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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...