Tuna pole fishing rights finalised

Melanie Gosling

Environment Writer

FISHERIES Minister Senzeni Zokwana has ironed out the irregularities in the 2013 rights allocation for tuna pole fishing and scrapped those rights that were unlawful.

Zokwana announced his decision on the appeals lodged by tuna fishermen after the controversial rights allocation process in 2013 which were disputed across several fishery sectors, and led to court action against the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) last year.

Shaheen Moolla, head of the minister’s appeals advisory team, said yesterday their mandate had been to “fix all the identified errors and irregularities which had defined the 2013 rights allocation process”.

“We’re now reverting back to a systemic and orderly fashion of fisheries management,” Moolla said.

Of the 88 appeals concerning tuna pole rights, lodged against the decision of DAFF, the minister granted rights to 36 of the appellants. Of the 36, 16 were from new entrants to the industry.

Some of the appeals were from fishing co-operatives and individuals and one was from a trust. These were all refused. Co-operatives cannot legally acquire a commercial fishing right until new legislation comes into force, while trusts and individuals are not permitted to apply for tuna pole fishing rights.

Zokwana also applied the law, which says that all people who hold fishing rights in this sector must be able to demonstrate they have access to a suitable fishing vessel. This was important as South Africa’s ability to catch and land its pro-rata tuna allocations, which were set by international bodies, determined what the country’s future tuna catch allocations would be.

DAFF said because tuna were highly migratory, the South African fishery was ultimately managed by a number of international fishery management bodies that determined tuna quota allocations.

Because of concerns about the health of Atlantic albacore tuna stocks, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas had recently reduced South Africa’s allocation from 5 000 tons to 4 400 tons. Because of this, South Africa had reduced the number of vessels allowed to fish for tuna from 200 to 163.

The minister has asked that the department investigate 28 tuna rights holders, some who had been given fishing rights although they had not shown they had access to a fishing vessel, and others who had either underutilised or not used their fishing permits.

Zokwana said with the finalisation of these appeals, the percentage of black-owned rights holders had increased from 54 percent to 69 percent.

This is the fifth sector where appeals from the 2013 allocation process have been finalised. The others were the KwaZulu-Natal prawn trawl, shark, mussels and oysters.

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