This story from The Independent details how the UK’s export credits and guarantees department (ECGD) initially provided financial backing to Sakhalin Energy Investment Company for oil and gas drilling near Russia’s Sakhalin Island. This area is also the only documented feeding area of the Western Grey whale, which only number at about 120 individuals. The financial backing was approved, in spite of the fact that other governmental branches, such as the Foreign Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), strongly disapproved. Due to the methods of drilling for oil and gas, an accident such as an oil spill or the explosions routinely used for excavation purposes might kill or sicken the few remaining breeding females, which in turn could not be sustained for more than a few years without the whales going extinct. Indeed, the ECGD actually suppressed the objections of the other governmental agencies, and even ignored a request for the documentation by ‘Friend of the Earth’, under the freedom of information act, filed three years ago. The information was finally released from ECGD due to a court order.

The UK, Oil and Gas and Whales