fields, 50 small cities and settlements, 250 industrial
buildings and railways and highways. . . . Total damage at present is
estimated to be more than $2 billion US." The recent rise in level has
led to the abandonment of coastal lands (oil fields, farms, pipelines,
villages) and to human out-migration in all riparian countries. George (1994)
reported that, the worst flooding of all is in
Kazakhstan where some 20,000 km2 of land has disappeared beneath the
encroaching water. Hundreds of villages are under water, as are more than
1400 oil wells. . . . As the level of the Caspian grows higher, this presents
an enormous threat to the environment as more and more oil is washed into the
sea (p. 24). Thus, sea level
rise and increased oil exploration and transportation could lead to an
increase in environmental problems for the sea's ecosystems. An increase by
yet another two meters in level is expected by some scientists to continue
into the early decades of the twenty-first century. The cause of the sea
level rise (like the decline) remains unknown, but the hypotheses about its
cause are not lacking. Some argue that it is the result of tectonic movement;
others suggest it has resulted from changes in management of water resources
in the Volga basin; still others suggest that the sea level rise is the
result of climate change (for a review of the competing views, see Voropayev,
1997). Understanding the dynamics behind sea level changes in the Caspian
would create better management of the quantity and quality of this large
inland body of water. Climate
Change and Variability The
fluctuation of the levels of the Caspian during past centuries have been
attributed to natural factors. The leading cause has been climate-related
(i.e., a natural cause). Since the middle of the 20th century, however,
people have begun to consider human activities as being responsible for some
part of the changes in Caspian levels. Today, some scientists suggest that 80
percent of the sea level rise is the result of natural climate variations. The recent
2.5-meter increase in level (between 1978 and 1998) occurred during the same
period as an increase in concern about the possibility of human-induced
global warming of the atmosphere. Thus, some observers have suggested that
the rise in sea level was the result of global warming. Although some Russian
scientists studying the Caspian have forecast that the Caspian could continue
to rise by as much as 5 meters into the early decades of the twenty-first
century, others have speculated that the level will drop (e.g., Ratkovich,
1993). Explanations
for recent changes of the Caspian Sea level have centered primarily on either
of two factors: global warming or human alterations of the flow of the Volga River
system. If, for example, as a result of global warming of a degree or two
Celsius, the global hydrological cycle is enhanced by 15 percent (i.e., a
result of enhanced evaporation due to higher temperatures), there would
likely be an increase in precipitation over the Volga River basin. One could
effectively argue in favor of the belief that the Caspian Sea level is likely
to continue to rise. Thus, the two
contending (major) views about global warming are (a) that it is
human-induced, the result of burning fossil fuels and tropical deforestation
and (b) that it is natural variability in the climate system on the time
scale of decades. Another view
about Caspian Sea level rise relates to human activities and Soviet political
decisions. Some observers have suggested that the drop in the level of the
Caspian after 1930 could be blamed on the Soviet Union's ambitious reservoir
construction activities and the subsequent need to fill the various
reservoirs along the Volga. It was suggested that the reservoirs along the
Volga had been filled by the 1970s and water was once again allowed to pass
directly into the Caspian. Hence, the level of the Caspian began to rise in
1978. A recent
study at the Russian Academy of Science Institute for Atmospheric Physics
suggested, as a result of statistical correlations, that part of the recent
rise in Caspian level could be attributed (statistically) to El Nino, an
oceanic-atmospheric phenomenon that occurs every 3 to 7 years thousands of
miles away in the central equatorial Pacific (Vaganov, 1998). This, however,
is the only report that suggests such an El Nino "teleconnection."
