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Stanley

Falkland Islands

Tel: +500 22247

                E-mail: info@conservation.org.fk

www.falklandsconservation.com

Dear Sir/Madam

Sea Lion Field Development - Phase 1 Environmental Impact Statement

Please find below Falklands Conservation’s (FC’s) comments on the above Environmental Impact Statement (hereafter EIS), submitted by Premier Oil plc (PMO) for the Sea Lion Field Development.

FC recognises the potential economic and social benefits of hydrocarbons to the Falkland Islands and is not in principle opposed to oil and gas exploration and development in them. Such development and extraction can however carry risk to the natural environment and globally important wildlife of the Islands, with serious potential to have a significant impact on it from extraction activities, and in the worst case from pollution.

As such, any hydrocarbon industry development in the Islands should be undertaken with comprehensive risk assessment, following international best practice with benefits for the natural environment. This would include, amongst other things, taking a precautionary approach, clearly identifying the ecological features at risk, providing up-to-date relevant data to allow evaluation of such features and facilitate risk assessment, and utilising the mitigation hierarchy (meaning impacts are, in order - avoided, minimised, restored or offset) to deliver net gain (a positive impact for biodiversity). It should provide an easily digestible assessment with clear commitments to future activities, review and improvement.

In this regard FC welcome that the approach to risk assessment in the EIS is precautionary and there are statements within it indicating commitment to further improving operations as information and technology progress. Despite this, FC have significant concerns about the quality of the Statement which are compounded by its leading tone and its somewhat inconsistent approach and adherence to recognised guidelines. Whilst there has been improvement on the exploration EIS, there are a number of key omissions/ inaccuracies, which greatly undermine confidence that the risk assessment process is fully understood and that this is a well written and robust EIS on which decision makers can consent to a 20+ year oil campaign. It is also regrettable that a number of key documents were not appended to the consultation EIS e.g. oil spill strategies, Wildlife Response Plan, the Genesis avian baseline report, inshore transfer alternatives evidence etc.

On this basis FC is concerned that whilst there has been some improvement there has been no demonstrable ‘step change’ in approach to environmental consideration since the exploration EIS.

If, despite FC’s view, Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) do consent the proposals, FC has included issue by issue resolutions (expanded upon in Appendix 1):

• Legislation and policy: A good EIA will consider its compliance with legislation and policy and identify where its actions can contribute to policy objectives – the current EIS needs to consistently address legal and policy compliance and demonstrate a clear aspiration to meeting good practice policy objectives such as the ‘net gain’ principle.

• Data: The EIS acknowledges wide ranging data deficiencies yet disappointingly little relevant survey work has been conducted and included in the EIS for a development of this scale. The survey information provided needs to be more robust (e.g. more survey visits or more recent) and/or improve its coverage to include missing key locations or species. Key data that are available, such as for non-statutory designated sites for nature conservation, are not used appropriately/consistently, or at all, and need to be incorporated.

• Oil Spill response: The EIS identifies that oil spill responses would not be possible under worst-case weather conditions, and combined with insufficient details on financial arrangements for spill response and remediation programmes (which may be over multiple years), further conditions need to be applied to provide confidence.

• Offsetting: There has been little apparent effort to consider offsetting options for biodiversity and carbon. Payment for offsetting is not considered good practice. Consequently, the EIS needs to provide stronger justification for payment as an option and a monetary value to assess its suitability, along with a guaranteed mechanism to ensure any financial contribution is used appropriately. The scale of the figure suggested in the recent ExCo paper (124/16) is very low (c£3m over 17 years).

• Environmental Monitor and Management Plan (EMMP): The EMMP is poorly aligned with its intended purpose and inappropriate in scope. It is heavily weighted towards monitoring and provides few management solutions. The EMMP should not deliver baseline data which should have been included within the EIS, but focus on monitoring the less certain risks/mitigation and identify real action that can be undertaken should those risks worsen or mitigation fail.

