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This article appeared on www.health24.com on 20 April 2011. Hundreds of dead abalone have washed up on Melkbos beach near Cape Town in recent weeks, prompting fears that the ocean in the area between Bloubergstrand and Melkbosstrand is toxic. The Department of Agriculture and Forestry & Fisheries has allegedly alerted all abalone quota holders that the Melkbos area is a no-dive zone until further notice. This is a particularly worrying as the upcoming Easter weekend would normally bring hordes of families, surfers and fishermen to the area. To date, no official notice has been publicly broadcast warning the public of the concerns. Melkbos resident Beatrix McLaughlin, who is an abalone quota holder for the Melkbos area, first became concerned about the quality of the water on March 25 when a marlin weighing roughly 240kg washed up on shore. According to McLaughlin this fish is uncommon for the area. Marine Coastal Management (MCM) was called to collect the fish. However, McLaughin ...

Chumming fines co-incide with issuing of whale permit 18 April 2011 Guy Rogers NELSON Mandela Bay Municipality has issued four fines to marine tourism operator Lloyd Edwards related to the controversial chumming incident off Humewood Beach last month. The issuing of the fines at the Port Elizabeth beach office on Friday co-incides with the issuing this week of the long-awaited boat-based whale watching (BBWW) license for Algoa Bay – to Edwards. It also runs parallel to a process launched in Cape Town last week in which the marine consultancy Feike has called on the public protector to scrutinise Edwards’ operation and the response of the environment department. See www.peherald.com for the full article.

On Thursday 14 April 2011, the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism confirmed her department's support for illegal and reckless behavior by marine tour operators when she confirmed a boat based whale watching permit for the illegal BBWW operator, Raggy Charters. The Minister allocated Raggy Charters a BBWW permit for the PE area despite a plethora of illegal conduct and violations of the BBWW Regulations and Policy which ought to have disqualified the application by Raggy Charters. Raggy Charters has long advertised its illegal BBWW and dolphin watching business which was repeatedly brought to the attention of the Minister. This was ignored and instead it became clear that Raggy Charters was told to amend its website and stop advertising its illegal BBWW services but it continued providing illegal BBWW services via a host of alternative advertising channels. When Raggy Charters made application for a BBWW permit, its black partner was a senior employee at SANParks. In term...

Gabrielle Lubowski's book, "On Solid Ground", is available online at amazon.com. This book is self published and funded with the help of close family only. Also all proceeds are going to the Anton Lubowski Educational Trust, a fully registered PBO and NPO. "On Solid Ground" tells the story of Gabrielle Lubowski's life after her husband, SWAPO activist Anton Lubowski, was murdered by the Apartheid regime in September 1989. The book is now available on Amazon and available to the public worldwide by logging onto http://www.amazon.com/Solid-Ground-Gabrielle-Lubowski/dp/1456475290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302598459&sr=1-1

The Shadow Minister of Environmental Affairs, Gareth Morgan (DA), has confirmed that the Minister of Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa (ANC), continues to apply her mind to the boat-based whale watching (BBWW) and white-shark cage diving (WSCD) appeals and remains unable to confirm a date on which she will announce her decisions. The Minister has also confirmed that a verification process was initiated back in November 2010 and was completed in February 2011. This of course means that the Minister has been "applying her mind" to these 70 appeals since July 2010! She must be thoroughly mentally exhausted what with all those sharks and whale on the brain! We do accept that the appeals process would have highlighted a number of fundamentally flawed decision-making processes, which would render the the entire allocation process as fatally flawed. These flaws have been highlighted on this blog and any current operator that is excluded has a slam-dunk review application on at lea...

The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission in March expressed its frustration with South Africa's continued tardiness at completing the necessary processes to become a full member of the IOTC. It is unclear what "accession processes" are required to be completed by South Africa. The IOTC has given South Africa until its next meeting in 2012 to complete all processes for full membership. The IOTC Compliance Committee also noted with concern the number of illegal fishing vessels flying the flags of Iran, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. The full report of the Compliance Committee is available at http://www.iotc.org/files/proceedings/2011/s/IOTC-2011-CoC8-R[E].pdf

On 15 March 2011 the Minister of Fisheries finally attached her signature to the appeals lodged by unsuccessful applicants in the tuna and swordfish long line fisheries. The decisions themselves are uncontroversial and appear to be rational and all the rest of it. What does however warrant comment is that the Appeals document published on the DAFF website notes that 7 appeals were lodged (actually there were 8 if one counts the list of appellants further down the document) ... in March 2010. That is right, 8 appeals were lodged in March 2010. In other words, DAFF took 12 months to administer and no doubt "apply their collective minds" to 7 (err 8) appeals. 8 appeals in 12 months amounts to less than 1 appeal a month! There is less than 2 years to go before the next round of fishing quota allocations in some of the most lucrative and important sectors such as squid, line fish, hake handline, tuna long line, abalone, sharks, etc. In 2005, these sectors contributed about 1900 ap...