South Africa Fails To Make Most Of Tuna Demand ff
15 January 2008
South Africa
The domestic tuna fishing industry could be worth R1bn a year, but a lack of specialized skills and appropriate vessels means foreign ships operate in SA waters and pay only R250 000 a year to the country for the privilege, notes Business Report.
SA tuna is highly sought after, especially in Japan, where sushi is a star feature. In the 1970s the Taiwanese and Japanese fleets dominated the local tuna fishing industry, with up to 200 vessels operating under bilateral agreements in SA waters at any one time. Those bilateral agreements were terminated at the end of January 2003, leaving the SA industry adrift. The irony, according to Shaheen Moolla, a director of Feike, a marine regulatory law and environmental management advisory firm, is that when a total of 43 commercial rights for swordfish and other tuna species were allocated between December 2004 and January 2005, it became clear that the SA rights holders lacked the skills to harvest tuna and swordfish in any significant numbers. According to Craig Smith, a fisheries manager with Marine and Coastal Management, foreign-flagged vessels – two Korean, two Filipino and eight Japanese – are now back in SA waters, this time with the government’s blessing. 20 joint ventures have been formed between local rights holders and foreign vessel owners on condition that they reflag their vessels and establish an entity that will contribute to the South Africanisation of the industry.
Meanwhile, steps have been taken to minimize the impact of large scale fishing on local ecosystems.
A plan to reduce the effect of commercial fishing fleets within southern Africa’s Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem (BCLME) has been released in Cape Town, says Business Report. Experts have hailed it as a clear and practical way of implementing an ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF) policy in the region, and say putting it in place will reduce the impact of commercial fishing on vulnerable species such as turtles, sea birds and sharks. The BCLME’s program chief technical adviser, Michael O’Toole, says the report gives ‘a very practical plan of how we can implement an EAF to fisheries in southern Africa’. Implementing an EAF policy could see changes to regulations, he says.
