the Wild Coast in the Eastern Cape, and it will involve blasting sound waves into the sea using air guns every 10 seconds, for a period of four or five months. Although oil drilling will not be included at this stage, it has still raised concerned regarding sea pollution and climate change.
An online petition has already been signed by over 250,000 people who call on the government pull the plug on the exploration plan. It is a part of the government’s Operation Phakisa, a fast-track economic programme which aims to potential in South Africa’s oceans, among other things. However, given the widespread concerns regarding the climate crisis across the globe, environmental campaigners remained surprised that Shell would initiate such a project less than a month after the UN climate summit in Glasgow. “As a part of Operation Phakisa, Shell’s project has been allowed by our government, as if the threat of global heating from burning more and more fossil fuels doesn’t exist,” Nonhle Mbuthuma, co-founder of the Amadiba Crisis Committee, said.
The project has particularly raised concerns among local fishing communities, as the venture will involve mapping oil and gas pockets beneath the ocean floor, by blasting waves of sound of up to 220 decibel into a sea abundant with fish and seafood resources, posing a direct threat to marine life. “It is also a threat against the livelihood of communities along the Wild Coast and in KwaZulu-Natal, who use the riches of the sea to put food on the table and to get an income. This is our ‘ocean’s economy’. It is about food, not about mining the ocean to make profit for the minority rich who think you can eat money,” the Amadiba committee noted.