• Inshore transfer - Alternatives: There is very little evidence included within the EIS to support the choice of inshore transfer rather than offshore transfer as well as the current choice of location for inshore transfer. FC consider that inshore transfer poses the greatest risk to the environment and therefore believe every effort would need to be shown to keep transfer away from Berkeley Sound or similar sites. The EIS needs to include a more comprehensive and justifiable assessment.

Some of the issues within the EIS draw out some key weaknesses of the Falkland Islands Government (FIG) environmental policy and legislation framework and are directly identified by the applicant. FC recognise the challenge of becoming ‘oil ready’ and the contribution that it could and should make towards FIG achieving it as this work is progressed.

Overall, oil extraction brings with it a number of impacts and potential risks to important sites and species within the Islands, some of which are of international significance. FC feel it is critical that MLAs are confident that the EIS represents and commits best efforts to protect the environment of the Islands in providing any consent on behalf of the FI community.

At this point, FC do not feel MLAs should have sufficient confidence to consent to development on the premise of the current EIS. Conditioning further information that could in fact alter the conclusions of the EIS is well recognised as poor practice; however, should FIG resort to conditioning to try to strengthen/improve the issues within the EIS it is critical that this is done well. Failure to ensure adequate improvements ahead of commencement of the campaign is only likely to exacerbate existing issues further down the line and undermine confidence in the process in the Islands.

FC recognises the effort that has gone into the writing of this EIS by the applicant and the work to facilitate it to the consultation phase by FIG, and are keen to continue a constructive dialogue with both in order to address the environmental risks and impacts, which is a goal we all share.

Yours sincerely

Esther Bertram

CEO, Falklands Conservation

Patron: HRH The Duke of York KG KCVO ADC

Falklands Conservation is a company limited by guarantee in        

England and Wales No. 3661322 and Registered Charity No. 1073859        

Registered Office: Bridge House, 4 Borough High Street, London SE1 9QR

Telephone: +44 (0) 1767 693710,  ukdirector@conservation.org.fk

Registered as an Overseas Company in the Falkland Islands

Appendix 1. Specific Comments

Ecological features that may be impacted

A critical component of the risk assessment is to define the Zone of Influence^[1]. The ‘Zone of Influence’ for a project is the area over which ecological features may be subject to significant effects as a result of the proposed project and associated activities.

Issue:

• The ZoI is rarely defined and other area reference terms are sometimes used which are not associated/conflicting with the ZoI such as ‘North Falkland Basin’ (pg. 409 and others).
• The baseline data is significantly overloaded with information that seems to fall outside the likely ZoI (which is usually undefined) for the impacts/risks identified e.g. coastal sensitivity indexes for areas beyond the extent of worse case spill models (pg. 435), terrestrial habitats that are included where highly unlikely to be impacted by marine pollution (pg. 417), Seabirds at Sea Data beyond oil spill models, NNR listings etc. It also includes features within a ZoI that are not defined (e.g. the very sensitive area on Fig. 147) or addressed i.e. designated sites (see below). It is repeatedly unclear which environmental receptors (ecological features) are considered appropriate to consider for each of the potential/known impacts.

Resolution

The Zone of Influence for potential impacts should be clearly and repeatedly identified. This should be done before summarising relevant receptors (ecological features that may be impacted) and baseline data as a necessary prerequisite to provide robust and clear assessment.

Satisfactory alternatives to inshore transfer and selection of Berkeley Sound

The requirement to demonstrate that there are no satisfactory alternatives to those proposed, that would reduce impacts, is set out in the Offshore Minerals Ordinance 2011 (OMO) Section 7:

‘Every Environmental Impact Assessment must contain -

1. An outline of the main alternatives (if any) that were studied by the applicant; and
2. An indication of the main reasons for the applicant’s choice (taking into account the environmental effects)’

Development Plan Policy SP5 also states the requirement to ‘demonstrate that there are no alternative solutions, that there are imperative reasons of over-riding public interest (including those of a social or economic nature) and that any impacts are avoided, mitigated and compensated for as far as is practicable.’

