What to do with a problem called ABALONE?

 South African abalone is once again in the spotlight. The question is whether the latest fisheries minister - Willie Aucamp - is going to have gonads to actually put measures in place to fix South Africa's unchecked abalone poaching and corruption crises. 

What can Minister Aucamp do? What is incredible is the fact that he can put in place a suite of measures rapidly that will massively reduce poaching in the immediate term and benefit small-scale abalone divers from Paternoster to Pearly beach who are historically reliant on abalone. 

1. Increase the abalone TAC from 12 tons (!!) to ±600-700 tons and strictly implement and enforce the TURF management system. Have legal abalone divers displace illegal divers by keeping legal divers in the water for the maximum duration of the annual abalone season.

2.  Allocate long term 15-year duration fishing rights to abalone divers who have been without rights since 2013. This will ensure a sense of "ownership" and further ensure that divers are personally invested in the well-being and sustainability of abalone stocks. 

3. Co-manage the fishery with right holders.

4. Re-establish the dedicated "green courts" that had an 80% conviction rate when it existed and were responsible for the imprisonment and financial ruin of syndicate leaders like Jason Ross and Elizabeth Marks. 

5.  Re-establish and fund local-based enforcement and fishery oversight bodies.

6.  Clean up the corruption in the fisheries department and open up the entire sale processes of confiscated abalone (and lobster) to public scrutiny and oversight by the fisheries portfolio committee. 

ABALONE, CITES II & THE SUDDEN LISTING REMOVAL

South Africa was scheduled to have dried abalone (only) listed on Appendix II of CITES at COP 20 which was held in Uzbekistan until 5 December 2025. 

It has emerged that the SA delegation abandoned the listing proposal at the 11th hour and environmental organizations like the EMS Foundation are speculating about possible nefarious reasons for this last-minute decision linking it to the newly appointed Fisheries Minister and his apparent anti-conservationist stance (especially since Dion George has now magically labeled himself to be a "conservationist").  

[To digress, Mr George, the great "conservationist", increased the lobster TAC by 58% despite lobster stocks being under severe poaching pressure and biological stocks at less than 2% of pristine / historic levels. I am yet to see any conspiracy theories about this inexplicable increase in the lobster TAC, which massively benefited lobster exporters, in particular].

To list dried abalone - the form that poached abalone is almost exclusively exported in - on CITES II is theoretically commendable but not practically viable for South Africa. 

Listing on CITES II has significant practical obligations and administrative requirements which the South African fisheries department has proved completely incapable of implementing when abalone was listed under CITES III in 2007. Corruption and administrative incompetence would be the dream-ticket to even further ramp up the illegal abalone trade using CITES permits to boot. [Our last listing of abalone on CITES III resulted in unendorsed CITES permits being repeatedly used to launder illegal product, which directly contributed to the ramping up of illegal trade to the levels we see today.]

So what would it mean to have dried abalone listed on CITES II?

1. Firstly, the Fisheries Department would have to issue mandatory CITES export permits or re-export certificates. 

2. Secondly, the importing states (Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Vietnam) may introduce stricter requirements for the importation of the dried abalone.

Again, theoretically, this could work to seriously curtail the export of dried abalone if you had a competent and uncorrupted fisheries department. [Incidentally, the farmed abalone industry does not produce dried abalone so the conspiracy theory punted by environmental organizations about the new fisheries minister doing the farmed industry's bidding makes little sense.]

South Africa simply does not have the administrative capacity to process, evaluate and issue such permits. Coupled with the rampant corruption that is the fisheries department, to list dried abalone on CITES II would ONCE AGAIN have been catastrophic. 

That said, the DA's handling of this matter [and the removal of George as Minister] is a textbook case of stupidity and ANC-cadre-levels of incompetence.