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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...

The Daily Maverick has over the past few days since it emerged that Dion George would be removed as the SA Minister of Forestry, Fisheries & Environment published two substantial pieces preferring view points opposing and objecting to his removal. The premise of the objections is that his replacement - Willie Aucamp - is an avid hunter and close to the hunting lobby, drumming up fears that South Africa will somehow adopt a pro-canned hunting policy despite this being contrary to Aucamp's own party's publicly stated policies.  If canned hunting is against DA policy and is certainly contrary to SA national ecological policy, then the fears being raised by the Daily Maverick pieces are misplaced in my view.  There are some other facts as to why he was fired as the Minister responsible for forestry, FISHERIES & the environment.  Dion George was most likely removed as fisheries minister because of his record of ridiculously bad decisions that ARE IN FACT CONTRARY TO D...

Last week, Dion George decided the "appeals" that were filed by some 170 abalone divers against a 28 January 2025 decision to refuse them exemptions because of the finding of a 2023/2024 investigation into false reporting of landings.  The 2023/2024 investigation produced a set of findings against 179 divers without ever first affording any of them a right to first answer any allegations put to them. These divers then proceeded to court in April to declare the 28 January 2025 decisions unlawful because this fundamental failure to afford them due process. Sadly - perhaps also an indication of the state of our courts - the Western Cape High Court is yet to issue a decision on this matter despite it having been argued in August as a "semi-urgent" matter. Judgement ought to have been given with 30 days given that the "extended" abalone season closed at the end of September 2025.  The investigation found that divers were reporting landings from one zone when in...

On 3 February 2025, Judge Mantame issued some 20 orders reviewing and setting aside some 2 dozen appeal decisions in the small pelagic (anchovy and pilchard) sector. Those orders were each taken by agreement and included an order that the Minister must finalise the reconsidered appeals by 29 August 2025.  The Minister failed to comply with those court ordered deadlines and instead negotiated an extension with the attorneys representing those applicants to 31 October 2025 to finalise these decisions. But the Minister remained under judicial order to finalize each appeal in terms of those orders.  Instead of complying with the court orders, on Friday 31 October 2025, the Minister issued a statement confirming that he will not issue final appeal decisions but that he intends to institute a “self-review” application as some unspecified future date to correct certain undefined errors in the decisions of the delegated authority and Minister Creecy.  1. The Minister’s sta...

SA's fisheries minister, Dr Dion George, admitted on 31 October 2025 that he's predecessor and her staff advising her took such bad decisions in the small pelagic (anchovy & pilchard) sector in 2022 and 2023, that he has to now approach the WC High court to review and set aside ALL decisions taken since March 2022.  While he's press statement billed this step as some sort "unprecedented" solution, it sadly is not. It is a repeat of the catastrophic decision-making processes that plagued the 2016 fishing rights allocations in the hake inshore trawl and horse mackerel fisheries. In both fisheries, the Minister sought to self-review her own incredulously bad and unlawful decisions. So unprecedented, this is not .  George's failure to finalise the appeal decisions despite some 20 court orders that he do so is also a failure in his leadership given that he conceded these reviews (except for 3) on 3 February 2025 before Judge Mantame. And before that, he insiste...

"The Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Dr Dion George, has indicated that he will endeavour to finalise his decisions on the appeals lodged against the decisions taken by the Deputy Director General: Fisheries Management on exemptions for the 2024/2025 Abalone fishing season, by 31 October 2025. Minister George has emphasised the importance of concluding the process without delay, as the livelihoods of many fishers, their families and coastal communities depend on timely, fair and lawful decisions in the abalone sector." This is from a statement issued by the Fisheries Minister on 4 September 2025 regarding appeals filed against a decision by his department to summarily deny 179 abalone divers permits for the 2025 abalone season which ends on 30 September 2025 .  The Fisheries Department had commenced "investigations" into apparent unlawful fishing by divers in November 2023. By December 2024, they had finalised these investigations without ever i...

