Academic blasts Greenpeace tactic
Greenpeace has been accused of ‘‘lying for financial gain’’ as it fights seismic surveying off the New Zealand coast.
Seismic surveying involves firing compressed air into the seabed to generate an underground map but it is a process opposed by the environmental group, which fears that the sounds emitted are a danger to marine mammals.
Four Greenpeace activists, including former Green Party co-leader Russel Norman, are under government investigation after they hurled themselves in front of an oil exploration ship running seismic surveys off the Wairarapa coast in April.
But Victoria University geophysics and tectonics professor Rupert Sutherland, who has studied the science behind this exploration method, said Greenpeace’s campaign was ‘‘essentially lying for financial gain’’.
Sutherland, who has also worked on seismic surveys, knew of no evidence that conclusively showed there was a single incident of a whale or dolphin being directly injured by seismic reflection vessels.
Climate change researchers used seismic surveying and drilling to collect sediment cores to look at climate records, he said. ‘‘The current strategy of Greenpeace makes it expensive or impossible to conduct legitimate research in the ocean, including climate change research.’’
Greenpeace climate campaigner Kate Simcock rejected the suggestion Greenpeace was lying and said its campaigns were based on well-documented scientific evidence. Its campaign did not make claims of direct impact to marine mammals, and the effects were chronic rather than immediate, she added.
‘‘Seismic surveys have been shown to disrupt essential activities for whales, including foraging and reproduction. There could also be an increased risk of calves being separated from mothers . . . ‘‘Exposure to repeated loud blasts from a seismic survey can mask the sounds they rely on and lead to stress, disorientation, changes in foraging and nursing behaviours, and, in extreme cases, direct physical damage.’’
But Sutherland said: ‘‘Everyone’s a bit suspicious of people in suits that make lots of money in the petroleum industry, so they’re kind of easy targets emotionally for Greenpeace to exploit to fund-raise.’’
GNS marine geophysicist Stuart Henrys said seismic reflection was an industry tool that ‘‘is well regulated, and there was research to underpin that regulation’’.