Licence application flood delays South African fishing season

It all started with the decision of the South African Department of Environmental Affairs (SADEA) to issue long-term fishing rights for the first time, starting in 2006. Rights were to be issued for between 10 and 15 years and the overall value of the rights in terms of catch has been estimated at R70-billion (R7.3 = €1).

The long-term strategy was welcomed by the industry. But nobody foresaw the flood of applications that would follow and which caused the delays. The first applications for the different clusters were called for in June, 2005 and the last in mid-August.

The unexpected demand that followed meant that assessing individual applications would take much longer than the department had planned, according to the SADEA's own newsletter, FishRights. It said “additional resources” in money and staff were hastily drummed up and the department's officials and others involved in the allocations worked flat out through Christmas and the New Year.

By mid-January, only rights for six species had been allocated: south coast rock lobster (15 years), prawn trawl in KwaZulu-Natal (ten years), Patagonian toothfish (10 years), seaweed (10 years), two zones of nearshore West Coast rock lobster (10 years) and horse mackerel (10 years). The allocation of rights for the multi-billion Rand, deep-sea hake trawl and inshore hake were the next due in mid-January. The department has said it is fairly confident that allocations for all 20 commercial fisheries will be completed by the end of February, 2006.

Temps

Because of the delay, temporary exemptions were issued to previous holders of rights in 11 different fisheries. This allowed them to continue fishing, thus protecting jobs and the market supply. It also allowed the rock lobster fishery to fill export orders for the festive season: typically, 30 per cent of the catch is sold during December and January and prices are 25 per cent higher than at any other time. The amount of fish that may be caught under the exemption differs for the various species: in the hake trawl, 2005 rights holders may catch up to 10 per cent of their last allocation -- pending the issue of new rights.

But it is believed that the hake total allowable catch (TAC) may be reduced. A factor worrying the authorities is that some of those given exemptions may not succeed in applications for long-term rights. Then they will have caught fish to which they had no legal entitlement. If the department has found a solution to this problem, it is keeping mum about it.

The process

Allocations are made by the Rights Verification Unit, an independent body headed by Horst Kleinschmidt, former head of the department's fisheries Marine and Coastal Management (MCM) arm. They say the process is complicated and time-consuming, based on principles combining the government's policy of black economic empowerment, species sustainability and good business practice. The different species are grouped in clusters. The West Coast rock lobster is zoned geographically and classed either nearshore or offshore. Hake is classed as deepsea, inshore or hand-line catch.

Some of the fees to be paid simply to apply for a licence are large -- as much as R32,000 for deep-sea hake, horse mackerel and Patagonian toothfish. A legal tussle also threatened after several well-established companies missed the deadline and the minister, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, overturned the department's decision not to allow late applications.

The minister also threw a spanner in the works by promising that unsuccessful applicants' fees would be returned. As we went to press, this issue had still to be resolved. As some other application charges were lower, that fact and the hoped for return of application cash where a licence was not granted, may have contributed to the huge flood of applications. There were 4,070 applications alone for West Coast rock lobster.

West Coast Rock Lobster

Pushed by fishing communities, the SADEA took the unprecedented step of issuing “provisionally successful” lists for the West Coast rock lobster fishery. This meant the communities could themselves monitor the bona fide nature of applicants. The move contributed to the overall delay and was only partially successful. The SADEA said it got some “useful tip-offs” but “unfortunately much of the comment was self-seeking or consisted of allegations that cannot be substantiated”.

Rights to West Coast rock lobster have always been the most hotly contested, more so now that all commercial fishing of abalone has been stopped because it has been poached close to extinction. SADEA's newsletter says there are the lowest levels of rock lobster on the West Coast since commercial fishing began more than 100 years ago. “We know that lobsters are migrating away from the West Coast, and we also know that there are more fishers than there is fish to catch.”

In the event, the northern areas – where the lobster first goes into berry (the female carrying eggs on her abdomen) – were allocated first, according to FishRights. The most southern zones, where she goes into berry later, will be the last. In the first two northern zones, 110 rights of 750kg apiece were allocated. Bigger allocations were just not feasible because research has shown that they would endanger the stability of the stock, according to Dr Andy Cockcroft, an MCM scientist who is now working on West Coast rock lobster allocations for the Rights Verification Unit.