![\"ruins](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/20240328_South-Africa-Port-Nolloth-abandoned-fish-shop_BarryChristianson.jpg\")
<\/div>Today, the diamond mines lie dormant, no longer profitable for large-scale extraction. Fishing, too, has declined<\/a>, with industrial overharvesting blamed for much of the loss. But it is still one of the two main economic activities in Port Nolloth, alongside small-scale diamond recovery in shuttered mines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Steenkamp is the chairperson of Aukatowa Fisheries, Port Nolloth\u2019s small-scale fishing cooperative. He fought for years for small-scale fishers to be recognised and given fishing rights so they could share in the country\u2019s marine resources. Ultimately, he was successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since 2021, he has been campaigning with his colleagues on another issue: the risks they believe multiple planned offshore oil and gas projects pose to the environment, their livelihoods, and the future of their children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That year, Shell announced it would commence<\/a> a 3D seismic survey \u2013 a method for exploring the subsurface in detail \u2013 off South Africa\u2019s eastern coast. This was to prove the first of many such surveys, by multiple companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More recently, exploration activities have moved closer to Port Nolloth. In 2023, UK-based TGS Geophysical Company was given authorisation to conduct a large-scale seismic survey in an area covering 57,400<\/a> sq km of ocean off the west coast. The South African branch of French energy giant Total, known as Teepsa, was also authorised to drill<\/a> 10 exploratory wells for oil and gas, roughly offshore of the area between Port Nolloth and Hondeklip Bay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gwede Mantashe, the minister of mineral and petroleum resources, sees<\/a> oil and gas production as a means to energy security for the African continent. This is particularly important for South Africa, which only emerged from years of rolling electricity blackouts in 2024, and continues to experience them intermittently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But some South Africans worry about the consequences of increasing amounts of exploration activity close to home, and have taken action to oppose them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In late 2024, Aukatowa Fisheries, along with environmental NGOs Natural Justice and Green Connection, launched two court cases to review the government authorisations given to TGS<\/a> and Teeps<\/a><\/a>a<\/a><\/a>. The applicants said the High Court should stop fossil fuel activities near Port Nolloth for several reasons. These included inadequate environmental impact reports (EIRs) that downplay the risks of spills and seismic surveys; failures to consider the impacts of multiple projects in the same area; and a failure to consider the climate impacts of extracting more fossil fuels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Melissa Groenik, an attorney for Natural Justice, says the EIRs for both TGS and Teepsa minimise the risks from accidental spills associated with their respective operations. \u201cWe know … that the impacts of an oil spill will be catastrophic,\u201d says Groenik. \u201cThey acknowledge it often, but they just diminish the risk completely.\u201d Teepsa\u2019s impact report<\/a> says the company\u2019s experience with drilling wells off the South Coast, where the sea conditions\u00a0are more extreme than near Port Nolloth, lowers the risk of a spill or well blowout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Work by researchers, submitted to the court, appears to support Groenik\u2019s assertion in the case involving Teepsa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Annalisa Bracco is co-director of the Ocean Science and Engineering Graduate Programme at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US. Her submission, seen by Dialogue Earth, states that in Teepsa\u2019s final EIR, there was no ability to validate the output of the modelling exercise undertaken by the company against real-world conditions in the area. Should a spill occur, \u201cthe true extent of shoreline oiling may have been underestimated\u201d, the submission added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jean Harris is a marine scientist and the executive director of WildOceans, an organisation focused on biodiversity protection in Southern Africa. She provided expert evidence that said she had \u201cidentified deficits in the environmental impact assessment relating \u2026 to the impacts of an oil spill on marine protected areas and hake, anchovy and pilchard spawning areas\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a>Groenik says the overall impact of various exploration activities also needs to be considered. She points out that another company, Searcher Geodata UK, was recently given <\/a>authorisation<\/a> by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy to perform a seismic survey in the same area as TGS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Groenik worries that the noise and disruption of multiple seismic surveys could harm marine life. \u201cThese kinds of cumulative impacts are not being taken into account in these applications\u2026 They\u2019re not considering what might happen when seismic surveys and drilling activities occur at the same time, or close in time,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Carmen Mannarino of the Masifundise Development Trust, a civil society organisation, says that up until now, litigation to stop oil and gas exploration has focused on procedural issues such as community consultation or how close to shore drilling would occur. She says a ruling based on the collective environmental impacts of multiple oil and gas projects \u201cwould give us more power to engage \u2026 Government cannot just look at each project on its own \u2026 They have to look at all other projects that are planned in the same area, and judge the [environmental impact] based on that\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to local environmental risks, there is also the risk of new fossil fuel projects exacerbating climate change via the extra carbon that ends up in the atmosphere and ocean once the oil