Offshore oil and gas, mining and renewable energies share many common practices and are guided by similar legislative processes en route to reconnaissance, exploration, production, and eventually rehabilitation.
They also operate in a similar environment and often target the same grass-roots communities, depending on their proposed geographical area of operations.
Within the highly contested South African context, the main actors include environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community activists and community-based organisations (CBOs), corporations, regulators, environmental assessment practitioners, exploration companies, and of course, the South African courts.
More often than not, these actors band together to drive their agendas. For example, environmental NGOs, community activists and CBOs would normally consolidate and use the courts to address their grievances, while corporations, exploration companies and environmental practitioners turn towards the regulators and government to…
