When the Shell petroleum company announced in 2021 that it wanted to explore for fossil fuels off South Africa’s pristine Wild Coast, Indigenous communities in the area immediately fought back through the country’s courts.
In two separate cases, the communities successfully challenged Shell. They won both cases, winning an interim interdict to put Shell’s exploration on hold and having the company’s exploration right set aside. Shell is appealing the second ruling on several, largely procedural, grounds; that process got underway in the Supreme Court of Appeal on 17 May this year.
