A grassroots community group that looks after coastal and marine environments from Ocean Grove along the coast to Portland has received an environment award.
Otway Coastal Environment Action Network (OCEAN) and friends/alliance members received a campaign impact award through Environment Victoria’s Community Environment Awards on October 23.
Founder Lisa Deppeler said the award was the “icing on the cake” following OCEAN’s role in the campaign win against energy data company TGS and technology company Schlumberger’s seismic blasting proposal.
“The victory of having TGS and Schlumberger withdraw their proposal to seismic blast in the Otway Basin was massive,” she said.
“That was a hard-fought battle for over two years, and then to get an award and recognition for that, which is fantastic, and we were honoured.
“It was shocking when it was first released, and it was an obscene proposal. The sheer size of it and the impact it was going to have on the Otway basin never made sense from the very beginning.”
Ms Deppeler said the environmental win against the proposed project, which would have seismic blasted 7.7 million hectares of the Southern Ocean, prepared the group for future proposals.
“In a way, the TGS Schlumberger proposal was a bit of a gift as it was just so wrong on so many levels,” she said.
“Before this proposal, OCEAN was trying to raise awareness of seismic blasting, and we called it the seismic secret because people had no idea about it.
“Trying to get the word out there and make people aware of how much it was happening and how damaging it was was really hard, and then along came the poster child of all things wrong.”