Issues:

• The statements imply there is now evidence to support feasible offshore transfer. Given the hugely significant reduction in impacts and risk on/to the environment that this would bring, it does not appear that inshore transfer would be a satisfactory alternative unless this potentially feasible offshore transfer option is ruled out (pg. 113 and 114).
• It is not clear if the option to undertake inshore transfer has been selected because FIG and HSE have stated they will not support a safety case, or because PMO do not consider that they would. It appears to be the latter (pg. 113 and 114).
• Whilst perhaps environmental risk from spill is implicit in statements about safety of operations; the ordinance requires the indications of the main reasons for the applicant’s choice to take into account environmental effects. There seems to be no direct consideration of environmental impacts for the various options included in the EIS.
• There seems to be a shortage of information to support statements, as well as references to studies which are not included in the EIS as part of the consultation (pg. 113 and 114).

Resolutions

The EIS should include an overview of the impacts and risks from each proposal (offshore transfer vs inshore transfer) to be able to balance environmental considerations with operating safety and economic viability.

The EIS should include further information to support statements of operating safety and economic viability as reasons not to pursue offshore transfer.

The applicant needs to confirm whether FIG and HSE would, or would not, support the Safety Case in order to substantiate what satisfactory alternatives exist. This confirmation from the developer needs to be an agreed within a specific timeline with an accompanying review period. As minimum, FC believes this should be a condition of any consent.

Baseline Data

The OMO Schedule 4, Sec 3. States ‘Every environmental impact statement must include the data required to identify and assess that main effects that the project to which it relates is likely to have on the environment.’

Issue/s:

• Whilst the Falklands marine environment is acknowledged as being data deficient^[2] or poorly understood^[3] few surveys were conducted for the EIS. Those documented within it were:

• ‘mapping the shallow marine, intertidal and terrestrial habitats found within Berkeley Sound.
• a dedicated coastal bird survey of Berkeley Sound.’

• Surveys of Berkeley Sound (within a presumed Zone of Influence of an oil spill) did not include the globally endangered sei whale for which the Sound is a candidate Key Biodiversity Area
• Surveys of Berkeley Sound did not include the ‘Near Threatened’ sooty shearwater, one of the key features of Kidney and Cochon Important Bird Area, to assess what impacts a spill could have on the internationally recognised site. Many thousands raft daily on the water in this area during breeding.
• No direct assessment of the habitats in the known Zone of Influence of the mooring buoy were made in Berkeley Sound.
• The EIS does not contain tracking data from the GAP project (pg. 333). Is this information therefore not ‘required to identify and assess the main effects’ on the environment as per the OMO?
• The EIS acknowledges the requirement for further information (pg. 247). This section (repeated below) highlights areas where data should and could have been gathered ahead of an EIS submission (points 1,4,6,7,8,10 in list below) even with opportunities and timescales available

General

1. Impact of sea lion crude on fur;
2. Predicting the likelihood of introducing invasive species;
3. Auditory sensitivity of penguins and marine mammals;
4. Quantifying the impact of bird strikes;
5. Impact of long-term noise and actual noise outputs from the operations;

Offshore environment (North Falklands Basin and Sea Lion Field):

6. Inter-annual distribution and abundance of marine mammals in the North Falklands Basin;
7. Benthic habitats and fauna at the Sea Lion drill centre and flowline locations specifically;

Inshore environment (Berkeley Sound):

8. Benthic habitats and fauna at the Mooring Buoy location specifically;
9. Location(s) of loligo spawning grounds;
10. Inter-annual distribution and abundance of marine mammals.

Points 2, 3, and 5 may provide some risk refinement but are unlikely to be clearly linked to oil industry activities and deliver management options (see EMMP below).

