[imagesource: EPA-EFE / Nic Bothma)

Watching the Amazon Warrior (pictured above) leave South African shores with its tail between its legs was a wonderful thing.

In case you’re playing catchup, the Amazon Warrior is the vessel hired by Shell to carry out seismic survey blasting off the Wild Coast before a court ruling stopped that in its tracks.

There is still an appeal process in that case but for now, it’s a sweet, sweet victory.

Right, roll up your sleeves and we go again because Australian-based Searcher Seismic is set to commence a seismic survey in Western Cape waters in the coming days.

Activists are on the case, reports The Daily Maverick:

On its website, the company says: “Searcher has released a new multiclient 2D and 3D seismic rectification project Offshore South Africa, in collaboration with the Petroleum Agency of South Africa.”

…A number of aspects remain murky at this stage, including the public consultation process and environmental permitting, as virtually no one had heard of the survey before the petition was launched…

Gilbert Martin, founder and CEO of the civil society movement We Are South Africans, launched a petition and told Business Maverick that his organisation would be seeking a court interdict to halt the survey.

Pens (or keyboards) at the ready because here is the petition to sign.

Martin also appeared on CapeTalk to drum up more awareness around the seismic survey due to kick off on January 15 (Saturday).

He believes the way that permission was granted is very fishy:

“The permit was only granted… for activation on 6 December… We got wind of it just after Christmas… Do you know that this is happening, again? It’s a terrible tragedy that our government would use the time [of the year] to push something underneath the radar…

Consult the people of South Africa. Follow due process… Don’t provide it to politically connected companies…

Shell is one of the beneficiaries of the data that will be collected.”

Whether or not petitions work is a story for another day, but there’s no harm in chucking your name into the hat here.

You can listen to Martin’s full interview with John Maytham below:

[sources:dailymav&capetalk]