Some of our key objectives for investing in environmental programs are enhancing wildlife habitat and environmental education.

In the United States, we are a longtime participant in the Playa Lakes Joint Venture, a partnership of federal and state natural resource agencies and conservation groups dedicated to protecting wetlands and prairies in the western Great Plains. Overall, the company has contributed more than $1.3 million over 20 years to support hundreds of habitat conservation, research and education projects with Playa Lakes. We also have pledged $750,000 to help restore more than a thousand miles of hiking trails in Yellowstone Park.

ConocoPhillips' St. Charles field, located in the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, is an excellent example of oil and gas operations coexisting with wildlife and nature. For more than 60 years, our operating plan for the field has accomplished the successful development of oil reserves, while at the same time nurturing an environment in which the refuge's flock of endangered whooping cranes can flourish. The refuge’s coastal wetlands are the winter home to the last viable population of naturally migratory whooping cranes. During the time that ConocoPhillips has partnered with refuge management, the flock has flourished, growing from 20 birds initially, to a mid-April 2009 departure count of 247. In 2008, ConocoPhillips gave $12,000 to the refuge for enhanced wildlife habitat, as well as educational, interpretive and scientific activities that encourage public use of the refuge.

In China, we are the sole sponsor of the International Friendship Forest, a national park at the Badaling gate of the Great Wall, one of the country’s most popular tourist sites. The park’s objective is to create a natural environment that complements the wall’s historical heritage, cultural essence and ecological environment. ConocoPhillips has funded restoration and development of the park since 2000, and our employees help with tree planting and maintenance. Also in China, since 1998 ConocoPhillips has donated more than $715,000 in partnership with the State Environmental Protection Bureau and Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau to promote the Search for Solutions initiatives with the goal of helping Chinese elementary- and secondary-school students become better environmental citizens. The program provides students with specific educational information on the environmental conditions that affect their lives, hands-on experience through field studies and experiments and workshops to creatively express their concern for the environment or their own environmental solutions.