Mantashe joins appeal against halting of Wild Coast seismic blasting
The minister joins Shell in opposing the judgement
Mineral & energy affairs minister Gwede Mantashe is joining Impact Africa and its multinational oil and gas partner Shell in a bid to appeal against a judgment which set aside his department’s decision to award an exploration right to seismically survey the Eastern Cape coastline.
Impact Africa and Shell shared the licence in terms of which Shell in 2021 sought to seismically blast the ocean off the ecologically sensitive Wild Coast in a bid to find oil and gas — a practice which scientists say can be devastating to marine life.
A full bench of the Makhanda high court earlier this month set aside the department’s 2014 decision to grant the exploration right as well as its subsequent 2017 and 2020 decisions to renew that right.
Mantashe, Shell and Impact Africa want leave to take the court’s decision on appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal.
Non-profit environmental, legal and community organisations, Sustaining the Wild Coast, Dwesa-cwebe Community Property Association, All Rise Attorneys For Climate and the Environment, Natural Justice and Greenpeace, as well as individual fishers took the minister, Shell and Impact Africa to court to set aside the exploration right because they said consultation of affected rural communities had been farcical.
It said the department had also given no regard to the principle of sustainable development or to the devastating environmental harm the seismic blasting would cause.
A full bench of the Makhanda high court agreed with the applicants.
But, in the department’s application for leave to appeal, Mantashe’s lawyers say the court should have upheld his technical objections that the organisations had not brought the application in time to set aside a right initially granted some seven years ago.
He also said the court had erred in finding that the applicant organisations had failed to exhaust their internal remedies before resorting to court in that they had not first appealed to Mantashe against his department’s decision to grant the exploration right.
The full bench had found that Mantashe’s utterances on social media denouncing those challenging the exploration right had created an apprehension of bias and an appeal to him would have been an “exercise in futility”.
The department says in its court papers that the court also erred in finding the department had failed to consider the spiritual and cultural rights of Wild Coast communities including their customary practices and spiritual relationship with the sea.
It said Shell had provided ample evidence of minimal impact of the survey on marine life.
It said the distance of the survey from the shore meant that communities’ customary and spiritual practices would not be impacted.
The papers also took to task the court’s ruling that the exploration right should not have been issued without first conducting a comprehensive assessment of the need and desirability of exploring for new gas and oil reserves in so far as climate change is concerned.
It said the only way failure to consider climate change could be considered relevant was if cabinet had made a policy decision not to exploit hydrocarbons for energy.
“No such blanket decision has been taken by the SA government and the use of hydrocarbons clearly forms part of the government’s planning.”
Makhanda correspondent attorney for several of the applicant organisations, Owen Huxtable, yesterday confirmed that they would oppose Impact Africa, Shell and the minister’s applications for leave to appeal.