Climate modelers in Russia and elsewhere continue their research efforts to
understand the causes of Caspian sea level fluctuations. Geopolitics It is
imperative to acknowledge, however briefly, that the various geopolitical
factors are integral parts of the setting in which regional and local
environmental issues are generated, identified and (hopefully) dealt with. The current
international political situation in the Caspian region has been likened,
rightly or wrongly, to the "Great Game" that took place in the
region in the 1800s between Russia and the British Empire (Hopkirk, 1994). At
that time, the Great Game was one of imperialism and territorial conquest. At
present, a new Great Game is taking place among several governments
and ethnic groups within some of the circum-Caspian countries for control of
the region's natural resources (oil and natural gas). Equally important is
competition for control of the transport route(s) to carry those resources to
foreign markets. An excellent review of the geopolitical and other interests
in Central Asia and the Caucasus was provided by the Economist (7
February 1998, pp. 3-18). A special report on the region succinctly
noted the Caspian's strategic importance: The former Soviet republics of the
Caucasus and Central Asia link Europe and Asia; Christianity and Islam. They
are flanked to the east by a rising great power (China); to the north by
their former hegemon (Russia); to the south by a country collapsed in violent
chaos (Afghanistan), a fundamental Islamic republic (Iran), and a fragile
secular state in search of a greater regional role (Turkey). Along with
these, a distant superpower seeks influence, if not dominance (America). This list of
international political pressures on the Caspian region in this particular
paragraph does not mention the various competing oil interests seeking to
gain involvement of some sort in the region's oil and gas exploitation, the
various countries outside the region in whose interest it might be to gain
access to these Caspian resources, or the political pressures from
international lending institutions and donor governments to reduce
corruption, increase bureaucratic efficiency, and pursue democratic and
economic development strategies. Nor does the paragraph mention the regional
influence of local ethnic factors (e.g., the Chechens) that in some places
play a dominant role in determining how some aspects (e.g., the pipelines) of
the new Great Game might eventually play out (see Odum, 1998 for a
view that challenges the "Great Game" analogy). As the Economist
noted in its review of the Caspian region and Central Asia, it is "no
wonder the Caspian has become a magnet for geopoliticians" (1998,
p. 3). Pipelines A map, like a
picture, can be worth a thousand words. In the case of the Caspian oil and
gas pipeline issue, this adage holds true. The following figure illustrates
most of the pipeline routes that have been proposed by various governments
and oil consortia. The Caspian states have considerable potential wealth in
their hydrocarbon reserves, both onshore and offshore. But, in order to
realize that wealth, they must rely on neighboring countries for
trans-shipment of their resources from the region by way of oil/gas pipelines
and tankers. The Economist suggested that "the biggest single
obstacle to fabulous wealth in the region is the lack of export
pipelines" (1998, p. 7).
Each of the
existing or proposed routes has its economic, political, and geopolitical
benefits and drawbacks. For example, one such route (#2) passes through the
Republic of Chechnya. This route is not favored by Russia because it would
give control over the flow of Caspian oil to leaders of this breakaway
Russian republic. As another example, the route that passes from Turkmenistan
across Iran to the Persian Gulf (#9) has been strongly opposed by the US
government. A new pipeline from Russia to the Black Sea (#1) is opposed by
Turkey on grounds of adding to the already excessive oil tanker traffic
through the Bosporus Straits. A pipeline route is proposed from Azerbaijan to
the Georgian port of Supsa (#3). This route is of great importance to Georgia
as a new nation, giving it an international role in the world of oil. In
February 1999, agreement was reached on the construction of an underwater oil
and gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan. While these governments and
the companies that are to construct the pipeline believe they will take
measures to protect the environment, those concerned with the possibility of
oil pollution do not share their belief. And then there is the proposed
controversial construction of a pipeline that goes across Turkmenistan
through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean (#11).
While oil
companies might consider this to be one of the best routes economically, the
US government would oppose it, given the ideological stance of Afghanistan's
Taliban government. It is quite clear that economic cost-benefit analyses for
purposes of ranking pipeline routes along economic lines will be overshadowed
by geopolitical considerations. Without a doubt, consideration of regional
animosities, ideological issues, and pipeline security will come into play
when determining the "best" route(s) for oil and gas pipelines. As
suggested by the Economist (1998, p. 7), "the real fight
about pipelines is as much about geopolitical influence as about the oil
business itself." Pollution There are
numerous factually based accounts about the high levels of raw sewage and
chemical contaminants that enter the Caspian as a result of a combination of
one or more of the following processes: inundation by the rising Caspian of
low-lying areas and oil processing facilities, inundation of fertilized
agricultural lands, and raw sewage from settlements along each of the several
rivers that flow into the sea from the circum-Caspian states, including those
states along the Caspian's coastline. As one example, I will mention briefly
pollution related to Azerbaijan and assume that it represents to varying
degrees pollution problems that, in terms of raw sewage volume, other
countries are likely to face in the near future. One writer
(Robinson, 1996) noted that the air, water, and soils in Azerbaijan have
become severely contaminated: "Long-term neglect of environmental
concerns by the oil, gas, and chemical industries is a major cause of this
situation: toxic agricultural pesticides, industrial air pollution, and the
dumping of untreated sewage and industrial wastes into the Caspian and
others." Robinson went on to note that "in the petroleum industry,
obsolete equipment, inadequate storage techniques, the venting of natural
gas, and deteriorating brine storage ponds contaminating the soil are just
some of the problems generated at more than 50 onshore and offshore oil
fields and nearly 12,000 wells." Within
Azerbaijan, it is well acknowledged that the coastal area of Baku is a
"dead zone," especially in Baku bay. Raw sewage has flowed for
decades, untreated, directly into the bay. Most recently, Azerbaijan's
president called for the creation of a national park to include the bay.
