Biodiversity is important to ensure the stability of the ecosystem, provide sources of food, medicines and natural resources. It also has great significance in spiritual, cultural and aesthetic contexts. Accordingly, biodiversity has a central place in StatoilHydro's environmental policy, and we seek to maintain biodiversity and important ecosystem functions in connection with our operations in order to conserve such diversity.

We participate actively in and chair a working group on biodiversity under the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association/ International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IPIECA/OGP). The goal of the group is to increase awareness of this issue in the petroleum industry in general, and to continue the development of guidelines and tools for preserving biodiversity. The work includes the development of guidelines on managing alien invasive species and methods for assessing ecosystem services.

We are also a partner in the Proteus programme of the UN Environmental Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) . A new version of the World Database on Protected Areas was launched at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona in October. 

Through our participation in the Serpent programme we have used equipment associated with our subsea installations and operations to map and monitor deep-water biodiversity, and we participate in a major international collaboration to increase ourknowledge about the effect of noise on marine mammals and other marine organisms.

In addition, we sit on the executive committee of SEAPOP, a Norwegian programme for mapping and researching seabirds.

Conserving biodiversity is important in a number of our international exploration and development projects, including offshore exploration in Brazil. Managing biodiversity is also a significant challenge for our oil sand operations in Canada and it will be important in relation to our engagement in biofuel production.