On the second floor of an old apartment complex, the group's office is filled with plants and decorated with Greenpeace posters of whales and dolphins. Maps of Sakhalin line the wall. The flat looks like something out of Greenwich Village circa the 1970s, and so do its director, Lisitsyn, a geologist, and Barannikova, an economist specializing in energy development. The group has four full-time employees and about 20 volunteers tracking the rapid destruction of Sakhalin's forests, rivers, fisheries and now, its seas. The reason is simple, Barannikova says.
People are very poor.
They don't think about whales because it is too far from their real lives. Lisitsyn predicts that the perception will change, but only at a very high cost. The group argues that Sakhalin is entitled to oil-related environmental standards no lower than those in the U.S. and Western Europe. So far, Lisitsyn says, it doesn't have them. As with any offshore oil project, there is always the possibility of a massive oil spill.