~

The Environmental Affairs department has finally released its peer review report on a paper drafted by Feike and commissioned by the ISS on illegal fishing in South Africa. The review was undertaken by Dave Japp. It does not appear to have been reviewed by any other expert. The full review is available at www.deat.gov.za. Feike welcomes the review as the initial paper was intended to commence a debate on our collective understanding of illegal fishing in South Africa and what it costs our economy. The review unfortunately does not attempt to provide an alternative understanding of illegal fishing or what is costs South Africa. The report does however nitpick through stated facts and figures criticising them as more "popular" than "scientific". I readily admit - and had Japp and environmental affairs attended the public debate and review organised in Cape Town to critique the paper they would have heard it then - that any attempt to understand illegal fishing particu...

On 4 December MCM issued a statement denying the veracity of a story published in the Cape Times earlier that day (see article below dated 5 December, "MCM Issues Statement on Abalone Divers' Funds"). Documents in the possession of Feike in fact show that the statement by MCM is false. The document confirms that MCM's statement is false and deceptive in three respects. Firstly, abalone divers were to have received R54 000 (not R52 000 as we initially reported) or R90/kg. There were never discussions about a once-off R20 000 payment. Secondly, there was no signed agreement between MCM and a trust representing the abalone divers in June 2009. The documents in our possession show that a draft trust deed existed in October only with the intention of getting the divers to sign the trust deed on 6 October. MCM is encouraged to make the June 2009 signed agreement available to the public. Indeed, our discussions with divers and TURF representatives confirmed that limited cons...

Just when we saw some light in the tunnel, we now learn that the South African government will be using unarmed uMkhonto we Sizwe veterans to police our coast in a bid to stamp out abalone poaching! To make matters even worse they are being trained by metrorail - the same organisation that runs our railways and cant keep passengers from being thrown off trains. Oh no, is this just a surreal really bad dream? Please let it be! Many respected voices in the field have simply and sadly confirmed that this just amounts to another case of ANC cadre deployment using public funds. With the deployment of ANC cadres to fight poaching (remembering that just before the national elections in April, a senior ANC official was caught with poached abalone in his official ANC vehicle emblazoned with ANC logos and a picture of the current president), government has unequivocally confirmed that it has no interest in curbing poaching. It will cost the taxpayer and the abalone industry many millions to fund...

It is finally official. The abalone fishery will be reopened to commercial fishing in February 2010. This was announced on 6 December 2009 by the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries who will also assume the position of minister in charge of fisheries. The Minister - Tina-Joemat Petterson - did not however announce what the TAC would be as she is still in the process of consulting officials at MCM. We hope that she will consult extensively with divers and academics at UCT who have undertaken substantial research into the status of the fishery, including the predominance of urchins in the Hangklip region. MCM officials will be able to tell her very little unfortunately as they have not undertaken any substantial ecological, social or economic research since at least 2007. In addition, it was MCM's management team that forced through the closure of fishery despite independent scientific advice which showed that the commercial fishery had little impact on the sustainability...

On 4 December 2009, Marine and Coastal Management issued a statement in response to a newspaper article published by the Cape Times of the same date. The MCM statement reads as follows: The Marine and Coastal Management would like to respond to misrepresentations in a Cape Times article, Friday, 04 December 2009, by Melanie Gosling titled: “Fishermen short-changed on promised compensation.” Firstly, it is absolutely not true that MCM has “handed R15 million of government relief funds to a shadowy “trust” to distribute the money as compensation to abalone quota holders...” as the Cape Times claim. The Department of Environmental Affairs has paid out R6.8 million in interim relief to 292 of the 302 rights holders (262 individual divers and 40 legal entities in the form of close corporations) whose livelihoods were adversely affected by the suspension of the wild abalone fishery. What she refers to as a “shadowy trust,” is in fact a trust established by the affected permit holders to inte...

In the Cape Times of 4 December 2009 (p3 - "Fishermen short-changed on promised compensation"), journalist Melanie Gosling writes that MCM continues to refuse to account to the public how R80 million allocated by the National Treasury allegedly aimed as "social relief" for the commercial abalone industry is being spent. Gosling also approached Anix Consulting - the consulting firm Feike identified as having mysteriously surfaced at about the same time the divers had their promised payouts reduced from approximately R100 000 to R20 000. Anix Consulting confirms that they were " given a contract with Water and Environmental Affairs". If they were given a contract then they were appointed illegally and heads need to roll at MCM. In addition, Feike intends approaching the Special Investigations Unit regarding the increasingly apparent misappropriation of public funds. The fact that MCM refuses to answer simple yet important questions about the role played by ...