Resolution

The EIS should contain relevant data detailed above. It would be bad practice to make collection of these basic data a condition of a licence as once a licence is granted it can be potentially costly and difficult to alter the consented operations. It should certainly not be delivered as part of an EMMP as this is information that should be collected immediately to inform the EIS and before deployment of any infrastructure.

Site assessments

Designated sites for nature conservation are a critical component of any Environmental Risk Assessment, as highlighted by FIG policy and legislation:

• Development Plan: SP5 ‘D. To protect the natural environment proposals must: 1. not have any significant adverse impact upon species protected by law (including their habitat) and not adversely affect the integrity of any internationally or nationally designated nature conservation site (including candidate sites)’
• Falkland Islands Biodiversity Framework. The Eco-region and sites strategy identified under this Framework includes ‘key sites’ as Important Plant Areas, Important Bird Areas and Key Biodiversity Areas.
• OMO Schedule 5 under section 2c.

Issue/s - there is lack of:

• assessment of impacts against sites specifically and legal implications,
• inclusion of important (international) site designations candidate Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA), KBAs and Priority KBAs, candidate Important Bird Areas,
• understanding of the significance of particular designations. (pg. 424 ‘4 levels’; pg. 1236 Kidney is stated as ‘nationally’ significant whereas IBA designation is international).

The FIG National Nature Reserve network is flawed in not having any key features identified and not having management objectives in place, therefore it is difficult to make good assessments of value and risk. However, international non-statutory designations (IPA, IBA and KBA), provide criteria by which ‘internationally important’ sites, and key features are identified.

Resolution

Site assessments of all relevant designations within identified Zones of Influence should be included within the EIS.

Legislation and policy

Legislation and policy are the framework against which Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) are judged. They provide instruction or guidance to developers about what is acceptable with regards to development proposals or ongoing activities. A good EIA will consider its compliance with it and identify where its actions can contribute to policy objectives^[4]

Issue/s

• Falkland Islands policy, legislation and guidelines are not integrated into the EIS
• Whilst there is some listing of policy and legislation this is incomplete:

• No mention of the Development Plan which describes important policy on development and the environment,
• The Biodiversity Framework is the primary national policy document for biodiversity in the Islands and superseded the old Biodiversity Strategy. The EIS repeatedly makes reference to species and habitats listed within the Biodiversity Strategy,
• The EIS states no relevant legislation for ‘disturbance’ (pg. 570). Whilst the main piece of wildlife legislation the Conservation of Wildlife and Nature ordinance 1997, contains plenty of legal relevance to this,
• Species Action Plans recognise the agreed approach to particular species within the Islands e.g. targets 14, and 16 in the Cetaceans SAP are of relevance, but are not included.

The FI wildlife legislation is dated and inappropriate for the globally significant wildlife supported by the Islands and includes little guidance for dealing with breaches. As the EIS correctly points out (pg. 608) there are no equivalent ‘Disturbance licences’, so it is difficult for developers to know what the next steps are to be compliant with legislation and policy; however, as a minimum the Development Plan lays out the reason to consider legally protected species within the EIS:

Policy SP5 ‘D. To protect the natural environment proposals must: 1. not have any significant adverse impact upon species protected by law (including their habitat)’

Resolution

The EIS should accurately assess compliance and identify actions that contribute to policy objectives to provide confidence that the EIS is written with an understanding of relevant Falkland Islands policy and legislation.

Mitigation Hierarchy

The purpose of the EIS is to provide clear information on assessment of potential impacts/risks, and the actions taken to avoid, minimise or offset them. This is the concept of the ‘mitigation hierarchy’^[5]: first avoidance of impact, second minimisation and only finally offsetting of that impact. This is so that decision makers can clearly assess the outcome against national policy and legislation (as above), and decide whether the resulting risks are acceptable. The concept of ‘no net loss’ is a standard required outcome for the mitigation hierarchy and desirable in the Falklands.

