Offshore, Off-Limits

The document details the risks of offshore oil and gas exploration, focusing on the ecological damage caused by seismic surveys and exploratory drilling, the resulting threats to coastal livelihoods and Indigenous rights, and the broader implications for global climate regulation.

• Marine seismic surveys use air guns that produce noise levels up to 260 decibels, which can travel 2,500 miles underwater and cause severe physiological and behavioral harm to marine life, including permanent hearing loss, internal bleeding, and blindness in fish.
• Seismic noise pollution disrupts the behavior of marine mammals, leading to a decrease in whale sightings, altered dive and respiratory patterns that can cause decompression sickness, and a reduction in prey capture attempts by approximately 19%.
• Exploratory drilling introduces toxic materials into the ocean through drilling muds and cuttings, which contain heavy metals (such as arsenic, lead, and mercury) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that can cause DNA damage and cardiac defects in aquatic organisms.
• Offshore exploration threatens the livelihoods of approximately 260 million people employed by small-scale fisheries and 30 million coastal Indigenous Peoples by reducing commercial fish catch rates by an average of 50% over thousands of square miles.
• Exploration activities impair the ocean's capacity as a carbon sink by harming zooplankton and whales, which are critical for carbon fixation and the stimulation of phytoplankton that capture roughly 40% of all produced CO2.
• Courts in South Africa, Australia, and Argentina have halted offshore exploration activities based on the lack of meaningful consultation with Indigenous and coastal communities and the failure to apply the precautionary principle regarding environmental risks.

APA

Khatri, U., Steer, A., & Reisch, N. (2025). Offshore, Off-Limits. Center for International Environmental Law. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Offshore-Off-Limits-Exploration.pdf

Chicago

Khatri, Upasana, Aidan Steer, and Nikki Reisch. Offshore, Off-Limits. Center for International Environmental Law, 2025. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Offshore-Off-Limits-Exploration.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Khatri |first1=Upasana |last2=Steer |first2=Aidan |last3=Reisch |first3=Nikki |title=Offshore, Off-Limits |publisher=Center for International Environmental Law |date=2025 |url=https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Offshore-Off-Limits-Exploration.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{khatri2025offshore, author = {Khatri, Upasana and Steer, Aidan and Reisch, Nikki}, title = {{Offshore, Off-Limits}}, institution = {Center for International Environmental Law}, year = {2025}, url = {https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Offshore-Off-Limits-Exploration.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }