‘No answers’ for small-scale fishers
Officials hold public engagement
The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) invited small-scale fishers and relevant stakeholders in coastal communities to participate in an integrated stakeholder engagement at the Civic Centre on Thursday, August 4.
But activists say small-scale fishers’ concerns are not being heard and that the department is just ticking boxes.
DFFE officials gave presentations on implementing the Oceans Economy Master Plan (OEMP), the status of the small-scale fisheries sector, marine aquaculture and programmes focused on marine spatial planning and protected areas, and issues relating to coastal access.
In the Eastern Cape, these public engagements started in Humansdorp on August 2, followed by Gqeberha on August 3, Port Alfred and Hamburg on the same day, and ending in East London on August 5.
The public engagements will be held in a further 24 other coastal areas in the country.
In his presentation of the OEMP, Thembalethu Tanci explained that the department’s aim through the public engagements was to get input on communities’ concerns regarding the implementation plan that was still being rolled out.
The input from the public engagements would then be elevated to the master plan.
Tanci said the master plan process was aimed at reviving the country’s ocean economy.
He acknowledged that resource allocation and inequality were some of the issues that had been raised during the public engagements.
Responding to the audience’s questions at the end of the presentations, DFFE official, Nozuko Cokotha, said that of the 72 fisheries cooperatives in the province, four were situated in Ndlambe.
These were registered in 2018 and their fishing rights were subsequently allocated in 2019 and 2020. She also clarified that capacity building and training had been provided for them.
But like many of the invested residents who attended the engagement, Coastal Justice Network activist Taryn Pereira said the engagement was inadequate.
“Each of these topics is really enormous and complex, and all of these areas of policy have excluded coastal communities completely, so it was very frustrating to have a two to three-hour session to try cover all of those issues,” she said. “This was not a consultation, it was DFFE doing short, technical PowerPoint presentations that hardly scratch the surface of these issues, not even translating properly [short isiXhosa ‘summaries’ and no Afrikaans translation], no documents handed out, no documents shared in advance, and then extremely short and unsatisfactory responses given to the questions right at the end,” Pereira said.
The Coastal Justice Network, based at Rhodes University, works with smallscale fisher organisations and cooperatives along the country’s entire coastline.
They work alongside small-scale fishers to support them in organising as a sector and in ensuring their voices are meaningfully included in ocean decision-making.
In Ndlambe, they have worked with Moeg Gesukkel Co-operative in Klipfontein, Marselle Co-operative, Kowie Co-operative and Ekuphumleni Co-operative in Kenton-On-Sea.
In the Marine Spatial Planning and Marine Protected Areas (MPA) presentation, DFFE officials said the implementation plan noted that the management of MPAs must include local people, and clarified how these areas were not “no take” zones but were rather restricted zones.
But for fishers on the ground that was not the reality, Pereira said.
“Local fisherfolk are often prevented from getting to the sea where these MPAs are established and if they do get in, they can be arrested and called ‘poachers’ even in their own areas and even though they are recognised as a small-scale fisher,” she said. This anchored the dissatisfaction of small-scale fishers who went home without having had their questions answered.
The officials responded to only a fraction of the concerns raised at the end of the presentations, citing limited time, as they had to rush to the next engagement in Hamburg.