However, the official in charge of sewage management opposes this idea but
has no alternative method for disposal (Panachov, 1999). Soil
pollution has come from "leakage from pipes transporting oil and
oil-contaminated water and have left high concentrations of radiation and
heavy meals in the soil" (Robinson, 1996). This particular article was
written from the vantage point of business; with so many environmental
cleanup needs, those industries that market cleanup technologies can do well
in the region. And then there's the raw municipal sewage discharge into the
Caspian. One report has suggested that, "Baku . . . pumps some 250 to
300 million cubic meters of sewage into the Caspian annually"
(Leutwyler, 1998). Analogues Clearly, no
two situations are exactly alike, no matter how closely they may resemble
each other. However, the use of analogies can provide some insights into
dealing with new situations, if they are used with care. The North American
Great Lakes, for example, could serve as a Caspian analogue because the level
of the Great Lakes has also fluctuated on decadal time scales (as recently as
the mid-1980s) and because these lakes have been the sink for pollution and
toxic substances throughout the century (Ashworth, 1987, passim). The
environmental history of the Great Lakes could provide some insights into
what might be prudent environmental policy in the Caspian basin. The Aral Sea
situation might also serve in some ways as an analogue to the Caspian. The
toxic chemical compounds added to the sea over a couple of decades, combined
with unsustainable fishing activities, and a sea level drop of 17 meters in a
couple of decades essentially wiped out the Aral Sea fisheries and the
economic sector's activities based on them (Zholdasova, 1999). Yet another
analogue might be provided by the Gulf of Mexico, where fishing activities,
oil extraction, and upstream pollution are in conflict. The Great
Lakes The Great
Lakes in North America might serve in some respects as an analogue to the
Caspian situation. For more than 100 years the Great Lakes have been the
repository for all kinds of effluents and emissions from industrial
activities in their watersheds. In recent years there have been attempts to
clean up these lakes, a response deemed imperative following the fires that
appeared on the Cayuhoga River and Lake Erie in the late 1960s as a result of
high levels of industrial pollution (EPA, 1997). That eye-opening incident
sparked the realization that pollution of the lakes could no longer be
ignored by the numerous levels of littoral governments, from local to
international.
As a direct
result of increased awareness of the environmental problems in the basin, a
basin-wide assessment was organized under the International Joint Commission
(IJC) of the United States and Canada. In 1987 the IJC designated 43
"hot spots" of pollution (called areas of concern) in the basin
that required immediate attention. Much of the attention was centered on the
contamination of the lake beds with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and
other chemicals dangerous to human and ecosystem health. The IJC worked with
national, state and local governmental and non-governmental organizations to
develop Remedial Action Plans for each of the 43 "hot spots"
(Environment Canada, 1995). A key
difference in responses to pollution between these regions is that the level
of cooperation among the riparian countries, provinces, states, and
municipalities is quite high in the Great Lakes basin and quite low in the
Caspian region. Industries are involved, along with governmental and
non-governmental organizations, in cleaning up the pollution in the lakes. However, one
could argue that industrialization and its associated environmental pollution
in the Great Lakes region preceded by a century or more the present-day
interest in cleaning up the environment that had been sullied by
"industrial metabolism" (a neutral term for processes that pollute
the environment). Thus, Caspian states could (and on occasion have) used this
same argument for their region as an excuse to pollute first and clean up
later. In addition, to some, pollution has even been equated to economic
development: the more polluted a region, the more developed it must be (e.g.,
Enloe, 1975). Another
similarity is that both inland bodies of water have fluctuated over time,
causing problems to coastal inhabitants and settlements. In the early 1960s
the Great Lakes were at their lowest level in the past century (as was the Great
Salt Lake in Utah). By the mid-1980s, however, the lakes were at their
highest level in recent times (as was also the case for the Great Salt Lake)
(Morrisette, 1988). As we now know, the Caspian Sea level dropped a few
meters between 1930 and 1977, and rose from 1978 to 1995. In all three cases,
human activities encroached on the receding shorelines. Assuming that the
lowering of lake levels would be a permanent feature, governments allowed
people to develop, cultivate, or build on the newly exposed lake beds.
