Protesters recreate seismic survey
Every 10 seconds whistles were blown and voices raised, turning heads on New Plymouth’s main street on Saturday.
The human-made noises were said to illustrate the disturbance caused by the seismic survey currently being carried out by the Amazon Warrior vessel off the Taranaki coast.
At midday on Saturday a group of passionate locals and campaigners joined the Stop the Seismic Survey protest that started at Puke Ariki and moved into the CBD.
Climate Justice Taranaki said it was taking action against both the process of the survey - sending sound waves out underwater every 10 seconds - and its purpose to explore for oil and gas.
‘‘We were like ‘we’ve got to do something about this because we’ve got to make a stand here in Taranaki where this is all happening’,’’ Urs Signer, an organiser of the protest and member of Climate Justice Taranaki, said.
‘‘We’ve got to show that there is community opposition to this kind of mahi (work) - that there’s been community opposition to this stuff for 150 years.’’
Lyndon DeVantier, a member of Climate Justice Taranaki, said he had a PhD in marine science and said the underwater noise had an impact on the whole foodchain.
‘‘Imagine them doing that on land, going around and blasting like that every 10 seconds,’’ he said.
‘‘Offshore here is the richest whale and dolphin diversity on earth. There are 36 species, six of them are classified internationally as endangered.
‘‘We should be doing everything that we possibly can to be helping those. Blasting out there every 10 seconds for months on end in their habitat is not doing that.’’
Last month Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand chief executive Cameron Madgwick said the surveys had been happening around New Zealand ‘‘for decades’’.
‘‘Overall they have very minimal effects on the environment and like all activity in our industry, they are closely regulated and monitored,’’ he said.
He said the sound emitted by the survey dissipated rapidly in the water and at 1 kilometre the sound was generally lower than the noise from large commercial shipping vessels.