The South Cape coast of Africa is such a beautiful tourist resort, located in a pristine natural environment. Here we also find that numerous beautiful whales species arrive every year to give birth to their young. Besides that, this beautiful region called the Garden Route, is also a marine nature reserve and protected environment for various other marine animal life.
It is because of these points, namely tourism and marine preservation, that concerned citizens became street activists on Saturday morning, here in the beautiful town called Plettenberg Bay. As concerned citizens we took to the streets protesting the proposed invasion by big oil industries, namely Total and Shell, who wish to drill for oil and natural gas just offshore from this beautiful pristine natural marine reserve.
This beautiful protected natural marine sanctuary is one of the most exquisite and attractive tourist resorts in the world for holiday makers both local and international, who are now flocking to these shores as summer heats up. The big oil conglomerate who have already destroyed so much of the environment with their oil spills, now wish to drill just offshore in a stretch of ocean many hundreds of miles wide, all along the southern shore of the African continent.
Shell and Total are some of the worst abusers of nature on this planet at the moment and their dirty practices are from a past era which now needs to be phased out once and for all. There's no room left on this planet for more toxic pollution. The seas can no longer contain all the oil spills. Marine life is becoming devastated by the oil spills as well as the plastic garbage, plastic being a byproduct of the same oil industry.
In order to push back against these multinational corporations who ride roughshod over our human rights, as well as the rights of nature, the locals and concerned inhabitants of the town of Plettenberg bay came together in the streets to protest and campaign, to create public awareness regarding this potentially hazardous toxic invasion by corporations simply wishing to make ever more profits for their shareholders.
The concerned and enthusiastic local residents of this picturesque tourist town joined forces in the streets with placards and proceeded to march from the town centre, down the hill to the beautiful central beach here in Plettenberg Bay.
The March was initiated by the ceremonial blowing of the antler horn by one of the traditional indigenous tribal leaders from the ancient Khoi bushman community here on the South cape coast of Africa. These traditional tribal members are some of the descendants of the original inhabitants of this area.
They were here before the Bantu native black African tribes moved to these southern shores from further north in Africa. And they were here before any of the European settlers and colonizers moved to these shores round 450 years ago.
So as members of this traditional indigenous tribe performed the ceremonial blowing of the horn, made from the antler of a buck, they proceeded to launch the march by adding a sense of importance and gravity to the experience.
The protesters and activists carried banners and the March went all the way down the hill and on to the beautiful white beach sand just outside the popular Beacon Isle timeshare resort and hotel, where guests flock for their summer holiday experience.
There the leaders of the campaign against Shell and Total proceeded to inform the public and bring clarity and awareness to all of us regarding the dangers of such big oil multinational corporations fracking or drilling for potential oil and gas just offshore in this beautiful marine sanctuary region of our Earth.
The tragedy is that wherever these big corporations drill, they also tend to spill. The risk that some pollution may occur from this drilling is just too great. There could be serious damage to the whale population, since this South Cape coast of Africa is one of their prime breeding grounds. All the way from Cape Town in the West, stretching 600km towards Port Elizabeth in the east, wales come here every winter in the south during the months of July to October, in order to give birth to their young.
I see them every year just a few hundred metres from the shore basking in the protected Plettenberg Bay alcove. I have also seen these whales right through my childhood, around the city of Cape Town and other coastal towns like Hermanus outside of the city itself.
The locals here feel a strong connection with them as well as an urge to protect them. These are after all the biggest mammals on the entire planet and are far more intelligent than we realise. It is really important to balance the urge for profit with the need for protecting our environment, which is part of the ecosystem keeping all of us alive here in our natural biosphere.
We can only hope that this march and street protest raises enough awareness amongst more of the community, as well as providing some pushback against these greedy, dangerous and highly toxic big oil corporations like shell and Total who have caused so much harm to our natural environment over the Decades.
(Photos my own)