The new small-scale fisheries (SSF) policy for South Africa, adopted by Cabinet last year, has the potential to bring positive changes to the lives of artisanal fishers countrywide, according to the Masifundise Development Trust.
In a letter to the Editor of the Weekend Argus, Naseegh Jaffer, Director, Masifundise Development Trust, says the benefits of the new policy include the following:
The formal recognition of artisanal fishing communities
a move to collective fishing rights, away from the individual quota system that excluded the majority
the demarcation of preferential fishing zones for small-scale fishers, where they will be able to harvest or catch multiple species throughout the year. The potential for ongoing sustainable income will be considerably enhanced. These zones will be out of bounds for big commercial fishing companies.
improved and sustainable marine resource co-management.
What is now required, the letter sontinues, is a comprehensive and systematic implementation plan, involving all stakeholders.
“We at Masifundise Development Trust and Coastal Links South Africa, are doing much information and awareness work, to ensure that fishing communities and the broader public are fully aware of the implications of the new policy.
Though all the elements of the new policy need to be unpacked, we are concentrating our efforts this month on the move to collective fishing rights as this will entail a significant departure from the usual fisheries dispensation.
The idea of Individual Transferrable Quotas (ITQ) are what fishing communities have had to engage with for many years. These have many limitations including the following;
Only a small percentage of applicants (around 10%) are successful in getting ITQ’s. Just 700 out of 7 000 applications were successful in 2004.
New entrants into the markets sell their quotas to more established players, mitigating against any meaningful transformation of the sector.
Community members and their families have to compete against each other for opportunities rather than work together.
The collective rights approach, on the other hand, introduces a new trajectory that presents a range of possibilities.
In the first instance, the system will demand co-operation rather than competition. Community members will have to register as a group. This will place them in a position to get access to capital with which they can acquire better equipment, fishing gear and holding facilities. They can use their collective strength to access improved prices and markets.
Once they have established a legal entity (whatever its form), members will be in a position to quality for UIF, join medical schemes and benefit from skills training programmes.
The route to the new small-scale fisheries policy began in 2002 when small-scale fishers gathered at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) to discuss fisheries policy. The discussions that ensued triggered off an unprecedented civil society process to address small-scale fishing in South Africa. The next major trigger happened in 2005 when the government adopted long-term fishing policies that made no provision for small fishers.
The following year Masifundise took the matter to the Equality Court, which ruled in 2007 that a new policy must be developed and that an interim relief package for small-scale fishers be formulated and implemented.
This process dragged on for five years until the policy was finally adopted by Cabinet in June last year.
A significant majority of Masifundise’s policy proposals have been included. Its implementation would see a major facelift in the management of the small-scale fishery at national level.”
We call for its rapid and comprehensive implementation, the letter concluded.