On 25 November 2009, the Minister of Environmental Affairs and her department launched the 2008/2009 compliance and enforcement report. As Feike had authored a research paper which concluded (but roundly denied by government officials) that illegal fishing cost the SA economy an estimated R6 billion in 2008 and that Marine and Coastal Management - a branch of the environmental affairs department - was incapable and unwilling to curb illegal fishing, I was particularly interested to understand the department's initiatives and statistics pertaining to illegal fishing. The entire report of 35 pages fails to mention the words "abalone" or "fish" or "hake" or "shark-fin"... or any matter related to fishing once! In fact the entire "compliance and enforcement report" is really only able to say this about marine and coastal management - "Marine and Coastal Management (a branch of the Department of Environmental Affairs) recorded the h...

Over Monday 30 November to Friday 4 December 2009, an international panel will be reviewing assessments of the local hake and abalone resources at a workshop being held at the University of Cape Town. The panel comprises Drs A Punt (USA), A Smith (Australia) and G Stefansson (Iceland). While most sessions will be highly technical, with attendance by invitation only, the following sessions, to be chaired by Dr K Prochazka (MCM), will be open to a general audience: Monday 30: 9-00 to 10-30 am - Hake An overview of the approach used to set TACs for the hake fishery since 2007, and of an updated assessment proposed as the basis to revise this approach from 2011 (D Butterworth and R Rademeyer - UCT) Tuesday 1: 9-00 to 10-30 am - Abalone An overview of the status of the abalone resource, and a description of the model used to assess this status for Zones A-D (G Maharaj – MCM and E Plaganyi – CSIRO, Australia) Friday 4: 11-00 am to 12-30 pm – International norms for fishery regulation ...

On 23 November 2009, Monde Mayekiso who was appointed as head of Marine and Coastal Management in 2005 for a second time in as many decades, was finally "moved to focus on the area of marine science, ecosystem management and climate change within the department". Feike also understands that after months of indecision and embarrassment, South Africa actually will have a minister of fisheries that is actually responsible for fisheries regulation and management. Feike understands that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry will assume control over fisheries, replacing the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs who had appeared to exert executive control in this sphere since May 2009. The fishing industry will undoubtedly breathe a huge collective sigh of relief that Mayekiso has finally been removed as he oversaw the collapse of MCM and its funding arm the Marine Living Resources Fund for a second time. Mayekiso was removed as head of MCM in 1999 by the then Mi...

On 17 October 2009, President Zuma addressed the commercial abalone divers in Hawston, Western Cape, about the future of their commercial fishing rights. After hearing their stories and the failures of Marine and Coastal Management to address abalone poaching and the implementation of the long-promised "social plan", Zuma underook to revert to the right holders with an update about their futures as commercial abalone divers " within a month". The time has now come for that promised update. What has happened in the interim since Zuma's visit is that abalone divers have received payments of R20 000 each in lieu of the suspension of their fishing rights since February 2008. There remains much unclarity regarding these payments and the manner in which they are being made. There are too may right holders who simply don't have answers to important questions. Firstly, the payment of all funds is being facilitated through a trust that purports to represent all comme...

In a recent statement issued by Marine and Coastal Management and the South African police Service concerning the arrest of abalone poachers and the confiscation of some 3000 kg of abalone, it was stated that the confiscated product was worth R3 million. This admission is of course most interesting. In April this year, Feike's Shaheen Moolla published a paper on illegal fishing in South Africa. That paper valued illegal abalone fishing to be worth an estimated R1,8 billion involving some 2500 tons of abalone worth an approximate value of R700/kg. The paper was critiqued at a public peer review session as being a bit conservative on the estimated value and quantum of poached abalone. The paper is currently being revised and will show that during 2008 poaching continued to escalate. However, given MCM's valuation of R1000/kg for illegal abalone, it does mean that in 2007 South Africa lost more than R2,5 billion in abalone alone. For 2008, this figure looks like it breached the R...

If you are a quota holder in the South African fishing industry, then you are all too familiar with having to regularly use an array of consultants to attend to the completion of mundane yet crucial permit and licence applications. Feike has decided to offer South African quota holders a significant value proposition. Feike will attend to a quota holder's - permit applications; licence applications; vessel / effort change applications; and section 21 right transfer applications, for a monthly retainer fee of R500 plus VAT but inclusive of our renowned legal advice. For more information, please contact Feike’s Shaheen Moolla on smoolla@feike.co.za

Between 28 September and 2 October, Feike and the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission ran an African Union-World Bank funded training programme on the FINSS management software that Feike is distributing to fishing coastal states at no cost. FINSS is the acronym for the Fisheries Information and Statistical Systems s oftware that allows users to effectively manage their entire fisheries licensing, administration, management and statistical components. Countries and organisations represented included Angola, Namibia, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya, as well as Seychelles and Madagascar. The South West Indian Ocean Fisheries Programme was also in attendance. The Benguela Current Commission was indirectly represented via the Namibian and Angolan representatives. The attendees unanimously agreed to begin utilising the software and a user-report back session has been scheduled for April 2010. A second training session for west Africa has been provisionally scheduled for January 2010. FINSS is adapt...