Issues:

• The concept of As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) is widely used in the EIS. However, it is subjective - what is ‘reasonable’ to PMO may be ‘unreasonable’ for FIG or stakeholders for example. This is important when considering the adequacy of mitigation, particularly for ecological receptors. In the EIS, what is ‘reasonable’, is dictated to decision makers and stakeholder by the applicant, as well as what further action should be taken (pg.54 Table 6, Table pg. 65 as examples).
• The significance of risk is dictated by the applicant, as again are the subsequent actions, such as offsetting (Table pg. 65).
• Risk categories should be more clearly explained in order to allow decision makers to make informed judgements i.e. for ‘moderate risk’ a nationally important site could be ‘temporarily’ impacted (timescale unknown), or a site of less importance could be destroyed.
• The EIS does not deliver ‘no net loss’ and has little evident aspiration for environmental ‘net gain’

Resolutions

The proposed development should clearly deliver ‘no net loss’ as minimum.

The risk assessment is ‘leading’, it should not conclude decisions/actions on behalf of decision makers.

Offsetting: biological and carbon

Offsetting is the final stage in the mitigation hierarchy and is required under the Offshore Minerals Ordinance. It demonstrates a developer’s intent to provide at least environmental ‘no net loss’ from their activities rather than negative impacts. Guidance on offsetting is provided in FIG EXCO Paper 124/16 Appendix 1 with specific ‘offsetting project guidelines’ in Appendix 2.

Unless determined as non-significant i.e. not an impact, and contrary to statements in the table on pg. 65, all impacts are there to be offset. It would be useful to acknowledge those ’risks’ which are deemed probable in achieving the goal of ‘no net loss’, as stated in the ExCo paper.

Issues:

• Whilst PMO may not have permanent in-house expertise on offsetting (pg. 52), consultants are there to fill this expertise gap. It is disappointing that little thought seems to have been put into offsetting projects proposed within the EIS. For example, impacts on petrel populations from bird strike could be offset by rat or mouse removal at small petrel sites that would reduce pressure on colonies, or low spill lighting in town could reduce sooty shearwater collisions; disturbance at penguin colonies could be offset by wardens or improved fencing/markers at sites already under disturbance pressures.
• The lack of offsetting projects also seems to be argued on the absence of exact quantitative information. In this situation the decision is made by the developer as to whether to do nothing i.e. leave an impact, or propose something that is relevant and shows desire towards ‘net gain’, if not ‘no net loss’ as minimum, and could result in beneficial impacts overall.
• Carbon: the development proposal will generate over 9.5 million tonnes CO2 in its field-life (pg. 770), increasing the Falkland Islands production by around 340 % in that period.  Again PMO have made no proposals for offsetting projects and instead propose payments to an offsetting fund.
• Proposals for contributions to a fund provide no values, so it is not possible to determine whether the payments to a fund would cover projects that would offset identified impacts i.e. reasonably proportional to the calculated emissions projections. Carbon credit/trading schemes start around $1 at the bottom but up to $20 per tonne. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme is currently c€10 per tonne.
• The offsetting fund has not been set up, so there is currently no legal mechanism to ensure that money being provided by the developer for offsetting will be used appropriately.

Resolutions

The offsetting proposals need to provide better justification for not exploring indirect offsetting project proposals.

The offsetting proposals for contributing to a fund need to state a value that can be judged to be commensurate with delivering offsetting to provide ‘no net loss’, and for carbon for comparability with carbon credit values.

Environmental monitoring and management plan (EMMP)

There is no specific guidance by FIG on the appropriate structure and purpose of EMMPs, which will hinder applications. There is however general understanding of what EMMPs are ^[6]. FIG have developed the Environmental Case legislation which will improve the delivery and accountability of EMMPs.

