- Targeting governments, international financing institutions and even some oil companies to reduce or eliminate direct, place-based threats to biodiversity from specific oil and gas projects and infrastructure
- Working to redirect large-scale investments into renewable energy, rather than into new hydrocarbon projects
Arctic oil and gas
The Arctic holds the world's largest remaining untapped gas reserves and some of its largest undeveloped oil reserves. A significant proportion of these reserves lie offshore, in the Arctic's shallow and biologically productive shelf seas. According to the oil industry, the Arctic is the final frontier for petroleum development.
The Arctic is characterised by a short productive season, low temperatures, and limited sunlight.
As a result, it can take many decades for Arctic regions to recover from habitat disruption, tundra disturbance and oil spills.
As a result, it can take many decades for Arctic regions to recover from habitat disruption, tundra disturbance and oil spills.
Impacts of exploration and drilling
The Arctic is a frontier region, and oil and gas development will require the building of massive infrastructure through ecologically intact areas. Impacts include:- habitat destruction
- fragmentation of migration routes
- erosion
- gravel mining for pads, harbours and roads
- draining freshwater resources for ice roads
- lowered barrier to entry for other kinds of resource exploitation, such as logging of sensitive timberline forests, commercial fisheries, mining and other commercial use of wild species.
- significant damage to benthic organisms, such as corals, and to sea floor habitats from subsea infrastructure, like pipelines from offshore installations.
Oil spill threats in the Arctic
Oil spills, whether from blowouts, pipeline leaks or shipping accidents, pose a tremendous risk to arctic ecosystems. Marine ecosystems are particularly vulnerable.
- Top predators, like cod, seals and seabirds, tend to congregate in extremely large groups during the most productive time of year. This means that a single large oil spill in the wrong place and at the wrong time of year can have very serious, population-wide impacts on seabirds, fish, and some marine mammals.
- There is no effective method for containing and cleaning up an oil spill in ice conditions.
Priority areas
Read more about WWF's work to protect important ecoregions from oil and gas exploration:
- Alaska (including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge)
- Barents Sea (Norway and Russia)
- Beaufort Sea (Canada)
View the large version of this map.
What WWF is doing
Key contact
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Mikhail Babenko
Oil and Gas Officer, Global Arctic Programme
WWF Russia,
Moscow Main
Arctic Oil and Gas news
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The Arctic: oil frontier or oil boundary?
Arctic oil and gas development is not the best solution to the world's rising energy demand. That's the message WWF is sending this week at Arctic Frontiers, a pan-Arctic conference on the future ...
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“World’s most unnecessary coal mine”
The Norwegian government has given the go-ahead to a new coal mine in Svalbard, a high-arctic archipelago off the northern coast of Norway, despite clear objections from WWF and an acknowledgement ...