In yet another damning admission, the South African government has admitted that it does not have the ability and resources to fight abalone poaching. It appears to be a deer looking at the headlights of a very large truck. The truth of the matter is that we had the resources, skills and institutions in place by 2004 to effectively reduce abalone poaching and they were working! But then came along Marthinus van Schalkwyk and his "new management team" who immediately went about dismantling everything that could be associated with the "previous management team", including getting rid of as many staff as possible to ensure that the "transformation numbers" stacked up. In compliance alone, they removed two directors with more than 50 years of compliance experience. The one director, Marcel Kroese, is now a senior advisor to the US government's fisheries surveillance programme! Kroese was the brainchild of the MARINES programme, the Green Courts and the sou...

Facing the Select Committee on Public Accounts, the Director-General of the department of water and environmental affairs, finally admitted that Marine and Coastal Management has failed to protect abalone from rampant poaching and does not have the resources to do so. It is incredible that it takes rampant failure and a huge loss to our ecology and socio-economy before such obvious admissions are made. Feike has been stating that MCM's "compliance" strategies were not impacting on abalone poaching since at least 2006 and that South Africa was losing between 2000 and 3000 tons of abalone worth a conservative R2 billion annually to poaching. Most recently, MCM's Deputy Director-General, Monde Mayekiso, stated on the environmental conservation programme, 50/50, that he did not believe that poaching was a crisis and that MCM had matters under control. Earlier this year, Feike, together with the ISS, published a report that looked into poaching levels in South Africa. MCM ...

As most of the fish resources in the world’s oceans are constantly depleting, the development of effective and efficient instruments of fisheries management becomes crucial. Against this background, the IUCN Environmental Law Programme proudly presents its latest publication in the IUCN Environmental Policy and Law Paper Series, edited by Gerd Winter, a long standing member of the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law, which focuses on a legal approach towards sustainable and equitable management of fish resources. This publication is one of the results of the 2005-2008 Incofish project, an interdisciplinary endeavour with worldwide participation studying multiple demands on coastal zones and viable solutions for resource use with emphasis on fisheries. The book consists of six case studies including Indonesia, Kenya, Namibia, Brazil, Mexico and the EU, which are preceded by an analysis of the international law requirements concerning fisheries management. The final part of the book sum...

The African Union, together with the World Bank, has commissioned Feike to run a workshop and training session on the Fisheries Information and Statistical Systems (FINSS) software programme in Cape Town at the end of September. Workshop participants, which include senior fisheries managers and IT support from a number of AU member states, will be introduced to and trained on FINSS. Each participant will be provided with a free FINSS software package. The AU wants coastal member states and regional fisheries programmes to adopt FINSS as their fisheries management software in a bid to ensure proper collation and management of fisheries data, as well as the harmonisation of data collection and dissemination. Utilisation of FINSS will also ensure users are able to comply with the FAO's Port State Measures Treaty Agreement, the FAO Compliance Agreement and will allow users to trace fish from harvesting to exporting. This will aid users to comply with the new EU Traceability Regulations...

The Mail and Guardian today (7 Sept 09) revealed the hypocrisy surrounding COSATU's investment via its investment company - Kopano Ke Matla - in the Spanish backed fishing company called Offshore Fishing (Pty) Ltd. Feike has taken a closer look at Offshore Fishing's application for long term fishing rights that was submitted in 2005, having held a valuable hake deep sea trawl fishing quota between 2001 and 2005. One would assume that as Offshore Fishing was significantly owned by COSATU, worker rights and issues affecting workers would be its strong points. Wrong! The following are some highlights (or rather low points) of the Offshore Fishing application: Offshore Fishing failed to comply with the Employment Equity Act of 1998 despite being a designated employer! In other words, while they were benefiting from a government largesse, they were guilty of breaching an important law like the EEA. So, Mr Manyi its not just racist white companies that do not comply with the EEA. No...

This Story appears in the Mail and Guardian Online, 7 September 2009. Cosatu, a vocal critic of foreign companies' exploitation of South Africa's fishing quotas, has a sizeable share in a local company with controversial business links with a convicted Spanish poacher. Mail & Guardian Online reported last week on the accusation by Dumisa Ntsebeza, advocate and member of the Judicial Service Commission, that the trade union federation had a 30% share in the Offshore Fishing Company, of which he himself is a director. Cosatu had accused Ntsebeza of a conflict of interest centred on an Environmental Affairs Department contract with another company, Equilore, of which Ntsebeza is chairperson. The contract involves Equilore mediating between the department's marine and coastal management (MCM) unit and small-scale fishermen. The M&G has now established that Ntsebeza is correct about Cosatu's shares in Offshore, according to MCM's share registry. Offshore also had...