Critically EMMPs are to monitor uncertainty around impacts/risks and effectiveness of proposed mitigation, they are not to deliver baseline data of relevance, as this should have been provided during the EIS.

Certainly EMMP effort should be prioritised where there is a high degree of uncertainty about the risk and/or mitigation, if proposed, and where risk categories could change for the worse i.e. it is more important to monitor where the risk could change from a moderate category to high category, not where more certainty (risk refinement) may move from a Low to Very Low risk category, for example.

The approach to monitoring should produce results that are clearly attributable to the proposed impacts of the development. Without this they will fail to provide clear accountability for action and therefore achievable management for change, unless the oil industry is willing to manage impacts on behalf of all sectors.

Issue/s

• EMMP is being used to gather baseline data that should have been done for the EIS
• EMMP is not being focussed on uncertainty of impact categories or mitigation
• EMMP is being used to gather data that cannot be attributable to oil activities and therefore cannot guarantee positive management.

Examples of EMMP actions

• Marine Mammal Observers to check for cetacean collisions/ near miss whilst vessels are operating – if above acceptable threshold change vessel activity Code of Conduct to more precautionary,
• Seabird Observers to check for bird strike, set acceptable limits - if above acceptable limit change lighting type/timing/spill etc.,
• Data needs collecting on actual anchorage area Zone of Influence before consent. If habitats prove to be valuable, but impacts are argued against, then monitor anchorage Zone of Influence and change location if impacts are large.
• If dynamically positioned tankers have significantly different noise outputs to other vessels using the Sound, monitor occurrence of cetaceans, change location/engines/timing,
• If utilising higher risk areas than existing fishing, or bunkering vessels - monitor ballast water and hulls for species that could survive, improve hull cleaning and ballast water treatment.

Resolutions

EMMP proposals are not acceptable and should be revised to meet the generally accepted requirements of EMMPs.

Contributions to broadly relevant, but non-EIA essential wider environmental monitoring, where management actions cannot be undertaken, should be delivered outside of the EIA process.

Once appropriate, EMMP commitments should be part of strict licence conditions.

Oiled Wildlife Response

The Hydrocarbons Environmental Impact Assessment Guidance Note states that ‘A key risk is oil spill.’, and that ‘the approval of the EIS without understanding the broad approach to how a spill event would be responded to [] has previously led to considerable delays in the approval of EIS’. This reinforces the importance of agreeing and presenting response plans and providing relevant data within the EIS.

The EIS states that remoteness, poor transport and abundant wildlife in the Falklands pose unique and significant challenges in responding to major oil pollution incident, and that in the worst-case scenario weather conditions will be such that effective recovery of oil spills would not be possible. Under this scenario, impacts would be significantly detrimental to the Falklands’ environment and wildlife, as well as the economies driven by it (e.g. international wildlife tourism).  

Issues

• Oil response strategies (including for oiled wildlife) were not included within this EIS, neither was it clear during the consultation that three response strategies (Offshore, Inshore and Stanley Harbour) were available, which is disappointing.
• Metocean data is available for both the offshore and inshore operational sites, and thus the inclusion of models to inform on the ability of the operator to carry out effective and sustained spill responses and subsequent remediation needs to be included - critical for decision makers to fully understand the consequences of not being able to carry out a response to an oil spill.
• The operational Oil Spill Contingency Plan (OSCP) and Oiled Wildlife Response Plan (OWRP) are proposed to be submitted at a later date before operations commence. According to the PMO Oil Spill Strategy for Inshore Crude Oil Transfer Operations these plans will interface with the Falkland Islands National Oil Spill Contingency Plan (NOSCP) and the Falkland Islands Oiled Wildlife Plan, therefore placing a potential resource and financial commitment on FIG and other stakeholders (e.g. FC). Conditions should be set by FIG which include realistic time-frames to inform stakeholders, investigate, develop and disseminate plans for approval and well in advance of operations commencing.
• Further investigations of oil behaviour on wildlife is required. There are still many unknowns regarding the interaction of Sea Lion waxy oil with wildlife. A recent study suggests ocean-borne plastic has a smell that marine animals find appealing Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.1000. Further studies are essential that investigate whether in an oil spill incident Sea Lion oil as solid wax balls are attractive to marine wildlife and incidentally consumed, as well as the continued testing of the oil on marine wildlife pelts.  
• Further investigations are required to trial and test logistical capabilities of oil spill plans in advance of submitting these to FIG. For example investigating seasonal weather conditions and resource limitations. As examples, tents used as temporary animal shelters may not be suitable in a windy climate. There needs to be consideration of rehabilitation in a cold climate - use of outdoor pools will not be suitable. There is no mention of sourcing food supplies for the duration of rehabilitating wildlife.

