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A court has barred Shell from going ahead with seismic blasting on the Wild Coast as part of its exploration for oil and gas, for now.
The High Court in Makhanda on Tuesday ruled that Shell must halt its activities until a second part of an interdict is heard.
Wild Coast communities lodged an application for an urgent interdict against Shell's exploration in late November. The communities are represented by the Legal Resources Centre and Richard Spoor Attorneys and are joined by two civil society organisations that work in the area.
Shell recently started a seismic survey off the coast between Morgans Bay and Port St Johns, which involves using airguns to send pulses of sound into the water. The information collected from the sound waves bouncing back from the ocean floor will be used by scientists to determine or map out the presence of oil or gas reserves.
The area that will be covered is about 6 000km2.
Concerned parties worry that the seismic survey will interfere with marine life. Many marine animals use sound to navigate, detect food, find mates or avoid predators. Seismic surveys have been shown to damage tissue in marine mammals, cause temporary hearing loss and stress in animals.
'A real threat'
In his judgement, Judge Gerald Bloem stated that "despite the massive body of expert evidence on the threat to harm to marine life" Shell did not provide any evidence to neutralise the representations made by the applicants.
Bloem further stated that the evidence presented established that "there is real threat that the marine life would be irreparably harmed by the seismic survey."
Bloem also found that Shell's attempts to notify local communities of its planned exploration were "inadequate" and that its consultation process with affected communities was "substantially flawed".
"In all the circumstances, it seems to me that the exploration right, which was awarded on the basis of a substantially flawed consultation process, is thus unlawful and invalid," the ruling read.
The court ordered Shell and Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, to pay the applicants' legal costs.
The applicants against Shell include small-scale fishers from the Amadiba, Cwebe, Hobeni, Port Saint Johns and Kei Mouth communities.
