Biological diversity embraces all living organisms and their ecosystems. It is not only very important as a source of food, medicines and natural resources, but also has great significance in spiritual, cultural and aesthetic contexts.
Conserving biodiversity is a key element in sustainable development.
Biodiversity has a central place in our environmental policy. We will seek as a matter of principle to maintain biodiversity and important ecosystem functions, and make a positive contribution where possible to conserving such diversity.
We participate actively in and chair a working party on biodiversity under the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association/International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (Ipieca/OGP). The goal of the group is to increase awareness of this subject in the petroleum industry generally, and to continue development of guidelines and tools for preserving biodiversity.
We are also a partner in the Proteus programme of the UN Environmental Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), which now aims primarily at updating the global database of conversation areas.
Through our participation in the Serpent programme, we have applied equipment associated with our subsea installations and operations to mapping and monitoring deepwater biodiversity both in the Norwegian Sea and off Venezuela.
We are taking part in a major international collaboration to secure better knowledge about the effect of noise on marine mammals and other organisms in the sea.
In addition, we sit on the executive committee for Seapop, a Norwegian mapping and research programme for seabirds. And we have financed projects carried out by the Norwegian Polar Institute in cooperation with Russian scientists on satellite tracking of tagged ivory gulls (http://ivorygull.npolar.no/ivorygull) in Svalbard and Franz Josef Land, as well as a project for satellite tracking of Polar bears in Svalbard.
Attention is paid to biodiversity in a number of our international exploration and development projects. Marine mammals and seabirds were surveyed on the Belgica bank off east Greenland, while observations were made of marine mammals and sea turtles in the Rovuma basin off northern Mozambique in connection with two-dimensional seismic surveying during 2007.
The results were used as background for environmental management of the operations. Managing biodiversity also represents a significant challenge for our oil sand operations in Canada.
