Offshore Oil and Gas Rush Threatens Whale Corridors and Coral Reefs
Key takeaways
- More than a quarter of the marine and coastal protected areas examined across 11 countries fall within zones at risk for oil and gas development, as are 40 percent of coral reefs and nearly a third of mangrove forests.
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Republish In Kenya, 100 percent of coral reefs, mangroves and marine and coastal protected areas overlap with proposed oil and gas blocks. Credit: Muturi Kamau Related As Global Warming Threatens Corals Worldwide, Woods Hole Scientists Search for ‘Super Reefs’ That Can Take the Heat Environmental Groups Take Trump Administration’s ‘God Squad’ to Court An Oil Company Running Into Rough Waters off the California Coast Is Looking to Trump for Help Share This Article Republish Most Popular A Pipeline Company Says It Will Protect the Environment in North Carolina. Its Record in Tennessee Says Otherwise. Can Clusters of Human-Constructed Ponds in the Arizona Desert Save a Threatened Frog? As Colorado River States Struggle to Reach Agreement, New Mexico Brings on a Fresh Voice From coral reefs in Kenya to Caribbean seagrass meadows and whale migration corridors in the Arctic, a surge in offshore oil, gas and liquefied natural gas development is spreading into some of the world’s most ecologically important marine habitats, according to a new analysis.
In many cases, researchers from Earth Insight—a nonprofit that maps fossil fuel, mining and other industrial threats to ecosystems and local communities—found planned and active offshore oil and gas projects overlap with areas meant to safeguard critical ecosystems.
More than a quarter of the marine and coastal protected areas examined across 11 countries fall within zones at risk for oil and gas development, as are 40 percent of coral reefs and nearly a third of mangrove forests. In these same countries, half of all areas used by whales and other marine mammals for migration, feeding and breeding also converge with areas designated by governments for exploration and extraction referred to as oil and gas blocks.