South African court blocks Shell's oil exploration

December 31, 2021 9:07 PM

Environmental groups and local communities who rely on marine life to make their living, won a significant court battle against Shell, halting seismic blasting on the South African east coast.

It's a significant victory, as Shell will have to do another environmental impact assessment, but the fight is not over yet.
Here are some quite striking images of the protests from all over the country, artists and fishermen working together. (I especially love the big puppet fish).

posted by Zumbador (4 comments total)

If you want to do something to help this fight, Oceans Not Oil is a good place to start.
posted by Zumbador at 9:10 PM on December 31, 2021

The South African government has done a pretty good job of killing offshore oil exploration by unilaterally changing the terms of the leases. Several companies have pulled out.
posted by Bee'sWing at 3:48 AM on January 1, 2022

One small battle won, but there are somewhere around a hundred of these surveys happening every day, most of them far out to sea.

Here's a short video where you can see the wide area that one vessel is able to cover with their streamers.
The length of a streamer cable ranges from 3000m to 6000m (just under 4 miles) to get a clear signal that means the seismic source must be loud enough to travel at least 10 miles.

For any nearby cetacean to 'just swim away from the noise' they need to out-pace the 5-10 knots of the ship and keep doing that until they are > 10 miles clear.
posted by Lanark at 4:38 AM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

halting seismic blasting on the South African east coast

Good.

Shut it down. Shut it all the fuck down, like, today.

And yeah, there will be consequences. Yeah, oil will get more expensive. Well, good. Make it cost too much to use. Can't happen soon enough.
posted by flabdablet at 7:51 AM on January 1, 2022 [5 favorites]