Marine economy flounders in troubled waters

Writer & Photographer: Elaine Davie.

Towns like Hermanus and its neighbours, Kleinmond and Gansbaai, owe their existence to the small-scale fishing industry. Over the decades, as larger-scale operations began to dominate the fishing environment and to some extent, deplete the oceans, only die-hard families continued to live off the sea, as they had done for generations, selling their catches to the big factories in Cape Town and to local restaurants and fishmongers. They were catching not only fish, but crayfish and abalone on permit and generally, this was enough to ensure their survival on a subsistence basis.

The deserted Kleinmond harbour. Although fishing boats are still going out, they are finding it difficult to sell their catch.

In more recent times this section of the Southern Cape coast became victim to hundreds of abalone and crayfish poachers, who seemed to ply their trade with impunity on behalf of criminal cartels, mostly based in China and other Far-Eastern countries. Wild populations were seriously depleted, and the fishers’ quotas drastically curtailed, so that it became increasingly difficult to make a viable livelihood.

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