World Wildlife Fund and an Operating Company Partnership: Lessons Learned from Six Years of Collaboration in Biodiversity Protection

Abstract

Abstract In 1994, the Kutubu Petroleum Development Project (established by a consortium of oil companies and operated by Chevron Niugini Limited) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) embarked on a unique partnership to conserve the globally-significant forest ecosystem of the Kikori River catchment in Papua New Guinea. The Kutubu Project is Papua New Guinea's first petroleum development project and is surrounded by the vast 2.3 million hectare Kikori River catchment. The partnership established between Chevron Niugini and WWF initiated the Kikori Integrated Conservation and Development Project (KICDP) to assist the people of the Kikori River catchment to conserve their natural resources, which are under threat primarily from large-scale logging. While few partnerships of this magnitude exist between international oil companies and conservation organizations, the KICDP has proven that such a partnership can be a successful way to promote and achieve environmental conservation. This partnership is predicated on Chevron Niugini's efforts to safeguard the environment through environmental controls and WWF's goal of conserving the earth's outstanding biological diversity. The KICDP completed its first three-year phase of operation in 1997 and initiated a second three-year phase in January of 1998 with funding from the Gobe and Kutubu Petroleum Development Projects. Both Chevron and WWF have recently completed internal reviews of the partnership. This paper describes the results from these reviews. The conclusion from six years of partnership experience between Chevron and WWF is that this partnership--and potentially others like it--offers considerable promise as an innovative strategy for environmental protection.