The contentious hydraulic fracturing for shale gas (fracking) in the Karoo, despite its potential spin-offs, must be approached with extreme caution in a bid to avoid harm on South Africa’s environment and the country’s food security position, Agri South Africa (AgriSA) said on Wednesday.
“What we are saying is that we need more research before we can support it. We need to be sure that we maintain and we eventually rehabilitate the agricultural potential of that land that will be used in the mining (for shale gas). That is all we are saying. If need be, we will challenge the MPRDA (Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act) in court,” President of agricultural industry association AgriSA, Johannes Möller, said.
Möller was addressing the National Press Club in Pretoria on the highly contentious and divisive matter of fracking in the Karoo Basin.
He said it was not true that opposition to the fracking project was anti-economic development in South Africa’s rural regions.
“Of course we are not against economic development, specifically in the rural regions but we are actually in favour of it. South Africa is urbanising at more than 600,000 people per year and that is not sustainable so we need more sustainable economic activity in the rural areas. That is our viewpoint and that is what we will support. But you have to do it in a responsible way,” said Möller
“Do all the research. Ensure that our limited water resources will not be destroyed in the interim. Ensure that we will not have pollution that will be with us for the next 100 years or more and we won’t maintain our food security situation in South Africa. We are by far the most food secure country in Africa and that is probably why we don’t appreciate our food security situation in South Africa.”
Möller said AgriSA cannot at this stage support government’s move towards fracking, given the remaining uncertainties with respect to water supply and contamination issues associated with shale gas development, and the use of unconventional exploration and production techniques in the hydraulic fracturing.
AgriSA said its provincial affiliate in KwaZulu-Natal recently obtained interdicts in the Pretoria High Court preventing the Petroleum Association of South Africa (PASA) from granting respective applications for an exploration right and a technical cooperation permit, together covering in excess of 1.6 million hectares and 15,000 farms to Rhino Oil and Gas Exploration South Africa (Pty) Ltd.
“The issue with the granting of technical cooperation permits and exploration rights for shale gas in terms of South Africa’s Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act is that they give the holders of such rights the exclusive right to apply for and be granted production rights,” AgriSA’s head of natural resources, Janse Rabie said.
“It would, therefore, be imprudent not to take a position on this issue right from the outset, knowing that rights obtained today may already entitle the holders of such rights to continue with full-scale production in the future. Given South Africa’s precarious water position and the threat to food security should the clear risks associated with hydraulic fracturing and shale gas development materialise, AgriSA maintains that this endeavour in South Africa must be approached with the utmost caution.”
In April, Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane announced that the South African government had given the go-ahead for shale gas development in the Karoo region. Even though Zwane said the regulatory framework would ensure that shale gas was “safely developed” through hydraulic fracturing at the time, anti-fracking activists have increased their vociferous opposition to the project.
– African News Agency (ANA)
