Shell’s seismic survey will cause ‘irreparable harm’ to sea life, including migrating whales along the Wild Coast in December - Shell says commencing now is the “most appropriate step to take”
applied for an urgent interim interdict to stop Shell from embarking on its 3D seismic survey between Morgan Bay and Port St Johns, which was scheduled to start on Wednesday.
The applicants, Duminy said, were motivated by a desire to protect the coastal environment and had to bring their urgent application because Shell was unwilling to give any undertakings that it would not begin its surveys during December. The law, Duminy said, regulates seismic surveys and requires mitigation measures to be taken, “precisely because they are harmful to the environment”.
“But Shell has demonstrated in detail that, in fact, commencing now is the most appropriate step to take, from an environmental perspective, to prevent interference with whales during July to November … The window now selected, with the mitigation measures adopted, is the safest window in which to conduct the survey.
There have been about 35 3D seismic surveys conducted in South Africa, 11 of them in the past five years, without incident on the country’s coastline, and hundreds conducted globally. “There is no evidence that any of these has caused any serious injury, death or stranding of marine life. The seismic survey that forms the subject of this application is to be conducted pursuant to a highly detailed mitigation strategy … which will ensure that its impact is low.
Duminy said the accusation that the applicant’s attorneys had in some way improperly delayed launching the application was simply false, and the allegation that they “sat back and did nothing for three weeks” was outrageous.
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