S.Africa top court hears landmark case on Shell offshore exploration

S.Africa top court hears landmark case on Shell offshore exploration
by AFP Staff Writers
Johannesburg (AFP) Sept 16, 2025

South Africa's top court on Tuesday heard arguments in a landmark case pitting environmentalists and coastal communities against energy giant Shell's oil and gas exploration off the Indian Ocean coast.

The Constitutional court hearing marks the last steps in a years-long legal battle against Shell's plans to conduct seismic surveys off the country's south-east coast, which activists argue would affect whales and other marine life.

A lower court in 2022 ruled the exploration authorisation granted by South Africa's government in 2014 was unlawful, in a ruling hailed as a major victory for civil society.

But an appeals court last year gave the British oil heavyweight another chance to renew its permit.

"This was the first time that a legal case about fishing communities went all the way to the Constitutional court," Carmen Mannarino, the programme manager at fisher-rights organisation Masifundise told AFP.

"This is about the dignity of communities," she said. "The fundamental question is: are rights of communities more, or less, important than the rights of companies?"

Shell planned to map more than 6,000 square kilometres (2,300 square miles) off South Africa's so-called Wild Coast, which boasts pristine beaches and rich waters housing exquisite marine life.

The seismic survey is conducted by bouncing sonic waves off the sea floor and using the reflection to build up a 3D image.

The energy giant says on its website that the impacts of such surveys are "well understood and mitigated against" and it is "adopting the most stringent mitigation measures".

But fisherman Ntsindiso Nongcavu, an applicant in the case, told AFP he was "ready to fight any company that wants to do seismic surveys in our ocean."

The 48-year-old from the coastal town of Port St Johns, who started fishing age 8, was among 200 people demonstrating outside the court in Johannesburg while the hearing was underway.

"We are fishermen, we depend on the ocean to get our livelihood," Nongcavu said. "If we allow a company like Shell to do seismic surveys on our coast, the species that we depend on will migrate or die."

Maxwell Pekayo, 39, a fisherman from the village of Kei Mouth, 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from Johannesburg, said the case was a battle "for our future".

"Even for our unborn children -- they will survive by the ocean," he said.

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