Save our oceans
The survey will cover an area of about 6,011km2 located roughly between Port St Johns and Morgan's Bay.
A community meeting held by the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) gathered a lot of support in Ramsgate on Tuesday this week.
The meeting, headed-up by Desmond D’Sa from SDCEA brought awareness about the oil and gas exploration efforts by Shell scheduled to start on December 1, 2021.
It highlighted the immense negative effects on the environment, communities and marine life along the coastline.
At the meeting, a protest was planned for Sunday, December 5.
Everyone is asked to meet on their local beach and stand together against the seismic drilling off the coastline.
One of the organisers, Taryn Burns of Ocean Friendly SA urges all communities to be seen and heard from both the shore and air. Team leaders within communities are urged to motivate friends, families and neighbours to let all the culprits know that seismic drilling is not okay with them.
Aerial footage will be shot all the way from the Cape right up to the KZN North Coast standing in solidarity against this.
The survey will cover an area of about 6,011km2 located roughly between Port St Johns and Morgan’s Bay.
Burns said it’s anticipated that the seismic survey would take four to five months to complete, depending on weather and current conditions.
Oil and gas activities start with seismic testing. Seismic surveys have been found to kill fish eggs and larvae and impair the hearing and health of fish, making them vulnerable to predators and leaving them unable to catch prey, find mates or communicate with each other. These disturbances disrupt important migratory patterns, pushing marine life away from their natural habitat. In addition, seismic surveys have been implicated in whale beaching and stranding incidents.
Burns said that a few years ago she personally witnessed the effects of seismic blasting when she started noticing vast amounts of marine life in all shapes and sizes being washed up in large numbers between Southbroom and Trafalgar.
“I found hundreds of squid (seismic blasting implodes their internal organs) washed up, whole alive jellyfish beached in large quantities, whales including a baby were among some of the marine life I found,” she explained.
The Amadiba Crisis Committee will also march against Shell on the Amadiba beaches of the Wild Coast on December 5.
They call on people along the coast to join the protest as they say global warming and destruction of the environment affects all.
The people of Amadiba will march from Mnyameni beach at 9:00.
Interested parties from the South Coast will start at the Wild Coast Sun by 10.00. The meeting point will be the Mzamba estuary.
The committee says that the survey will not only be a threat to marine life but also a threat against the livelihood of communities along the Wild Coast and in KwaZulu-Natal that use the riches of the sea to put food on the table and to get an income.
Sunday, December 5:
The Green Net will be organising protests from Port Shepstone northwards – contact Donna Monk on 083 395 5544 or Helen Dodge on 084 987 2018.
Ocean Friendly will be organising protests from Port Shepstone to the Wild Coast – contact Burns on 076 078 7189.
Nonhle Mbuthuma from the Amadiba Crisis can be contacted on 073 4262955.
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