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The Coastal Justice Network sent out an angry press release following the approval of TotalEnergies’ drilling along our Southern Coast. We thought they made a few interesting points:

October marked the start of Marine Month in South Africa, but already, ocean carers and defenders have been left shocked and reeling in disbelief as Minister Creecy, the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, has made a devastating choice.

The Fossil Fool Minister has enabled two oil and gas prospecting authorisations to gain access to our ocean.

In the first instance, French-owned company, TotalEnergies, with partners Shell and PetroSA, have applied and been granted environmental authorisation by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE), to drill up to five oil wells 60kilometres off Cape Point.

Indigenous coastal communities and small-scale fishers, individual researchers, scientists, business persons, non-governmental organisations, academics, members of the public and the Provincial Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning appealed this authorisation. But despite 17 different grounds for appeal, Creecy dismissed the appeals. She confirmed the environmental authorisation on the same conditions as stated in the original approval by DMRE, with one addition. She has instructed the company to employ a liaison officer to address any questions and concerns that small-scale fishers and their communities may have.

In the second appeal dismissed by Minister Creecy this week, environmental authorisation had also been granted by Minister Mantashe’s department for a seismic survey off the West Coast. After losing their application for a seismic survey last year, when small-scale fishers succeeded in getting an interdict to stop Searcher, the foreign company returned, jumped the EIA public participation hurdles, listened to hundreds of fishers up and down the coast saying ‘NO, we do not want oil and gas exploration’, but still managed to succeed as Creecy dismissed those appeals, too.

Despite UN Secretary-General Guterres urging all countries to stop fossil fuel extraction in order to avoid climate ‘catastrophe’ as “We are hurtling towards disaster, eyes wide open” (news.un.org 15 June 2023), the Minister of Environment sees no need to adopt a precautionary approach. This is on top of all the best available scientific information from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and in a country still reeling from recent extreme weather events, resulting in an estimated 480 deaths.

Minister Creecy represents South Africa in global climate policy negotiations and has been ‘honoured’ with a position overseeing a ‘global stock take’ exercise on the countries’ progress in terms of the climate agreement. Could Creecy’s eyes really have been open when she dismissed these appeals? Has she read the Shell judgment from the Makhanda High Court and the judgment from the Cape Town High Court in the Searcher case?

On her watch, South Africa has been ranked the worst carbon emitter in Africa and one of the 12 highest carbon emitters in the world. Yet despite this shameful pollution of our planet, the burden of which falls most heavily on the poor, Minister Creecy decided to ignore the Makhanda judgment in the Shell matter. The judgement states that an application must consider exploration and production as discrete stages in a single process that culminates in the production and combustion of oil and gas, and the emission of greenhouse gasses. She says she isn’t obliged to take that into account since it’s under appeal and her legal team doesn’t agree with it anyway.

Plus, what happened to you protecting the penguins Minister Creecy? Has the Minister forgotten the oil spill on the west coast of South Africa from the MV Apollo Sea (1994) that resulted in the deaths of about 10,000 penguins? What about the sinking of the bulk oil carrier Treasure in 2000 that resulted in approximately 20,250 penguins being covered in oil of which 2,000 died and approximately 19,500 had to be relocated (Potgieter, 2020)?

Minister Creecy just drastically curbed fishing in areas near penguin colonies – apparently to protect penguins from extinction – yet she shows complete disregard for expert scientists’ concerns that oil and gas exploration may put penguins and other marine animals at risk. On the contrary, it seems she has laid out a welcome mat for foreign energy companies – embracing TotalEnergies in a complete greenwashing exercise by celebrating its partnership with SANParks this week.

Creecy recently announced that she was embracing a 30×30 campaign for marine protected areas in order to protect our marine environment (aiming to declare 30% of our ocean as ‘protected areas’ by 2030). Is this nod at marine protection and conservation just a smoke screen so that oil and gas extraction can continue at a fast pace in the rest of the ocean? Is this you applying your mind, Minister Creecy? Is this Minister of Environment, the custodian of our children’s future, a fossil fool?

Minister Gwede Mantashe is well known as a friend of the fossil fuel industry, a polarising politician with dangerous discourse accusing communities of being puppets of foreign countries and characterising their resistance towards oil and gas as being ‘anti-development’. We have grown to expect anti-community fossil foolishness from Mantashe, but to be betrayed by Creecy in this way is deeply painful.

Who are the real custodians of the environment and our oceans? Certainly not DFFE, not Ezemvelo in partnership with Karpowership and not SANParks in partnership with TotalEnergies. All along our coastline, fishers and coastal communities have been leading the resistance to offshore oil and gas exploration. Creecy, as Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment, has betrayed the environment and small-scale fishers this week. What hope is there for environmental and climate justice in South Africa with Creecy as a minister?

#Creecy – Not our Minister
#Climate Hypocrite
#Ocean Betrayer

Image: ©ParliamentofRSA

The undersigned:

Aukotowa Fishers Co-operative, Port Nolloth Noyakana Fishing Primary Co-operative
KZN Subsistence Fisher Folks
Coastal Links KZN
South African Fishers Collective
Eastern Cape Khoisan Primary Fishing Co-operative
Mamre Enterprises SSF Co-operative
Chascavu Fishing Primary Co-operative
Moeggesukkel Visserye Co-operative Ltd
Coldstorm SSF co-operative
Elinye SSF co-operative
Kei-Mor Fishing Primary Co-operative
Chief Brendon Billings
Kiwane Fishing Primary Co-operative
Siyaphambili Primary Co-operative
Msikaba Mouth Primary Fishing Co-operative
Koukamma Fishing Primary Co-operative
Ekuphumleni Kenton-on-Sea Fisheries Co-operative
Umlibo Fishing Primary Co-operative
Benton Fishing Primary Co-operative
Marselle Primary Fisheries Co-operative
Siyazama Primary Fisheries Co-operative
Eastern Cape Black Fisheries Co-operative
Buffeljagsbaai SeaWhale Co-operative
Blinkwaters Co-operative
Veldrift Small-scale Fishers Cooperative
Kleinmond Protea Small-scale Fishers Co-operative Arniston/Waenshuiskrans Kleinskaalse Visserye Primary Co-operative

South Durban Community Environmental Alliance Masifundise Development Trust
Coastal Justice Network

Contact details: jackiesunde25@gmail.com 

[source: Press Release / Coastal Justice Network]