On 22 August 2025, Minister Dion George denied a request by small-scale fishing co-operatives to be permitted to use commercial fishing methods (trawling, long lining & purse seining) to harvest fishing rights allocated to the co-operatives.  Essentially, the small-scale co-ops are saying that fishing rights allocated to the co-ops - such as hake hand line quotas - are of zero value because they cant fish for hakes and small pelagics without access to trawl, long line and purse seine gear. George is correct to deny the co-ops access to "commercial" fishing methods as it would indeed contradict the legal basis for establishing the small-scale fishing sector and the co-operative system.  But the decision of course points to 2 fundamental contradictions and policy failures: The first is that his department has unlawfully insisted on allocating a portion of the squid TAE to co-ops in the Eastern Cape, thus effectively granting them access to the very commercial gear he is den...

It was announced late last week that Sue Middleton - the DDG for SA Fisheries - will retire effective 1 December 2025.  And, as is traditional in South Africa when a public official retires or dies, the person is eulogized regardless of any reality. Facts are shelved and mythology is born!  FISHSA put out a bootlicking statement listing her "achievements". The farce is that none of the members of FISHSA actually believe the nonsense because they tell me that over coffee and in the corridors!  Consider this public statement issued on behalf of Minister Dion George by his current chief of staff. This is the current Fisheries Minister's opinion of Middleton and her leadership of the fisheries department. Some paragraphs are worth quoting:  "Fishing rights allocations and fisheries management under previous ANC ministers have been a constant source of strife and suffering for coastal communities... Many of the commercial rights allocations (and non-allocations) in the p...

This is an urgent letter issued to Minister George this morning regarding his department's ongoing unlawful attack against abalone divers. A department that has been greatly implicated in abalone-related corruption and collusion with organised criminals in the abalone trading space.  Is Minister George just a confused deer staring into the headlights of ANC corruption or does he have any inclination to make any changes at DFFE?  The open letter follows:  " URGENT The Minister of Forestry, Fisheries & Environment Dr Dion George, MP Minister, Between April and late June 2025, the Deputy Director General of the Fisheries Management Branch issued a plethora of individual decisions in terms of section 81 of the MLRA recording that she refused to issue exemptions to historic abalone divers on the basis that these divers committed certain violations of the MLRA. Your department has not preferred any criminal charges against any of these divers. It is now known that the DDG l...

Feike has seen correspondence dated from December 2024 confirming that Minister Dion George had in fact revoked the authority of the DDG to decide exemption applications in terms of section 81 of the MLRA. We are trying to obtain confirmation from Minister George when in fact he had revoked this authority.  On 31 March 2025, a new set of delegations was issued by Minister George, confirming that he retains the sole power to decide any exemption application.  There are a number of significant changes to the delegations, including concerning section 28 matters.  We are also aware that despite these changes, the DDG had continued to issue decisions in terms of section 81 of the MLRA.  Members of the fishing industry are urgently advised to study any recent decisions (from approximately August 2024) taken in terms of section 28 or section 81 of the MLRA and see who took those decisions. If the decisions were taken by the DDG, it is extremely likely that these decisions h...

12 months ago, South Africa saw the appointment of its first fisheries minister from the opposition Democratic Alliance party as a consequence of the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU).  Admittedly, there was a substantial amount of hope that the decades of mismanagement, bad policy, destructive fisheries management and corruption at the Fisheries Management Branch located at Foretrust Building, Foreshore, Cape Town would come to an end.  That hope was not blind hope. It was based on the fact that while in opposition, the DA had espoused the type of policies and action needed that would certainly see the rapid righting of the rotten fisheries ship that is the Fisheries Management Branch.  12 months later and that hope has been dashed as the DAs Dion George has actually just continued with the same bad policies and incompetent / corrupt staff that he inherited from his ANC predecessors. In fact, George has been doubling down and issuing even worse decision...

