China's state apparatus believes the country's pandas must be saved at all costs. Sri Lanka pays fishermen to protect rare sea turtles. And the Dominican Republic has a parrot team dedicated to saving the Sisserou parrot.
All over the world, governments strive to preserve "flagship species" that are pushed into service as symbols of national pride. So why is Russia building a US$12 billion oil pipeline through the habitat of the world's rarest big cat?
With its long, slender legs and shaggy coat, the Amur leopard is a predator that stalks the frozen forests of far eastern Russia.
PHOTO: EPA
Naturalists say its beauty and endangered status -- there are only 30 or 40 left in the wild -- make it an ideal candidate to be a flagship.
But Moscow seems deaf to environmentalists' protests that a trans-Siberian oil pipeline planned to run straight through the leopards' last wild haven could wipe them out.
The 3,000km pipeline, intended to supply oil to Japan, was to have run from the tip of Lake Baikal to the Pacific port of Nakhodka.
But an abrupt announcement late last year made clear that a minor diversion would take the route straight through the leopards' habitat.
Campaigners in Vladivostok say the decision by the state-owned pipeline monopoly, Transneft, is "catastrophic."
Construction begins soon and the pipeline will pass through the border zone of the Unesco-designated Kedrovaya Pad biosphere reserve on the Pacific coast, where the cats live, at a pristine bay near Vladivostok, called Perevoznaya. Cynics have speculated that local politicians in the East, who approved the route, have snapped up land near the bay and aim to benefit from contracts for construction of an oil terminal and port services funded by Japanese soft loans.
"Like a lot of Russia's ambitious projects, this pipeline plan is largely motivated by bureaucrats who are sure of a slice of the profits," says Alexei Yaroshenko, of Greenpeace in Moscow.
Sergei Darkin, governor of Primorye, the territory where the leopards live, denies accusations that he could benefit from kickbacks if construction contracts go to his associates.
The plight of the leopards is being seen as a test case for Russia, where the environment is often trampled in a rush for commercial profit.
Opponents say the pipeline will not only disrupt the leopards but tear through a unique ecosystem that supports rare and endangered species. Kedrovaya Pad is a richly forested valley home to Chinese sparrowhawks and Hodgson's hawk eagles.
While the Western end of the pipeline may not be finished for several years, a new railway to carry oil along the same route will cause equal destruction until it is completed. "All the disturbance -- the smells, the machinery, the swathe cut through their woodland -- will drive the leopards out of their habitat," says Vitaly Gorokhov, head of Ecoyuris, a group of lawyers fighting the plans.
The Amur leopard is the northernmost of the eight leopard sub- species, and lives only in a small corner of the Far East near the Sino-Russian border. It feeds on roe and sika deer, as well as hares and badgers. There are about 100 of the leopards in captivity for breeding purposes, but Kedrovaya Pad is their last wild habitat.
Experts say that, if driven away, the leopards will be forced into terrain where there is no prey to feed on, or towards densely populated areas of China, where the animals are hunted for use in medicines.
Transneft appears unrepentant. Challenged this spring, Transneft president Simyon Vainshtok said, "We are willing to start a dialogue with all stakeholders. We will talk to every leopard and shrimp in the bay."
Yet Transneft has refused to publish an environmental impact assessment and gives every sign of pushing ahead with the project. Ecologists say the fact that a pipeline is even being considered demonstrates how far Russia is willing to milk its natural resources for profit. Priorities in Primorye became clear when the regional hunting inspectorate approved the Perevoznya route.
"The inspectorate is entitled to financial compensation for the ecological damage caused by disrupting the leopards," says Gorokhov, of Ecoyuris. The damage was calculated according to the estimated sale value of the cats' skins.
"Of course it was better to have US$100,000 in their hands right now than to have a bunch of leopards alive in 10 years' time," said Gorokhov. "That's how nature conservation works in Russia."
Activists in the East believe that they can still force a change in the route. Transneft's plans have attracted prominent critics, including the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yuri Osipov, and President Putin's chief of staff, Dmitry Medvedev.
He wrote to prime minister Mikhail Fradkov suggesting that the pipeline should stick to the original route.
Sarah Christie, of the London Zoological Society, who coordinates an Amur leopard breeding program, said there was still time to pull back from the brink. "We don't oppose Russia developing its natural resources," she said. "We are just against this disastrous choice of terminal location."
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