Masters Thesis on Abalone Poaching

Gregg Brill of Stellenbosch University has published his findings which form part of his masters thesis, titled "The tip of the iceberg: Spatio-temporal patterns of marine resource confiscations in the Table Mountain National Park", on abalone poaching trends in the Table Mountain National Park Marine Protected Area (TMNPA MPA).

His findings show a significant increase in abalone poaching trends in the TMNP MPA over the period 2000 to 2009 and confirmed that only about 10% of all abalone poached is actually confiscated. Further, Brill confirms that TMNP MPA accounts for only 1,2% of all abalone poaching. Brill found that over the period 2000 to 2009, 88,000 abalone were confiscated by TMNP officials (noting that the the MPA was established only in June 2004) and that some 70% of this occurred in the last 5 years alone. This confirmed an increase in poaching trends.

However, if one extrapolates Brill's figures to a national level and accepting Brill's findings that no more than 10% of abalone poached is confiscated, an average of 7,5 million individual abalone are poached annually. This would equate to approximately at least 2,400 tons of abalone poached annually.

Gregg Brill's thesis is available on the internet by searching "Gregg Brill, abalone, thesis".