Interested parties have been invited by Marine and Coastal Management to apply for annual permits which are renewable for 5 years in the boat-based whale watching and white shark cage diving industries. There are a host of criteria, policy and rules applicable to the completion and submission of applications. Feike has compiled a user-friendly document that identifies and categorises the various criteria and rules for applications. Applications must be submitted by no later than 16h00 on 6 October 2009. Permits will be area based and allocated as follows: 1. Boat-Based Whale Watching Areas Port Nolloth (1 permit) Lambert's Bay (1 permit) St Helena Bay-Sandy Point (1 permit) Saldanha Bay (1 permit) Cape Town (1 permit) Hout Bay (1 permit) Cape Point-Kalk Bay (1 permit) Gordons Bay (1 permit) Hermanus (3 permits) Gansbaai (1 permit) Kleinbaai (1 permit) Arniston and Struisbaai (1 permit) Stilbaai (1 permit) Mossel Bay (1 permit) Knysna (1 permit) Plettenberg Bay (2...

On 1 September 2009, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN announced that 91 member states agreed to adopt a treaty on port state measures (PSM). The adoption of the treaty agreement is historic as it will be the first binding international agreement to combat illegal fishing by effectively terminating access to ports by IUU fishing and support vessels . The Treaty on PSM explicitly recognizes that its success is substantially dependent on – increased regional and inter-regional co-ordination of measures to implement port state measures; the effective use of communication technologies, databases, networks and global records that support port state measures; and financial, technological and other support for developing and island states. The Treaty places significant emphasis on issues relating to transparency and information sharing amongst port states. A number of articles focus on these elements, including - Article 3 – Application : Sub-article 2 requires that the treaty b...

In April 2009, Feike's Shaheen Moolla, together with the Institute for Security Studies, published a research paper which sought to contextualise and place a value on the quantum of fish illegally harvested across South Africa's major commercial fisheries. The research paper estimated the illegal harvests to be worth R6 billion (US$790 million), which is approximately R1 billion more than the total value of the legal commercial landings in 2008. The publication of the research paper generated much interest and debate, which convinced the ISS to host a public discussion forum where the paper's methodology and findings were open to debate and criticism. Although Marine and Coastal Management, which is criticised extensively in the paper for its role in allowing the mushrooming of illegal fishing, objected strongly to the findings as being devoid of fact and truth, they strangely opted to not attend the public debate where they were free to expose the paper's flaws and fa...

In July 2009, the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs published her government's final position on the transfer of commercial fishing rights in South Africa. In terms of the Marine Living Resources Act, 1998 (MLRA) fishing rights - once allocated to a specific legal or natural person - are not transferrable or saleable. To transfer a fishing right from one person to another requires the permission of the Minister under section 21(2) of the MLRA. So what of this policy document? Its farcical. Its farcical because the total rationale and purpose of the policy is centred around the need to further transform the fishing industry and to consolidate the number of right holders and effort. The policy attempts to create a number of pre-defined scenario hierarchies as to which transfer application is more likely to succeed. The decision as to whether a right should be transferable must be based having regard to the principles under section 2 of the MLRA. Section 2 of the MLRA remain...

The opportunity to submit comments by members of the South African commercial fishing industry on the proposed criteria and processes for the commercial fisheries performance measuring process ended on 31 August 2009. Feike had submitted comments as an interested party. In brief, it is our view that the - the notice and comment process is inappropriate and prejudicial to a number of right holders; the proposed key performance indicators (KPI's) are too generic in nature and contrary to the sector specific fishery objectives and policy frameworks; and the proposed KPI’s are extremely vague, bordering on being irrelevant. The full version of Feike's comments are available. Simply email (smoolla@feike.co.za) me with the subject-heading "Feike's performance measuring comments" for a copy of the comments. The next step in the process will be for Marine and Coastal Management to consider the various comments and submissions made and thereafter to publish the final versi...

It is September 2009 - the start of spring in the Southern Hemisphere. In April, South Africa elected Jacob Zuma as the third democratically elected president. By May 2009, news broke that the President appointed Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersen as the first ever minister of fisheries. Her full title was the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. However, it later emerged that in fact the minister of fisheries would not be responsible for fisheries afterall! Fisheries regulation would remain the political purview of the new Minister of Environment and Water Affairs. So why is the Minister of Fisheries not the minister of fisheries and why do we continue to have a minister of fisheries? Sadly - as is becoming typical of how our government attends to hard issues - this issue is surrounded by conjecture, rumour and (race-based) whispers. To date, we do not have a leadership with the courage to come forward and explain why taxpayers' hard earned rands still pays for this confu...