| April, 1999In recent years, many large oil companies have begun taking oil from the Caspian Sea, raising concerns that the local ecosystem is becoming polluted and destroyed. The Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water in the world.
It is bordered by Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran. Already in the sea, DDT, heavy metals, PCBs and dioxins pollute the water. Many of these pollutants come from industrial plants that have been operating nearby for a long time.
Now, the oil production industry is causing pollution to soar. Oil fields and refineries have dumped chemicals into the water, and the pollution is beginning to wash up along the coastal areas. Concerns are arising over the fate of animals living in the sea, notably the sturgeon and the Caspian seal. Though there were once over a million seals in the region, their numbers are now below 400,000. Sturgeon have been around for over 100 million years, and only now are being
threatened. Poachers are largely responsible for killing the sturgeon. The collapse of the Soviet Union and competition between fishers in the region has caused the recent increase in fishing. Another reason for the decrease in the number of sturgeon is the loss of spawning area. According to the World Bank, 99% of the sturgeon's spawning grounds have been lost. |
