Ending the search for oil and gas a good start

The impacts of seismic blasting on the blue whales that live here is likely to be torturous, interfering with their communication and feeding.

Imagine someone firing a nail gun in your kitchen. Every 10 seconds. For three months. You have nowhere else to eat. Imagine the impact on your stress levels, your health and your hearing.

This is a scenario renowned marine ecologist, Dr Leigh Torres, recently invited us to consider - to put ourselves in the place of the whales, dolphins and other marine wildlife who could soon be suffering the effects of seismic blasting in their feeding grounds. The blasts are from ships towing air cannons and seismic arrays, kilometres long, in the hunt for oil under the seabed.

As we speak, the world’s largest seismic exploration ship is waiting for the New Zealand Government to approve an application to begin blasting for oil across 19,000 square kilometres of the Taranaki Basin.

The 125 metre long ship, called the Amazon Warrior, is known to many in New Zealand as ‘The Beast’, after causing a storm of public opposition last summer when it spent seven months blasting for oil off the Wairarapa Coast.

This summer, its owner - a company called Schlumberger - is proposing three months of constant blasting off the Taranaki Coast. That’s every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day. Its mission is to discover new petroleum reserves for Austrian oil company, OMV. Ironically, Austria is a landlocked country with no coastline and no whales.

The permit area they’re interested in is smack in the middle of a recently discovered blue whale habitat, the whale’s only known feeding ground in New Zealand.

The impacts of seismic blasting on the blue whales that live here is likely to be torturous, interfering with their communication and feeding.

This area was opened up for oil and gas exploration by the previous Government, before the whale habitat was discovered. The new Government now has a chance to turn this seismic ship around and to save the whales. Like with so many things, looking after the health of our environment is also the key to saving ourselves.

Burning fossil fuels like oil and gas severely disturbs the fragile atmosphere that controls our climate, seasons and weather. Scientists now say we can’t even afford to burn the fossil fuel reserves we already know about. Searching for more makes no sense.

Already, we’re beginning to feel the effects of climate change. Extreme weather events are becoming far more regular than a ‘one in 100 year storm’. Our coastal communities are starting to feel the pressure of rising seas and storm surges. With a warming planet, flooding on the scale of what we’ve seen in Edgecumbe and South Dunedin would become increasingly common. Droughts would become a more frequent reality for Canterbury farmers.

There is simply no greater threat to the people of New Zealand, our environment, infrastructure, or economy than climate change. Passing on a secure and abundant world to our children and grandchildren requires us to urgently stabilise our climate. That starts by putting an end to the search for new oil and gas.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has called climate change her generation’s nuclear free moment. She’s right, and now is her moment. Just as going nuclear free meant stopping the nuclear ships, leading on climate change means stopping the oil exploration ships.

Over 15,000 New Zealanders have already signed a petition, launched only last week, calling on the Prime Minister to end oil exploration and stop seismic blasting in the blue whale habitat this summer.

This is just the latest signal in a decade-long movement of opposition to oil drilling by iwi and local communities up and down the country. It’s a movement that is embracing the natural transition away from outdated fuels, and towards clean, renewable energy.

Mass public opposition is what gave our political leaders the courage to declare New Zealand a nuclear free nation. It’s the mandate this new Government now needs again. To put our precious marine life, our coastal communities and weatherdependent farms before the profits of faceless oil corporations like OMV and Schlumberger. It’s time to turn the oil ships around.

Amanda Larsson is a campaigner at Greenpeace New Zealand.