Decades later, when the lake levels began to rise again in each of these
three basins (Great Lakes, Great Salt Lake, and the Caspian), those who had
been encouraged to move onto the exposed lake bed had to abandon their
settlements and retreat inland and away from the rising lakes. Gulf of
Mexico The Gulf of
Mexico, especially the inner continental shelf of Louisiana, can serve as an
analogue to the Caspian in a couple of ways. First of all, there is
considerable oil exploration along the Gulf coast, and the oil rigs are
subject to storms and hurricanes in the Gulf and are therefore potential
sources of oil pollution. There is a thriving fishing industry in the Gulf,
and the oil interests are sometimes in conflict with the fishing interests.
There is yet another similarity between these two bodies of water: they are
both fed by major river systems, with the Mississippi River feeding the Gulf
of Mexico (approximately 600 km3 water per year). At the same time, this
river, like the Volga in the Russian Federation, feeds pollutants into the
Gulf's marine environment.
Much of the
runoff from agricultural fields in the US Great Plains (its agricultural
heartland) makes its way into the Gulf. After decades of dumping certain
substances into the Gulf, it appears that it has led to the creation of what
scientists refer to as a "Dead Zone" (St. Germain, 1995). The
"Dead Zone" presently covers 7,000 square miles, whereas in 1993 it
was only half that size. According to one report, "the trouble with the
Dead Zone is that it lacks oxygen . . . apparently because of pollution in
the form of excess nutrients flowing into the Gulf from the Mississippi
River" (Yoon, 1998). Scientists also noted that the problem of rising
nutrient loads, especially nitrogen, and related decreases in oxygen led to
the situation known as "hypoxia" (i.e., the absence of oxygen
reaching living tissues). In coastal waters, it is characterized by low
levels of dissolved oxygen, so that not enough oxygen is available to support
fish and other aquatic species (EPA web site). Other problems are caused by
phosphorus from municipal waste water and fertilizers. Apparently, each
summer brings a new load of nutrients into the Gulf by way of the Mississippi
and a new Dead Zone is created. Interestingly, support for this view is found
in the fact that during the major drought in the US Midwest in 1988, the
hypoxic zone was almost absent (Yoon, 1998). The US Senate passed legislation
(S. 1480) entitled "The Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control
Act of 1998" to establish a federal task force to clean up the Dead Zone
(Senator John Breaux of Louisiana press release 9 July 1998). Hypoxia zones
are also found near Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and in the Baltic Sea,
Chesapeake Bay and Long Island Sound. Aral Sea The Aral Sea
region provides an example of an area where explicit calculations were made
by scientists who compared the value of one natural resource to the relative
value of another. In the late 1970s, a determination was made to value cotton
production over the fishing sector. Borovsky (1979) suggested that a unit of
Aral Sea water was 100 times more valuable when put on the desert sands to
grow cotton than it was when kept in the sea in order to keep a few fish
alive or to evaporate into the atmosphere unused. As a result of this
long-standing belief, government decisions were made to divert increasing
amounts of water from the two major rivers that feed the sea. Within a couple
of decades of 1960, that tradeoff proved to be catastrophic. The fishing
industry collapsed, and fish were imported from the Baltic for processing in
the Aral region. Other factors were not considered in the calculation: the
drying out of the deltas, the desiccation of the Aral Sea, the loss of the
fishing industry, the exposure of toxic seabed soils to wind action,
deterioration of human health in the region, the loss of wetland flora and
fauna, and so on. None of this was put into the equation for determining the
tradeoffs between cotton and fish. Blum (1998) has recently discussed the
issue of the tradeoffs between environmental protection and resource
exploitation in the Caspian region. On the use
of analogues The reason
for suggesting these situations as potential analogies with respect to the
present conditions in the Caspian region is that, given a "business as
usual" scenario for future decades, one can gain a good idea of the
Caspian's likely environmental future. The sturgeon population has already
been put at high risk of extinction, as a result of officially tolerated
catch levels and illegal poaching. The environment in the region's oldest
oil-producing area (Azerbaijan) has been greatly (i.e., adversely) affected
by exploration, extraction, storage, and shipment of oil. In the absence of
any meaningful efforts (as opposed to official platitudes) to protect the
various aspects of the environment in the Caspian region — fish, seals, water
quality — one could reasonably surmise that the future for the environment of
all the parts of the Caspian countries bordering the sea is that of
Azerbaijan's environment at present. The kinds of
environment-related changes that one might find in the Caspian fall into the
category of what I have referred to as "creeping environmental
change." Creeping changes include global warming, sea level rise, ozone
