Cape Town - Langebaan small-scale fishers have claimed victory after asserting their rights and demanding access to traditional fishing grounds.
This after they were restricted from fishing in a certain zone following issues with their permit allocations.
“The biggest issue was when the park declared the area a Marine Protected Area (MPA), and we could no longer fish where we had been fishing for generations. We won the case in court… They said we can fish because it’s our customary right, our birth right. It was working well then all of a sudden they said we were only allowed three boats on the permit. That was not acceptable,” said Coastal Links chairperson in Langebaan Solene Smith.
“Three boat owners would have got rich and we are 30 fishers on the permit. Fishers here respect the water, we have our own rules and have been fishing for generations. We respect the law but the community must benefit from the MPA, we are traditional fishers and we want our children to follow in our footsteps. So we say we need a new law of co-management, we must be consulted.”
On May 18, the Langebaan small-scale fishers wrote a letter to the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) regarding the number of boats registered on their permit. They were assisted by the Legal Resources Centre and supported by Masifundise.
The letter challenged the department’s decision to reduce the number of boats allowable on the permit to three boats from the usual 11 boats available.
A 2010 court ordered agreement stated that there were three rights granted as interim relief for net fishing in Langebaan. It was agreed that 11 boats would be rotated to exercise the three rights at a time.
On 25 May, DFFE responded to the fishers and reinstated their original permit, however, only a maximum of three vessels were allowed to fish.
Due to permit changes, small-scale fishers only received their permits nearly a month later on June 21.
The very same permit that now allowed for 11 boats had then restricted their fishing zone area to just Zone B of the lagoon, despite a 2016 court victory which found the restrictive permit conditions discriminatory. Langebaan fishers continued to be restricted from fishing in Zone A.
Smith then attended a meeting with West Coast National Park to address this issue on June 23.
“We didn’t have to produce the court order. We just spoke through the issue and it was resolved. Our zone rights were granted,” she said.
Masifundise said it was a victory for small-scale fishers “who were able to assert their rights and demand access to traditional fishing grounds”.
“Going forward, the Langebaan small-scale fishing community will continue with ongoing engagements with SANParks and DFFE to discuss co-management,” the organisation said.
DFFE spokesperson Albi Modise said: “In the previous fishing seasons, interim relief fishers were allowed to nominate three fishing vessels to operate the total allowable effort (TAE) of three nets as per the TAE determination.
“After a request was received from the interim relief fishers of Langebaan, through their representative, the department amended the Langebaan Netfish interim relief permit to allow for an increased number of 11 vessels to be used to implement the TAE of three nets, as determined in terms of section 14 of the MLRA. Thus, catch permits have since been issued on June 15, 2022 reflecting such changes,” Modise said.
Cape Times