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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