‘Marine biodiversity plan will gaff fishing jobs’

FEW people know it is there. But a murky ocean canyon near Cape Town filled with fish and sea goggas looms large in a fight between the government and fishing industry bosses.

Cape Canyon, over a kilometre deep, is one of several proposed marine protected areas that collectively incorporate giant corals, sea “mountains” and even an underwater yellowwood forest.

But fishing bosses say the plan threatens at least one fishery with extinction — and curtails others — by excluding some productive fishing areas.

Pushing the plan is Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa, whose list of 22 new protected areas took some by surprise, partly because it includes the heart of the KwaZuluNatal prawn fishing area.

Resisting the plan — or at least this version of it — is the country’s most powerful fishing boss, Francois Kuttel, CEO of Oceana Group. Kuttel and several other industry stakeholders believe the protected area plan, although welcome in principle, has to be applied cautiously to prevent job losses.

Ironically, the move to protect marine biodiversity coincides with another government initiative to open up 150 000km² of sea bed for mineral exploration — led by the Department of Mineral Resources.

Added to the mix is Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Minister Senzeni Zokwana, who has expressed concern about the effect these areas are likely to have on subsistence fishermen.

The Sunday Times has established that:

The proposed list of 22 new marine protected areas, published in February, is the culmination of years of scientific research and based largely on a 2011 report led by scientist Dr Kerry Sink of the South African National Biodiversity Institute;

Although the fishing industry was largely supportive of the 2011 plan, it feels the proposed list adopts a “blanket approach” without concern for economic effects;

Although commercial fishing is likely to be outlawed in protected areas, small-scale fishing could well be allowed. Molewa’s department recently allowed small-scale fishermen access to a sensitive fish-breeding area in the Tsitsikamma Marine Protected Area, prompting legal action; and

On the plus side, the areas would officially conserve valuable marine biodiversity including an underwater canyon where the coelacanth, a dinosaur fish thought to be extinct, was discovered in 1938. Another proposed protected area on the West Coast, situated in a busy mining area, includes a petrified yellowwood forest on the sea bed. Video footage has revealed cold-water corals growing on the fossilised trees.

“It is not the principle of marine protected areas,” said Kuttel. “The concern goes to the locations chosen.”

Sink said protected areas were only one aspect of a holistic plan that would also involve marine spatial planning.

“You can’t have protection without affecting people. We have designed it in a way that has the least impact on people.”

Environment department spokesman Zolile Nqayi said the plan enjoyed “the full support of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries”.

Fisheries department spokeswoman Palesa Mokomele said the department would submit its formal position on marine protected areas to the Department of Environmental Affairs in due course.

❛ You can’t have protection without affecting people