Months after two separate High Courts granted interim urgent interdicts against two different seismic surveys off the East and West Coasts, Tosaco Energy received authorisation from the Department of Mineral Resources and Environment (DMRE) to proceed with seismic blasting in Block 1 – from Alexander Bay to Hondeklipbaai – despite communities’ calls for improved public consultation.
Last week, following submissions from small-scale fishers in Alexander Bay, Port Nolloth, Kleinzee, Hondeklipbaai, and Kommagas, The Green Connection also lodged its appeal against the authorisation granted to Tosaco.
According to the Green Connection’s Community Outreach Coordinator Neville van Rooy, who recently visited several communities these communities are fighting similar issues that ultimately led to the interdicting of the Searcher projects along the West Coast in the first place.
“First there is a similar lack of meaningful consultation with those who would be affected,” said Van Rooy.
“During interactions in Kleinsee and Hondeklipbaai this week, communities said that they clearly requested that Tosaco’s consultants Environmental Impact Management Services (Eims) come back to do proper consultation at more suitable times. The fact that most of the fishermen were not available to attend the meetings should have been an indication that they face many limitations and challenges, which should have been taken into account,” he explained.
The Green Connection says it questions the legality of the environmental authorisation since it was during the pre-application phase already that Eims and the Petroleum Agency of South Africa (Pasa) had decided two specialist studies would suffice, without affording relevant stakeholders an opportunity to comment on this pre-application decision.
The organisation claims in addition to the procedural issues related to the granting of the authorisation, “the evidence is clear that seismic surveys do cause direct and indirect physical harm to individual species and marine ecosystems.”
Local fishers, as well as other opponents of planned seismic blasting along the West Coast, were granted interim urgent interdicts against these tests earlier this year.
