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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...