Win for South African Fishers in Case Against Shell

An interdict against seismic scanning by oil giant Shell has been granted by the Grahamstown High Court in Makhanda, IOL reports. This puts the oil giant's fuel exploration activities along the Wild Coast on hold until a second part of an interdict is heard.

This comes three weeks after Judge Avinash Govindjee dismissed a previous interdict application, saying that "irreparable harm" to marine species was not proved by the applicants, which included Greenpeace.

In 2014, a government decision granted Shell permission to pursue seismic scanning of the area situated over 20km off the Eastern Cape coast, resulting in a cascade of opposition that lasted more than seven years. The latest stand against the corporation's plan of using high-decibel airguns to map potential oil and natural gas deposits saw environmentalists protest the arrival of the 130m-long seismic blasting vessel, the Amazon Warrior, at Cape Town Harbour.

While Shell claims to be operating within the bounds of the law, due to its stakeholder consultation process as part of the Environmental Management Programme during 2013 and passing an Environmental Compliance audit, a case can be made that a "loophole" has been exploited by the petroleum corporation.