Resolutions

More data should be provided on oil behaviour with wildlife and trials carried out to test feasibility of the logistics of response plans.

Oil Spill Strategies/Plans should be presented with the EIS. If they are not, they need to be tightly conditioned and received well in advance of operations commencing

There needs to be guarantee that an oil spill response and remediation programme can be financed by the developer. This will need to provide details of specific cover –e.g. clean up vs remediation which is potentially more expensive– and financial details rather than a simple assurance.

Decommissioning

The Offshore Minerals Ordinance states in ‘Schedule 4. Section 6. Remediation’ the requirement for inclusion of information within the EIS that includes the termination of the project.

Issues:

• The EIS appears not to be compliant with the OMO in not providing details on decommissioning.
• There is no mention in the EIS of finance for decommissioning (pg. 211).

Resolution

To be compliant with the OMO the EIS should include the decommissioning phase of the proposed development.

There needs to be a clear commitment to be able to decommission even if the developer is in financial difficulty.

Waste

The EIS highlights the significant issues of dealing with waste within the Islands.

Other, but not exhaustive, issues

Pg. 423: Why would only globally threatened species be included? There is a Falkland Islands Red List for nationally threatened plant species – this shows poor understanding of conservation status indicators.

Pg. 571: Why are only seabirds considered and then narrowed to penguins when all nesting birds are protected under the CoWNO? Further, why are seals included when they are not protected and are Least Concern? This shows poor understanding of legislative and conservation relevance.

Pg. 578: King Penguins are increasing in numbers and are ‘Least Concern’ globally, Volunteer point holds less than a percentage of the world population. Southern Rockhopper are decreasing in numbers globally and are’ Vulnerable’. Why would the king penguin colony be valued higher than the southern Rockhopper colonies - this shows poor understanding of conservation value.

Pg. 631: States there are no population estimates for cetaceans, but the current SAERI Dolphins of the Kelp project has provided population estimates are for Peale’s and Commerson’s dolphins and the FC sei whale project provided a minimum individual count for Berkeley Sound which is reported in the EIS but not used further. Shows lack of up-to-date information.

It is not reasonable to assume with species that are ‘threatened’ due to declining populations, such as Southern Rockhopper, that temporal or low level impacts can be treated as ‘within the natural variation of the population’ (pg. 657 and pg. 737) as the population is considered outside of this natural variation. This is acknowledged on pg792 so should be consistently applied throughout.

Pg. 709: The IUCN Red list category for Black-browed Albatross is actually Least Concern. Shows lack of up-to-date information.

Pg. 803: Whale numbers are considered increasing in the Islands and the presence of Southern Right Whale in numbers in 2017 which are more prone to ship strike will increase the risk of ship strike from that considered in the 2008 cetaceans Species Action Plan. The EIS has a lack of up-to-date information on cetacean ship-strike as last year there was one observed near miss with the Concordia Bay and one reported strike with a launch.

Pg. 1088: Why is the North Falkland Basin inferred as a Zone of Influence for exposure of cetaceans to an oil spill when there is a spill model? Demonstrates poor understanding of EIA process?