and gas is burned. While gas is increasingly touted as a \u201ctransition fuel\u201d that can wean countries off dirtier fossil fuels, some experts say<\/a> that once fugitive emissions \u2013 gas that escapes before being burnt for energy production \u2013 is factored in, the net greenhouse gas effect can exceed oil and coal in some cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Groenik says the National Environmental Management Act<\/a> requires government departments to holistically consider all the impacts of such projects across their life cycle, but that this is not happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From a climate perspective, oil exploitation is unjustifiable in terms of climate change impacts, South Africa\u2019s international commitments, and the country\u2019s energy plans, she says. \u201cWhy are we taking any of the risks associated with exploration when the purpose is to find reserves that will lead to commercial exploitation?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a document filed in support of the case against Teepsa, independent energy researcher Hilton Trollip says that, because of the economics of offshore gas development, the infrastructure required to produce gas in the project area would be so expensive that to make economic sense much more fossil fuels would need to be extracted than South Africa could use in accordance with its energy plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The court cases around South Africa\u2019s coasts, including the ones Steenkamp is engaged in, are having a tangible impact, according to Liz McDaid, Green Connection\u2019s strategic lead. She says the legal actions by coastal communities have bought them time. \u201cThat allows energy planning, energy policies, and climate change actions to come into play\u2026 some of the projects that were on the agenda probably will never be on the agenda now, because things have shifted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Companies seeking to drill are required to conduct community engagement when they apply for exploration authorisations. The Aukatowa fishers say they submitted comments online as required during those processes but were ignored, which forced them to join the fight in the courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Steenkamp says the risks associated with fossil fuels are not hypothetical for him and his fellow fishers. They are already experiencing the impacts of climate change in the form of rougher seas, fewer fishing days and changes in what they try to catch, he notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rosie Malan is a member of the Aukatowa Fisheries cooperative and has worked in the fishing industry for 47 years. She runs the fish-processing factory at the Port Nolloth harbour that handles West Coast rock lobster. \u201cFor the past two years, we\u2019ve had very hot weather, and the water has been warmer than usual. The lobsters were very lethargic when they arrived here, and a few of them died,\u201d says Malan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Steenkamp says changes have also been seen in the snoek that, with the lobster, make the most important catch in Port Nolloth. \u201cOur snoek normally comes from Namibia\u2019s side. But [last year] it came from the south. The snoek\u2019s pattern is changing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For him, the fight against fossil fuels is about the survival of his community. He has been fishing for 36 years and says this life now hangs in the balance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As afternoon arrived, the boats returned to the harbour. One by one, they emerged from the fog, slowly making their way into the calm glassy waters of the harbour. Wholesale fish buyers, as well as by-standers who hoped to buy one or two fresh snoek, waited on the shore. On the broken jetty, school kids who were on holiday cast their handlines into the water, hoping to catch the mullet that swam below, while an opportunistic seal tried to spoil their chances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI love what I do. That is what I want to pass on to my children. We must protect the ocean so that they can have the same healthy lives as us.\u201d he says. \u201cWe know that these [fossil fuel projects] will harm us and the coastline, so we cannot afford to let them carry on. We feel that the last answer may be in court.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, TGS and Teepsa were contacted for comment. Teepsa replied that they do not comment on ongoing litigations. TGS declined to comment. DMRE did not respond.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n On its website<\/a>, TGS says it is \u201ccommitted to protecting the environment in which we live and work while also conducting our operations in an environmentally sustainable and responsible manner\u201d. In a press release<\/a> about its South African operations in 2024, Teepsa parent company TotalEnergies stated that it \u201cputs sustainable development in all its dimensions at the heart of its projects and operations to contribute to the well-being of people\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On the west coast, local people have gone to court to try and force a rethink of the impacts of oil and gas exploration <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50000727,"featured_media":60073145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50039901],"tags":[545,547],"hashtags":[],"country":[50040754],"class_list":["post-60073135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ocean","tag-fisheries","tag-fossil-fuels","country-south-africa"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFrom port to court<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"group](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/20240328_South-Africa-Port-Nolloth-fisheries-cooperative-meeting_BarryChristianson.jpg\")
<\/div>Spill concerns<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Salted](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/20240328_South-Africa-Port-Nolloth-snoek-hung-to-dry_BarryChristianson.jpg\")
<\/div>The bigger picture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"man](\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/20240326_South-Africa-Port-Nolloth-Walter-Steenkamp-watches-fellow-fishers_BarryChristianson.jpg\")
<\/div>