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This is a statement issued by the Democratic Alliance. Tomorrow, 1 June 2012, DA Shadow Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Pieter Van Dalen MP and DA member on the Private Members Bill Committee, Patricia Kopane MP, will host a press conference at the Hout Bay harbour. Van Dalen and Kopane will present the DA’s legislative proposal to make the ownership and management of small harbours a municipal (instead of a national) competence. The Constitution declares small harbours a municipal competence as per Schedule 4 (B), but no legislation currently exists to give effect to this provision.  The poor state of the Hout Bay harbour is evidence that national government is not managing small harbours as it should. This is to the detriment of thousands of people who rely on well-functioning harbours for their livelihoods. Date: Friday, 01 June 2012 Time: 10am Meeting point: Hout Bay harbour, pier near Snoekies Restaurant, Cape Town. 

The Democratic Alliance has issued the following statement. More than 5000 workers in the local hake industry face unemployment if the Department of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) continues to ignore the requirements of the international Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).  Major retailers in key SA export markets only accept products certified by the MSC. South Africa’s hake industry stands to lose its certification as Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson’s department is failing to ensure compliance to key MSC requirements.  Most pressing of these is the fact that since the beginning of 2012, there have been no observers placed on hake fishing vessels and that patrols intended to inform the total allowable catch (TAC) are not being conducted as required.  Minister Joemat-Pettersson have given repeated assurances that research and observer programmes will not be negatively affected by the shambles that her department has made of the tender for fishing ...

A recent judgement by the Willowvale Magistrates Court (Case No. E382/10) in State v David Gongqoze and 2 Others has been reported by, inter alia, the Business Day newspaper as a seminal judgement affirming traditional fishing rights. The spectre was raised that this case allowed for some constitutionally protected right for fishing communities to fish in marine protected areas. If fishing communities have some constitutionally protected right to fish in MPA, they would certainly have free access to fish anywhere else then.  This would of course be unlawful under the Marine Living Resources Act and would be contrary to a raft of international policies and soft laws on fisheries management.  Thankfully, the judgement does not recognise customary fishing rights to trump national fisheries law. What it does recognise in passing is that where national and provincial government departments promise and undertake to recognise and protect certain access rights, then these s...

Feike's blog readership continues to grow. Today we recorded one of the highest daily readerships ever as shown below. Our readers are predominantly South African, followed by US and UK - based readers. We also have a core following in Norway, Spain and Russia. Pageviews by Countries South Africa 641 United States 285 United Kingdom 47 Spain 27 Netherlands 8 Germany 7 Australia 5 Norway 5 Russia 4 Canada 3

On 15 May 2012, the Department of Environmental Affairs delivered a report on its white shark research capabilities, budgets and capacity to the Western Cape legislature (Standing Committees on Environmental Planning and Community Safety). The interrogation of DEA's research technics and abilities was prompted by the recent uproar against the issuing of "research" permits to the controversial Ocearch fisheries project and the fatal shark attack at Koggel Bay.  DEA's presentation, led by Monde Mayekiso, Alan Boyd, Hermann Oosthuizen and Mike Meyer was thorough and impressive and clarified much. DEA's has a paltry R2 million white shark research budget and 1 dedicated research scientist. It was however noted that DEA relied on a network of research professionals in South Africa and abroad to enable it to deliver on its mandate.  The joint standing committee concluded that it was their view that DEA required an increased white shark research budget and that ...

On 15 May 2012 the Department of Fisheries held its Cape Town "dialogue" with members of the South African fishing industry at the Ritz Hotel in Sea Point. The Department was represented by its Acting Deputy Director-General, Mona Mashaba (the 7th acting DDG since Dec 2010), the director of "stakeholder" liaison, the acting Chief Director of Fisheries Management and the Chief Director of Compliance. It is worth noting that Dr Mashaba is not a "new" Acting DDG as this is his second stint as Acting DDG of Fisheries. His first was when he temporarily replaced Monde Mayekiso in December 2010.  To be honest, the Department made its usual slide presentation on what its key objectives are and used all the catchy buzzz words like "stakeholders", "partnerships" and "consultations" but frankly there was no substance and when the pressure mounted with questions especially from Feike, there was little interest in dialogue with the Ch...

On 24 April 2012, we reported that the Western Cape High Court reviewed and set aside the decision of the Environmental Affairs' Minister to deny our client, Shark Adventures, its 5 year white shark cage diving permit.  The court recently issued its reasons for the decision. We take a closer look at the reasons and consequences for the shark cage diving sector (WSCD) and the boat based whale watching sector (BBWW).  Shark Adventures had approached the High Court seeking an order to set aside the Minister's decision on two fronts. Firstly, it was argued that the Minister of Environmental Affairs simply did not have the legal authority to decide appeals pertaining to the WSCD sector as the appropriate decision-maker and repository of legal authority in terms of a presidential proclamation dated 29 January 2010 is the Fisheries Minister. Feike had raised this argument from the very start and published a number of BLOG articles stating why Environmental Affairs lacked th...

On Saturday morning (12 May 2012), the Japanese registered tuna long liner, Eiahtsu Maru , ran aground at Clifton 1st Beach at approximately 05h00.  What became immediately apparent was the lack of proper management of the potential disaster scene from an environmental and fisheries management perspective. For one, because we no longer have operating patrol vessels which have anti-oil and anti-pollution mechanisms, there was absolutely no oil/fuel disaster prevention and mitigation capacity at hand.  The magnificent red environmental patrol vessels were instead bobbing about in Simonstown harbour. These vessels ought to have been immediately deployed to disaster scene to assist with the removal of the crew and to ensure that any fuel spill would be contained dissipated.  Secondly, where was the department of fisheries to ensure that the reported tuna on board was legally harvested? Was the fishing vessel authorised to be in SA waters? DAFF officials ought to have...

On 30 April 2012, the Minister of Fisheries and her department published its findings on the fisheries performance review process which was conducted between 2009 and 2010.  Its key findings on black economic empowerment and "transformation" completely contradict the Minister's and the Fisheries Portfolio Committee's views on empowerment levels in the commercial and small-scale fishing sectors.  The performance review documents do however strangely refer to "commercial" and "limited commercial" fishery sectors. Unfortunately, these terms are significantly outdated and have no reference in our current law. The term "limited commercial" was included in fisheries nomenclature back in the July 2001 fisheries policy to formally and legally recognise small-scale or artisinal fishers in the abalone, west coast rock lobster, line fish, oyster, mussel, trek net and hake handline sectors. But this concept was superseded with the adoption o...