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Many right holders in the commercial fishing sector have commented that the rampant and uncontrolled increase in lobster poaching by the interim relief sector may be South Africa's new "Hout Bay Fishing Industries". Perhaps the impact will be worse because unlike the Hout Bay Fishing Industries matter, the interim relief poaching crisis is being perpetrated by an entire sector in an unsystematic and undocumented manner; the Department of Fisheries has no capacity or ability to deal with the poaching (they are unable to even apprehend the correct abalone poaching vehicles after being provided with the make, model and registration details!); and the Department of Fisheries appears to have prioritised politics over economic, social and ecological sustainability. In light of the Department's increasing failures to be able to manage, administer and oversee compliance in all our inshore fisheries (whether abalone, lobster or linefish), how could the United States government...

Following Feike's expose on the scale of lobster poaching by the interim relief sector, the Mail and Guardian today published a substantial article on lobster poaching and the links to organised crime and other forms of illegal trade in wildlife including reptiles. The article was originally published on www.mg.co.za and written by Fiona Macleod. Industry experts warn that lobsters will soon disappear from the nation's menus if over-fishing is allowed to continue to push South African stocks towards extinction. The recent extension of rights to subsistence fishers has created an "open season" on West Coast rock lobsters, also known as crayfish, which is being exploited by Chinese triads and has reduced the shellfish stocks to a level lower than those of abalone, they said. The collapse of the lobster fishing industry would mean the end of an industry that supports more than 4 300 jobs and is worth an estimated R347-million. "Lobster stock is about 3% of pristine...

Feike has learnt that the interim relief (IR) lobster poaching has increased so dramatically that the IR poachers have harvested more than 500 tons in the Elandsbaai area alone. The entire TAC for the IR fishery was controversially set by the Minister at 200 tons. And in Paternoster, IR poachers are removing 30,000 lobster tails a day and selling them for R5 each which is harming the commercial market. IR poachers are also harvesting more than 2 tons of live lobsters daily. Operators in the area complain that there has not been any fishery control officers or monitors to record IR catches or activity for "weeks". And this same department wants to allocate "community quotas" to 5000 people! If that happens we might as well place our inshore resources on the IUCN Red List.

The ANC portfolio committee members on fisheries noted in Parliament on Monday 8 February 2011, when discussing the Draft Small Scale Fisheries Policy and its "community quota" provisions, that such a policy has not been implemented since 1920! The intellectual dearth present in the debate was stomach churning. These Members of Parliament and the senior managers at the Department of Fisheries show a remarkable lack of basic understanding and knowledge of the domestic and international fisheries management arena they oversee yet they are determined to pass laws and policies that will certainly destroy entire fishery sectors. As a commentator notes in the Business Day (10 February 2011, www.bday.co.za), you cannot expect logic from populists. Perhaps the ANC portfolio committee members should ponder the following: 1. If community quotas were abandoned back in the 1920's (which they were not of course as the ANC brought this populist disaster back in 1998 with SACFC), why ...

A number of right holders in the abalone fishery report of being harassed and threatened with arrest and the confiscation of their catches by fishery control officers because their vessels do not have names! Feike has communicated to the Department of Fisheries (or DAFFt) that there is no law in this great country of ours that requires vessels to have a name. What the applicable regulations promulgated by the Department of Transport require is that every fishing vessel have a registration number. What is becoming abundantly clear is that either due to the incredibly incompetent and weak leadership at the DAFFt or an explicit mandate to unlawfully harass right holders (probably both), DAFFt's compliance officers and senior managers in particular are increasingly exposing themselves to a decision similar to that of the important precedent set by the the High Court in Coetzee v National Commissioner of Police and Others . The Coetzee judgement will undoubtedly be used increasingly as ...

Why do you pay your annual fishing levies? In terms of section 10, read with section 11 of the Marine Living Resources Act, 1998 (MLRA), the levies paid into the marine living resources fund shall be applied to the realisation of the objectives of the MLRA which are set out in section 2. Put simply, levies must be applied to fisheries administration, compliance, management and research. There is near unanimity across the commercial fisheries sector (poachers and the interim relief sector excluded) that fisheries management, administration and compliance is almost non-existent. The processing of annual fishing and export permits are a costly and bureaucratic headache and has increasingly become an obstacle to fisheries trade. DAFF is incapable of supporting and promoting the growth and profitability of the fisheries sector. Indeed, as previous articles on this blog have shown, DAFF is a direct hindrance and threat to the commercial viability of the fisheries sector. And in the case of a...

Have you ever wondered why on earth abalone poaching is so completely out of control? Perhaps we can offer some insights. On 3 February 2011, the SA Abalone Industry Association alerted the Department of Fisheries' top management, including the Chief Director of Compliance, Suzan Leseke, that "four large RIB's packed with abalone poachers have launched today at Buffelsjags (Zone A). Furthermore it is reported that this type of activity has been taking place on a daily basis, often involving 5 or more RIB's. The vessels are typically kept at Buffelsjags with the divers commuting in." The Association's alert continued by stating that "...we must emphasize that this area has remained a serious problem for many years. We have on record requests for assistance made to MCM dating back to 2007 which were never acted on. We therefore insist that your department immediately take meaningful action to terminate this illegal activity. " Having received such a cl...

In November 2010, the DA addressed correspondence to the Minister of Environmental Affairs on the concerns raised by Feike and others regarding the blatant illegal conduct of Raggy Charters - an illegal Boat Based Whale Watching operator in the PE area - that was provisionally allocated a BBWW permit despite an evidence bank of illegal conduct and the fact that the entity's black empowerment partner was a senior employee of SANPARKS which is not only part of the department of environmental affairs (DEA) but also in charge of compliance and enforcement in the area in which Raggy Charters operates (illegally) as a BBWW operator. On 31 January 2011, the Minister of DEA, Ms Molewa, responded to the DA letter and made some profoundly amazing admissions that perhaps confirms the extent to which DEA is willing to go to "protect" Raggy Charters and also indicates the amateurish legal advice that is provided to the Minister. Although DEA initially flatly denied that a conflict cou...