Shellshock on the island terrified by oil giant’s pipeline

They no longer let their children play in the woods beside the dachas on the hills overlooking Aniva Bay.

Since the oil company Shell began building a large liquid natural gas (LNG) plant on the southern tip of Sakhalin island in Russia’s Far East, bears have started straying into the village. The community believes its traditional way of life, growing its own food and fishing, is under threat. The bears have been frightened away from their feeding grounds by construction activity, they say. The natural order – from the bears to the health of the island’s marine life – is being fundamentally altered.