KuGompo City was where the match of public uproar against Shell mining the Wild Coast was lit.
The final Constitutional Court ruling against the SA government and oil major, Shell and it’s SA associates prohibiting seismic blasting on the Wild Coast, is being celebrated around the world.
The Daily Dispatch first broke the story on November 4 2020, with a front page splash, “Shell to blast Wild Coast” and the blunt introduction: “Big Oil has come to the Wild Coast”.
On November 14, the first public protest of 100 local people was held in the parking lot at Nahoon Reef.
However, technically the first was a bunch of Ncinci Ones pre-schoolers, led by their infuriated Montessori teacher Dawn Brochenin, who had the children hold a banner proclaiming “Save our Wild Coast” with Hole in the Wall in the background.
On November 29, the seismic survey ship, Amazon Warrior, arrived in the province and started blasting off Morgan Bay.
By then, the word was out and the powerful anti-mining Amadiba Crisis Committee in Pondoland was ringing the alarm bells, activating it’s substantial international network of support.
From there, society literally exploded and the court challenges started coming, the first from the Kei Mouth Ski Boat Club and Border Deep Sea Angling Association.
But a small group of surfers, swimmers, “oceanators” one and all, emerged from the first adult protest, and met down at the Beachbreak Cafe in Nahoon. The mood was quiet but determined. They would push ahead with protest action.
By the time the public voice had become a national cacophony on December 5, with 75 protests around the SA coastline and interior, hundreds of metro city folk joined the local call.
They came out in the rain and stood before the big wide balcony of the EL Surf Lifesavers Club to listen an array of folk speak and sing out against the oil barons’ attempt to place an area beloved by the world over at risk of blasting, oil spills and other impacts to the land and marine environment.
Joy Roach, a leading Nahoon open water swimmer, told national television of her love of swimming with dolphins and how she could hear them click and speak.
“With these unimaginable loud blasts, how will they live? How will they echo locate? They cannot speak for themselves. We need to speak for them. We are the voice for the dolphins and whales. This survey needs to be stopped.”
That was a small local but significant contribution to the wave of outrage which led to their final disbarment from mining off the Wild Coast on.
One question asked at that table of oceanators was “What do we want to see happen?” and a simple answer from one there was “We want to see that ship sail away”.
And, as impossible as it seemed at the time, on December 28, the Shell and Amazon Warrior were interdicted by a high court order to stop blasting and in January and that ship sailed away.
On August 14, five years, seven months and 17 days after the first interdict, the oil miners’ right to blast, mine and extract has been stopped, blocked and locked in perpetuity.
