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The Department of Fisheries recently confirmed that despite its various promises over the past 2 years, the large pelagic fishery and particularly our Southern Bluefin tuna (SBT) catches, has confirmed how poor our fisheries management policies are and how they continue to deterring foreign and domestic investment in our fisheries economy.  The Department has confirmed that 75% of the 2018 SBT has not been caught. A mere 15 of the more than 50 right holders are fishing. What happened to the thousands of jobs we were promised when the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tunas (CCSBT) announced South Africa's additional SBT quota?  Our ongoing failure to attract the vessels and professional experts to harvest our large pelagic quotas is directly rooted in the fact that foreign vessel owners and investors have identified South Africa as being entirely unattractive and in fact a significant risk to investment.  We need to urgently review how we ma...

As is unfortunately the norm in the South African fishing industry, the ongoing reluctance by government to issue clear and regular statements on key policy matters only allows for confusion, rumour-mongering and conspiracy theories to occupy conversations.  The failure by the Fisheries Minister to issue a definitive statement about her intentions with regard to the 2020 fishing rights allocation process is one such example. During her first address to "stakeholders" in fishing industry, she stated that she would postpone the 2020 fishing rights allocation process (FRAP). Then during her budget speech, she stated that she is reviewing the 2020 FRAP.  Can the Minister postpone the allocation of fishing rights in terms of the Marine Living Resources Act, 1998?   The short answer is a definitive NO .  The Minister cannot simply decide to postpone a fishing rights allocation process beyond the date on which fishing rights expire (majority on 31 Dec 2020)...

The announcement on 29 May 2019 by the President of South Africa that South Africa's fisheries department will be amalgamated once again with environmental affairs (as it was pre-2009) is to be welcomed given that the 2009 decision to separate and disintegrate oceans and coastal management from fisheries was widely denounced by experts in the field, including Feike. Complementing the re-configuration of the department, the President has appointed a new Minister to lead the Department of Fisheries, Environment and Forestry, Ms Barbara Creecy (former MEC responsible for Finance, Gauteng Province). Her appointment must be tentatively welcomed but her her tasks are substantial and immediate as 1000's of jobs are hanging by a thread, particularly in the lobster, abalone and pilchard fisheries given years of instability, maladministration, in-fighting and corruption. The current DDG of the Fisheries Branch, Ms Siphokazi Ndudane, will no doubt be relieved to be rid of the DG of A...

The Sunday Times on 26 May 2019 correctly highlighted the ongoing frustration by South Africa's commercial fishing industry with confused and contradictory messaging and policy emanating from the South African government.  The government commands that it wants to "transform" the fishing industry and introduce "new black" right holders to the commercial fisheries but then refuses to allow for foreign vessels and foreign investment into an industry that is overwhelmingly stagnant, incestuous and monopolistic.  Feike has repeatedly called for the substantive restructuring of the South African fishing industry on this platform and via our Twitter feed. Allocating fishing rights to additional and new entrants may be a start but it is of little benefit if the very government that allocated these new rights strangles the same right holders by forcing them to enter into suffocating and oppressive agreements with the same vessel owners, processing companies and ...

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 ...

The next 12 months marks a critical period (yet again) for South Africa's small-scale fishers who have to re-apply for their fishing rights. With memories of the catastrophic and damaging 2013 rights allocation process process still fresh in many small-scale fishers' minds, the upcoming allocation process is again being met with trepidation and uncertainty. For example, I have been advised that fishers were apparently told by departmental staff that right holders above a certain age would not qualify for fishing rights. This is despite the fact this unlawful and irrational criterion was abandoned by the Minister during the 2018 west coast rock lobster appeal process. Three key concerns are the ongoing uncertainty as to how the application process will unfold; what criteria will be used to evaluate applicants; and how will the concept of small-scale co-operatives be accommodated, especially since the two most important small-scale fisheries - lobster and abalone - have been...

On 23 and 24 April 2019, the Fisheries Branch of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) will be holding a 2-day seminar to "stimulate discussions and thoughts on issues [aimed at] broadening participation in the fishing industry in an equitable and fair manner guided by the need to restructure and transform the sector, investments and development finance for small businesses and new entrants, aquaculture and agro-processing (diversification of the fishing sector), seafood trade and regulation." The stagnation and collapse of significant parts of the South African fishing industry have occurred at a staggering pace over the past 2 years. Not only do we see the the factionalised corruption-fuelled battles at a national macro-level playing out in the Fisheries Branch, but a substantial consequence of this has been the mismanagement and collapse of fisheries like the lobster, abalone and pilchard fisheries. The single most important fishing rights alloc...