The Ongoing Stupidity of Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

In May 2019, the previous Minister of Fisheries proposed allocating 50% of rights in the abalone and line fish sectors and 25% of squid rights to the small scale fishing sector. That proposal - we thought - died a natural death, as it should have. 

In May 2019, we wrote an article explaining why allocating any rights to small-scale fishers in the squid fishery would be impractical, unaffordable, unlawful and only create a class of community fronts who would have to beg commercial vessel owners with the crew to actually fish the rights. 

Squid is certainly not small-scale fishery as we explain below in red font. 

The full article is available here. The current Minister, Barbara Creecy, has now rekindled this daft proposal (GG Notice No. 1129 of 23 October 2020) by proposing to allocate 50% of rights and effort in the traditional linefishery and abalone sectors, and 25% of effort in the squid sector, to the "small-scale" fishing sector.

The following extracts of that article remain applicable. 

"On 13 May 2019, the [erstwhile] Minister of Fisheries, Senzeni Zokwana, published a notice in the government gazette calling for comments on the proposed splitting of effort allocation levels between "commercial fishing" and "small-scale" fishing in the traditional line fish and squid fishing sectors and the intention to declare the oyster, white mussels and hake handline as small-scale fishing sectors. 

We have repeatedly pointed out for probably a decade now that these fisheries (except squid) have always been small-scale in nature with fishing rights historically only ever allocated to individual fishers who depend on them for their livelihoods. In fact, the most substantial deviation from allocating small-scale fishing rights exclusively to small-scale fishers came in 2013 when that woefully unlawful and corrupt fishing allocation process opened up small-scale fishing rights to large companies. The careful fishery cluster system designed in 2004 to protect small-scale fishers from having their rights exploited by fishing companies was decimated in 2013 and that is why we currently have a number of hake handline fishing rights for example allocated to a large fishing group and its subsidiary company.  

The first point therefore is that the hake handline, oyster, white mussel and traditional line fish sectors ARE small-scale commercial fishing sectors and have always been small-scale. Success by right holders in these fishery sectors have one thing in common - the successful fishers run their own fishing operations and personally manage their crew. These fishery sectors are "the real deal" fisheries where income is earned from hard-work by the right holder himself. There can be no paper quotas or selling of rights to the highest bidder as we see in lobster or other high value fishing sectors. 

To believe that [these] sectors can in any way support the dozens of large community-based co-operatives that have sprung up along the coast is exemplary socialist thinking. What we will achieve is an equal spread of poverty.  

To insist on allocating small-scale fishing rights exclusively to co-operatives is misguided and impractical. And every fisherman knows this. For example, when I was advising the Minister of Fisheries on the West Coast rock lobster appeals in late 2018, we had a number of instances where an appellant could elect to either have an individually allocated lobster fishing right or participate in a community co-operative. Not a single appellant opted for participation in the "community co-operative" system and for obvious reason. For one, these community co-operatives are just another vehicle for patronage and corruption (As we have seen with similar entities over the past). Second, the same amount of fish that was available to a few individuals who made a living off the individual small-scale right, must now be shared amongst dozens, if not hundreds more, people. Third, there is simply no accountability with the co-operative structures (Again as past experience and failure have shown). 

Finally, turning to squid and the proposal to allocate 25% of the effort in that fishery to small-scale co-operatives. Our view is that any attempt to do so would be unlawful as the Marine Living Resources Act defines "small-scale fishing" (in a very convoluted way) to mean fishing undertaken by a "small-scale fisher" who is a member of "small-scale fishing community" that - 

• traditionally operates in near-shore fishing grounds; 

• predominantly employs traditional low technology or passive fishing gear (which squid does not - it employs expensive vessels with efficient jigs and expensive freezing and on-board processing capabilities); 

•  undertake single day fishing trips (the average squid fishing trip is between 2 and 3 weeks and cant be a single-day trips); and 

• is engaged in consumption, barter or sale of fish or otherwise involved in commercial activity, all within the small-scale fisheries sector. (South African squid is block-frozen and exported and hence none of the consumption, barter or sale of squid occurs in the small-scale fisheries sector).

Squid therefore cannot be considered a small-scale fishing sector and any attempt to allocate small-scale squid fishing rights would be unlawful. " 

Accordingly, any attempt to allocate squid rights to the small-scale fishing sector would be unlawful.

The proposal to allocate 50% of the effort to small-scale fishing (ie co-operatives) in the traditional line fish and abalone fisheries would be unlawful for, inter alia, the following reasons.

• The proposal to split the resource effort essentially will rob peter to pay paul. There has not been any prior socio-economic impact assessment or any understanding of the impacts of such a proposal. It is an arbitrary and irrational thumb-suck;
• The decision to add 1000s of people as dependents in these two fisheries would fall foul of a number of the Section 2 MLRA objectives, particularly those pertaining to responsible and sustainable fisheries management. Both the abalone and line fisheries are in a state of environmental emergency. Line fish has been in this state of official emergency since 29 December 2000; 
• The complete and unequivocal failure of fishing co-operatives to date should be reason alone to stop the perpetuation of failure at such great social, economic and biological cost. How many of the Eastern Cape co-operatives that were allocated squid earlier this year are fishing their hake, abalone and squid rights? None;
• To further split the woefully inadequate abalone TAC of 50 tons between amongst individual divers and co-operatives will not only further accelerate poaching but it will lead to even greater socio-economic declines in communities. The average abalone diver today catches his entire season's quota in less than a single day! To essentially cut this in half will not only halve income but will make legal diving for the quota simply uneconomical, which will create a vacuum to be filled by poachers. 

The Minister's statement that the proposal will further transformation is false. 90% of all abalone fishing rights are held by historical divers who also happen to be black. More than 58% of line fish rights are held by black fishers. More than 95% of all crew on line fish boats are black. Crew on line fish boats earn 50% of the gross total value of every landing. 

The claim that adding more right holders to these two fisheries would further transformation is patently false. Adding any additional right holders would increase poverty, disempower every current right holder even further and increase unemployment and intra-community conflict. 

Members of the squid, abalone and line fish sectors have 30 days until 24 October 2020 to submit formal comment on these proposals. 

If the Minister insists on implementing these, there is little doubt that they will be challenged. There is little doubt that a decision to allocate these splits is arbitrary, unscientific and therefore unlawful.