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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 R...

If you are a quota holder in the South African fishing industry, then you are all too familiar with having to regularly use an array of consultants to attend to the completion of mundane yet crucial permit and licence applications. Feike has decided to offer South African quota holders a significant value proposition. Feike will attend to a quota holder's - permit applications; licence applications; vessel / effort change applications; and section 21 right transfer applications, for a monthly retainer fee of R500 plus VAT but inclusive of our renowned legal advice. For more information, please contact Feike’s Shaheen Moolla on smoolla@feike.co.za

Between 28 September and 2 October, Feike and the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission ran an African Union-World Bank funded training programme on the FINSS management software that Feike is distributing to fishing coastal states at no cost. FINSS is the acronym for the Fisheries Information and Statistical Systems s oftware that allows users to effectively manage their entire fisheries licensing, administration, management and statistical components. Countries and organisations represented included Angola, Namibia, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya, as well as Seychelles and Madagascar. The South West Indian Ocean Fisheries Programme was also in attendance. The Benguela Current Commission was indirectly represented via the Namibian and Angolan representatives. The attendees unanimously agreed to begin utilising the software and a user-report back session has been scheduled for April 2010. A second training session for west Africa has been provisionally scheduled for January 2010. FINSS is adapt...

In yet another damning admission, the South African government has admitted that it does not have the ability and resources to fight abalone poaching. It appears to be a deer looking at the headlights of a very large truck. The truth of the matter is that we had the resources, skills and institutions in place by 2004 to effectively reduce abalone poaching and they were working! But then came along Marthinus van Schalkwyk and his "new management team" who immediately went about dismantling everything that could be associated with the "previous management team", including getting rid of as many staff as possible to ensure that the "transformation numbers" stacked up. In compliance alone, they removed two directors with more than 50 years of compliance experience. The one director, Marcel Kroese, is now a senior advisor to the US government's fisheries surveillance programme! Kroese was the brainchild of the MARINES programme, the Green Courts and the sou...

Facing the Select Committee on Public Accounts, the Director-General of the department of water and environmental affairs, finally admitted that Marine and Coastal Management has failed to protect abalone from rampant poaching and does not have the resources to do so. It is incredible that it takes rampant failure and a huge loss to our ecology and socio-economy before such obvious admissions are made. Feike has been stating that MCM's "compliance" strategies were not impacting on abalone poaching since at least 2006 and that South Africa was losing between 2000 and 3000 tons of abalone worth a conservative R2 billion annually to poaching. Most recently, MCM's Deputy Director-General, Monde Mayekiso, stated on the environmental conservation programme, 50/50, that he did not believe that poaching was a crisis and that MCM had matters under control. Earlier this year, Feike, together with the ISS, published a report that looked into poaching levels in South Africa. MCM ...

As most of the fish resources in the world’s oceans are constantly depleting, the development of effective and efficient instruments of fisheries management becomes crucial. Against this background, the IUCN Environmental Law Programme proudly presents its latest publication in the IUCN Environmental Policy and Law Paper Series, edited by Gerd Winter, a long standing member of the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law, which focuses on a legal approach towards sustainable and equitable management of fish resources. This publication is one of the results of the 2005-2008 Incofish project, an interdisciplinary endeavour with worldwide participation studying multiple demands on coastal zones and viable solutions for resource use with emphasis on fisheries. The book consists of six case studies including Indonesia, Kenya, Namibia, Brazil, Mexico and the EU, which are preceded by an analysis of the international law requirements concerning fisheries management. The final part of the book sum...

The African Union, together with the World Bank, has commissioned Feike to run a workshop and training session on the Fisheries Information and Statistical Systems (FINSS) software programme in Cape Town at the end of September. Workshop participants, which include senior fisheries managers and IT support from a number of AU member states, will be introduced to and trained on FINSS. Each participant will be provided with a free FINSS software package. The AU wants coastal member states and regional fisheries programmes to adopt FINSS as their fisheries management software in a bid to ensure proper collation and management of fisheries data, as well as the harmonisation of data collection and dissemination. Utilisation of FINSS will also ensure users are able to comply with the FAO's Port State Measures Treaty Agreement, the FAO Compliance Agreement and will allow users to trace fish from harvesting to exporting. This will aid users to comply with the new EU Traceability Regulations...