Protest at fisheries offices

With two tents, a single mattress and a primus stove, more than a dozen protesters have spent the last week camping out on the veranda of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries offices in Port Elizabeth.

The small-scale fishermen, divers and processors linked to the Eastern Cape Divers and Fishers Forum (ECDFF) want the full 13-ton perlemoen quota for the province, which is valued at R27.3-million, as the department had promised them this in January last year.

But the department insists the permit must benefit all coastal communities in the Eastern Cape.

The province was granted a permit exemption for the harvesting of 13 tons of perlemoen in February last year.

Last Monday, 18 small-scale fishermen, divers and processors took over the veranda of the department’s offices in Richmond Hill as the permit had not yet been issued. The office has since been closed. Family and friends have been dropping off provisions for the protesters, most of whom use cardboard boxes to fight off the chilly weather.

On Wednesday, Joseph Claassen, 72, was rushed to Livingstone Hospital with a lung infection.

Speaking from his hospital bed on Saturday, he vowed to return to the offices. “I will go back once I’m discharged. I’m not going to stop fighting,” he said.

Claassen, who never attended school, said the permit was his only chance of leaving money for his children.

Also on Wednesday, the department wrote to the forum informing it that the permit would not be issued.

“The department indicated it has considered the ECDFF’s proposals and has advised the ECDFF that the department has decided not to process and issue permits for harvesting of wild abalone in the Eastern Cape outside the current Small-Scale Fishing Rights Allocation Processes,” the department said in a statement.

Fisheries Management deputy director-general Siphokazi Ndudane said if the forum was granted the full permit it would be in contravention of the Marine Living Resources Act.

She urged the forum to partner with people who had successfully applied for a slice of the quota.

One of the protesters, Nokulunga Mkizwana, 58, said she was struggling to cope after hearing about the department refusing to give them the full quota.

“How many years have we been begging the government for this allocation? We are hungry,” she said.

ECDFF chairman Burtie Andrews said they would have a meeting with officials today. “We will then know the way forward on this,” he said.

The same group of protesters went on a hunger strike in November 2016, in which 25 fishermen staged a fourday sleep-in at the department’s offices, demanding the right to harvest perlemoen.

They stopped after the department undertook to issue the permit.