More than 5,000 new marine “title deeds” are due to be distributed to small-scale fishermen in the Eastern Cape.
The figure is part of a major policy shift by the government towards giving poor coastal communities access to the sea to empower them to sustain themselves, department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries deputy director of fisheries Siphokazi Ndudane said on Thursday.
“The process began with a meeting here in Port Elizabeth in 2007 and now that it is finalised we have recognised 10,000 small coastal fishers and 422 co-operatives through South Africa’s four coastal provinces – including 5,300 fishers and 75 co-operatives in the Eastern Cape.
“We feel we are bringing back their marine title deeds, so it’s a celebration here today.”
Ndudane was speaking during the World Fisheries Day event in Port Elizabeth harbour, which also focused on the crack corps of marine conservation inspectors deployed under the aegis of the department and the South African Maritime Safety Authority.
The media was given a close-up of the action as inspectors on a rubber duck deployed from the Ruth First, one of the government’s three coastal patrol boats, sped out to fishing vessels in the bay.
Inspectors boarded the vessels and checked for fishing and fish processing permits, vessel licences and whether the vessel monitoring systems were activated.
At other times they might check the volume of fish already caught against the permitted catch figure as well as for the presence of any by catch, the inspectors said.
Ndudane said the inshore patrol vessels played an important role in combating marine fisheries crime.
“With 4,000km of South African coastline to cover they are a drop in the ocean compared to the ideal capacity needed, but to compensate we link up with the navy and the police for assistance, if necessary.”
She said different portions of the different fisheries had been earmarked for the new small-scale fishery.
These included not less than 25% of the squid fishery, 50% of the line-fishing fishery and 100% of the mussel and oyster fisheries, she said.
“So it’s a sizable commitment and not cosmetic.”
Dovetailing with the new small-scale fishing allocations, the department was also rolling out community ranching of perlemoen, a prized delicacy in the Far East, guided by Rhodes University expert Professor Peter Britz.
Three perlemoen ranches were sited in the Eastern Cape, including one at Cape Recife in Port Elizabeth.
Besides the direct financial benefits flowing from the programme, the indirect benefit was securing the coast from poachers because the ranch right holders would not tolerate their business being undercut, she said.
Abongile Ngqongwa, the department’s director of small scale fisheries, said his team had visited 316 communities along the coast before determining the beneficiaries list.
The new small-scale rights had already been allocated in the Northern Cape and the process should be finalised in the Eastern Cape by February, Ngqongwa said.
Zimasa Jika, the department’s deputy director for aquaculture, said the department saw aquaculture as another way to bring on board new, smaller players and simultaneously reduce pressure on wild fish stocks.
She said 1,943 people were employed in 35 aquaculture projects, mostly on the coast but also in the hinterland in unlikely places like Limpopo, where tilapia were being bred with success in local dams.