 What is going on with fisheries control, Minister George? Your FCO's are randomly issuing fines to skippers of fishing vessels demanding they pay "admission of guilt fines" for the most mundane non-existent issues.  FCO's are supposed to foster a relationship of co-operation with the fishing industry as opposed to creating a hostile environment where it appears that FCO's are out looking for bribes. What else could explain why FCO's are issuing fines in cases where a tuna pole vessel's newly painted lettering mistakenly reads "TB" as opposed to "TP"?  Or issuing a fine to a tuna long line vessel because it has wooden bamboo poles on board because the FCO does not know that bamboo poles are also used to gaff tuna caught by long line to be brought safely on board the vessel? (Not to mention that the tuna long line conditions do not contain a definition of what is "tuna long line gear" and there is no criminal prohibition for ha...

On 6 May 2025 (almost week after Minister George was required by the Western Cape High Court to publish his appeal decisions), Dion George issued his revised squid appeal decisions. The original appeal decisions taken by Barbara Creecy were reviewed and set aside by the Courts last year (as were dozens of hake long line and small pelagic decisions, but we digress).  The squid appeal decisions are problematic for at least 2 reasons and once again demonstrate a Minister who lacks access to proper advisors and importantly demonstrates that the DA (As a political party) simply have no clue about fishing, policy and growth in this sector. And this is incredibly tragic given that, as an opposition party, the DA did actually have substantive policy and ideas to fix and grow fisheries ! Reason 1: Firstly, the Minister has allocated a total of 6 rights to new entrants but allocated them each a crew allocation limited to 4 men - also called the TAE or total applied effort limit.  What t...

 On 28 January 2025, Dion George's fisheries department decided to terminate the annual fishing authorizations for 178 abalone divers based on some mysterious "investigation" his department undertook in 2024 and concluded in December 2024.  Not only did the department terminate the right of these divers to earn an income in 2025, they did so without ever first affording the divers any due process - not once did the department first consult any of these divers and ask them to explain the allegations of wrongdoing they were purportedly found guilty of in January 2025.  And then the department failed to even tell these divers what the charges are that they faced. Only now in April has the department begun informing individual divers what the allegations of wrongdoing are and every single one I have seen is bogus and they are all very similar.  Almost all divers are accused of misrepresenting the diving zone from where they recorded a particular catch in 2024. But when o...

Being the first DA appointed Fisheries Minister, we held out much hope that Dion George would significantly move away from the catestrophic policies and incomptent management that has defined fisheries management in this country for some 15 years now.  ANC fisheries policy since Joemat-Petterssen has been defined by corruption, incompetence, typical redistribution of a contracting quota pie to more and more "fishers" with the consequnce that nearshore fisheries have essentially all collapsed and of the 22 healthy and functioning commercial fisheries we had back in 2005, we are down to 13 at best today. And yet we have 1000's more quota holders!  The DA of course supposedly prides itself on its strategies of "growth", competence and collaboration with industry / fishers to grow the SA economy. Minister's George's leadeership since 3 July 2024 has been a copy-and-paste of the incompetence and dithering that has defined ANC mismanagement of our fisheries si...

On 28 January 2025, Dion George's fisheries department issued a decision to refuse to grant abalone fishing exemptions to 179 historic divers because they had apparently committed multiple serious violations of the MLRA.  Additionally, 83 exemption holders were found to have committed "minor" violations of the MLRA and were instructed to pay "admission of guilt fines" or not have their fishing permits issued. And they were told (dishinonestly) by fisheries staff that the payment of admission of guilt fines would not reflect on their criminal records and these fines "have nothing to do with prosecutors and magistrates"! These are obvious lies that unlawfully coerced many exemption holders to admit to crimes they never committed in order to desperately secure access to their fishing permits so as to earn a living.  The decision of 28 January 2025 was apparently the consequence of a 6-month long investigation into compliance conduct by abalone exemption h...