South Africa’s energy minister has defended Royal Dutch Shell’s plans for seismic oil exploration and blasting along a pristine coastal stretch, home to some of the country's most undisturbed wildlife and a major tourist draw.
Environmentalists and others say the blasting on the east coast would threaten marine wildlife such as dolphins, seals, penguins and endangered humpback whales. Local people also fear the seismic surveys, set to be conducted over 6,000 square kilometers, will kill or scare away the fish they depend on to live.
The blasting, which involves firing high-powered airguns every 10 seconds and measuring the echoes to detect cavities under the sea bed, hurts wildlife, especially sea mammals, causing hearing loss, disturbing feeding and breeding, and interfering with their own communication systems.
On Friday, a South African court struck down an application brought by environmentalists to stop the oil exploration on the Wild Coast, rejecting their argument as “unproven” that it would cause "irreparable harm" to the marine environment, especially migrating humpback whales.
On the contrary, the U.S. government last year decided to decline renewing any federal permits for fossil fuel companies that use seismic air guns off the Atlantic Coast, after objections from environmentalists and East Coast residents on similar grounds.
South Africa’s Energy Minister, Gwede Mantashe, has defended the seismic surveys, saying that objections are merely “meant to ensure the status quo remains in Africa of energy poverty.”
There is currently a petition you can find on change.org objecting Shell's seismic survey of the Wild Coast.