Artist and filmmaker Janet Solomon has produced another epic documentary in which she tells the stories of the people railing against the SA government’s determination to tap offshore oil and gas.
Blue Burning, Solomon’s documentary and PhD exhibition, opened at the Origins Centre Museum at the University of the Witwatersrand on Thursday and closes on October 31.
Solomon said Blue Burning was a four-year endeavour that told the back story of the Oceans Not Oil campaign and the growing opposition to the government’s offshore petroleum ambitions which includes 30 new offshore oil and gas wells by 2030. The Oceans Not Oil coalition has called for a moratorium on all offshore oil and gas development.
“I am not against energy but how it’s generated and the impact on people and the environment. And the fact that the precautionary principle has gone out the window and they’re coming to the party on oil and gas far too late. The oil and the gas are yet to get off the ground and we are literally 15 years away. What is the world going to look like then? How hot are we actually going to be? We’re behind the curve,” said Solomon.
She interviewed at least 50 people and organisations, highlighting the government’s disregard of the voices of ordinary people and experts.
Solomon said she wanted to inform people so they could make up their own minds about how they want their marine environment managed.
“To show what a lot of people can actually affect if they know and if they care. I’ve been an interested and affected party. I’ve stood in the rooms where we have environmental assessors doing their spin. And I have seen how little notice has been taken of South African citizens’ concerns.”
She said the documentary was also a warning of the potential for conflict as seen in Nigeria, where oil and gas production had caused unrest and affected every aspect of life from the air to the water.
The alternative is community-based renewables, social-based renewables where people decide for themselves how they want to manage their energy, get involved and become self-employed, said Solomon.
She said that in 2016 a seismic survey was granted an extension into the whale migration period. Coincidentally this period also saw the highest-ever recorded whale and dolphin strandings along South Africa’s coast. In her 2018 documentary, Becoming Visible, Solomon investigated how this extension came about as well as the loopholes in mining legislation. She said her film also addressed the lack of due diligence of Operation Phakisa, a governmental economic development programme which has dramatically escalated offshore mining prospecting, exploration and extraction.
Blue Burning was directed and edited by Solomon and cinematographer and editor Viki van den Barselaar-Smith.
“Blue Burning is the story of the growing social opposition to these plans, uniting fisher and traditional healer collectives, coastal communities, indigenous groups, scientists, environmental NGOs, academics, and the public in defence of the ocean commons and climate futures in what has been described as the biggest environmental campaign of South Africa’s history,” said Solomon.
Blue Burning’s release comes just days before Gwede Mantashe the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy prepares to attend the four-day Investing in African Energy conference in Cape Town next week. This year the annual conference will bring together 1 600 senior delegates, 80 ministers and officials from more than 70 countries and representatives of more than 760 companies.
Event organisers said major oil and gas discoveries in the Orange basin, offshore of South Africa and Namibia, highlighted the importance of these opportunities for African governments, people and energy businesses.