Even those who do not follow what happens in South Africa’s courts are unlikely to have missed the news about the ruling against Shell and its seismic ambitions off the Wild Coast. The verdict by the Constitutional Court against one of the world’s top five energy giants has been celebrated by environmental and community groups.
The ruling against Shell in the original application to the High Court turned on a failure to properly engage indigenous coastal residents, ignoring their livelihoods, cultural heritage and spiritual ties to the ocean. South Africa’s judiciary has again demonstrated a commitment to protecting human rights, as Constitutional Court Judge Kollapen confirmed the High Court’s conclusion that public participation is a vital expression of human agency and dignity, and not a box-ticking exercise. The decision is also welcomed by BirdLife South Africa, concerned as we are about increasing levels of underwater noise and impacts on marine animals.
Published local and international studies have indicated that noise associated with seismic surveys may affect a range of species, causing physical harm and eliciting behavioural responses. Impacts may include damage of tissues in fish due to rapid changes of pressure following the loud sound waves travelling through the water. Fish eggs that are laid in the vicinity of seismic surveys are also likely to die off, as is the zooplankton that underpins the productivity of marine ecosystems. Researchers have stressed that little is known about the seriousness of these impacts, triggering the need for a precautionary approach to where and how seismic surveys are conducted.
A study involving BirdLife South Africa’s seabird scientists, led by Adjunct Professor Lorien Pichegru (Marine Biology, Nelson Mandela University) and focusing specifically on African Penguins, indicated that birds foraging 100km from active operations showed a clear change of foraging direction during seismic surveys. The penguins diverted from their traditional feeding grounds and increased their distance between their feeding area and the seismic vessel’s location. The driver of this behavioural change could be the noise, or the fact that the fish the penguins were hunting moved to different, more distant areas.
While the impact of a single survey may be regarded as tolerable, the effect cannot be viewed in isolation of increasing vessel traffic, and cumulative sources of noise disturbance and pollution that are driving African Penguins and other endangered seabirds ever closer to extinction. We also need to appreciate that seismic surveys are the first step in a potential chain of developments that impact on the marine and coastal environment, as the initial reconnaissance phase moves to exploratory drilling and eventual production.
The Court’s verdict is important politically as well as environmentally, as debates around fossil fuels and climate change are becoming more complex. While it is generally accepted that global fossil fuel reserves exceed what can safely be burnt, the South African government is among several that are now prioritising domestic energy security, supply chain control and geopolitical independence over long-term emission targets. But so-called ‘energy sovereignty’ is a short-term strategy rather than a long-term solution to a planetary crisis. Our judiciary deserves to be heralded for subverting the ‘drill, baby, drill’ mantra by defending local community consultation rights and environmental protection against unsustainable political strategies and corporate fossil fuel ambitions.
