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 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 ens...

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 ab...