depletion, acid rain, air pollution, soil erosion, desertification — an
incremental change that appears to leave the environment quite like it was
yesterday. And tomorrow's environmental change will not alter the environment
much from what it is today. However, over several years, these incremental
changes will have added up and, one day, when we look at what that creeping
environmental problem has become, we will have an environmental crisis to
deal with (Glantz, 1994). This is often the result of putting short-term
economic benefits ahead of long-term environmental stability. Another
environmental problem, an oil spill, is a quick-onset disaster. Considerable
attention was focused on America's worst oil spill, the Exxon Valdez oil
spill, in Alaska on March 24, 1989 (Burger, 1997). Ten years later, a US
government report noted that the affected wildlife and ecosystems were still
in various stages of recovery. There have been ten oil spills around the
globe since 1989 that have been larger than the 11 million gallon Exxon
Valdez spill. Few people today remember the Amoco Cadiz oil spill along the
French coast of Brittany on March 17, 1978. This remains as one of the
biggest ever oil spills in the marine environment, but it and its lessons are
already being forgotten. The Amoco Cadiz spill was eight times the size of
that of the Exxon Valdez (Burger, 1997) (earthbase.org/home/timeline). Oil
spills can be expected to occur, regardless of verbal assurances of
safeguards, such as rapid containment and cleanup. Thus, sensitive ecosystems
in the Caspian will be at risk as oil transport increases. Taking the
relevant parts of the various analogies suggested above (among other
analogies of various environmental aspects of the Caspian, such as those that
might be provided by a review of the environmental situations in the Black
Sea or the Baltic Sea), a plausible environmental scenario for the future can
be constructed. That future is bleak from an environmental perspective,
unless governments in the region truly seek to balance economic development
with an acceptable level of environmental protection. Circum-Caspian
ARW (Advanced Research Workshop) Findings This section
presents a brief review of key points from the 1996 NATO-supported workshop
on the Caspian (Glantz and Zonn, 1997). This summary is based on the
discussions at the workshop in plenary and working group sessions. The list
of recommendations centers on the need to identify the mutual environmental
interests of the coastal governments.
Concluding
Comments While the
current geopolitical situation in the Caspian region has been likened to the
"Great Game" of the nineteenth century, in the new Great
Game there are many more actors, and there is much more potential for a
greater number of conflicts. While most attention has been focused on the oil
and gas reserves and how to exploit them with the fewest number of resulting
political repercussions (ranging from political opposition to military
conflict), the environment is most likely to suffer, at least into the
mid-term (a few decades). A Pacific Environment and Resources Center (PERC)
report on the Caspian noted that, "If the Great Game of the Caspian is
to benefit societies at large, it would be wise to put environmental concerns
before geopolitics" (Hydrocarbon Online, 1999). Examples from
other countries and regions can be used (as analogies to gain a glimpse of
the future) to provide an early warning to the Caspian countries about the
risks associated with a chronic lack of environmental concern. These
analogies might convince the Caspian governments that the sustainable use of
the environment can produce long-term benefits not only to their economies
but also to the environment and the inhabitants of the region. It is most
likely less costly to prevent the degradation that is sure to follow
unmonitored resource exploitation than to attempt to clean up the mess once
it has occurred. There are some signs of hope that governments and
international donors realize this, at least on a theoretical level. One
example of this glimmer of hope is a recent regional attempt to produce a
management plan. The
Caspian Sea Environment Program In 1995, the
World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, and the United Nations
Environment Programme in conjunction with the Caspian goverments developed
the concept of a Caspian Sea Environment Program (CSEP). The program's
outline (CSEP, 1997) was based on similar plans for other regional seas
programs. In May 1997, a concept paper was prepared for the CSEP identifying
the overall goal as promoting sustainable development and management of the
Caspian environment over the next twenty years. The report noted the
following additional environmental goals for a Caspian Sea Environment
Program:
Caspian
governments have witnessed what has happened to the sturgeon fish population
in the absence of an effective intergovernmental response to a creeping
problem of which they were all aware. They have a strong incentive to put
this plan into action as soon as possible because of the persistent creeping
(incremental) and cumulative nature of the various threats to the Caspian
environment. One can only hope that there will not be a need for the next
generation to ask why solutions to the Caspian's environmental problems were
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