SA Government values abalone at R1000/kg

In a recent statement issued by Marine and Coastal Management and the South African police Service concerning the arrest of abalone poachers and the confiscation of some 3000 kg of abalone, it was stated that the confiscated product was worth R3 million. This admission is of course most interesting. In April this year, Feike's Shaheen Moolla published a paper on illegal fishing in South Africa. That paper valued illegal abalone fishing to be worth an estimated R1,8 billion involving some 2500 tons of abalone worth an approximate value of R700/kg.

The paper was critiqued at a public peer review session as being a bit conservative on the estimated value and quantum of poached abalone. The paper is currently being revised and will show that during 2008 poaching continued to escalate. However, given MCM's valuation of R1000/kg for illegal abalone, it does mean that in 2007 South Africa lost more than R2,5 billion in abalone alone. For 2008, this figure looks like it breached the R3 billion mark.