Biological diversity is a natural heritage that has been built up over several hundred million years of continuous evolution. But today, a new element has appeared – the rapid disappearance of natural species – which threatens to have an irreversible impact on existing natural balances and thus deplete the heritage that we should pass on to future generations.

At global level
In the past, because of natural factors such as climate change, ice-ages and major catastrophes (collisions with asteroids, etc.) a large number of species disappeared in waves of extinction lasting several million years. But ever since life emerged on Earth, there has been a constant overall increase in the number of species present on the planet. In other words, species appeared faster than they disappeared.

The speed of species extinction
The average life-span of a species on Earth is about 1 million years, but experts assert that the current rate of species extinction is between 1,000 and 10,000 faster than the natural rate. It is estimated that a species of plant or animal disappears from our planet every 15 minutes, and that an area of primary forest equivalent to a football field is cut down every second. In the last few dozen years, the “dead zones” (i.e. lacking in oxygen) have been increasing in size in seas and oceans all over the world (Gulf of Mexico, Baltic Sea, Black Sea, northern Adriatic, etc.).

Human causes of species extinction
Human-related factors, including population growth, certain agricultural practices, intensive fishing, increasing exploitation of other resources, tourism, the sharp increase in pollutant emissions, and modern modes of consumption all exert pressures on the environment that deplete biodiversity.

At oil industry level
Because of the nature of the oil and gas industry, and also because operations often take place in sensitive geographical areas, oil companies can generate two kinds of impact on biodiversity: 

• a direct impact due to the footprint of facilities, emissions and accidental discharge of pollutants, i.e. the impact of actual industrial operations;
• an indirect impact, such as uncontrolled ground clearance or poaching as a result of a population influx itself, due to increasing economic development.

Replanting mangroves in Indonesia following the installation of a buried pipeline

Oil companies can now either prevent or remedy most of the direct negative impact of their operations, but the indirect impact is harder to assess and to control.

This is largely because indirect impacts can have a number of different causes and involve the responsibility of diverse players. In addition, these impacts may become visible quite some time after actual oil operations have ceased.