The Department of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries has published the 2012 Status of the South African Marine Resources Report earlier this month.
According to a recent United Nations report, more than two-thirds of the world’s fisheries have been overfished or are fully harvested and more than one third are in a state of decline due to the loss of fish habitats, soaring pollution levels in oceans and rivers, and climate change. Further statistics reveal that global main marine fish stocks are in a state of crisis, increasingly pressured by overfishing and environmental degradation. The United Nations report further indicates that fishing is central to the livelihood and food security of over 200 million people, especially in the developing world, while one of five people on this planet depends on fish as the primary source of protein.
In South Africa the fisheries sector is worth around six billion rand per annum and directly employs, in the commercial sector, some 27 000 people. Thousands more and their families depend on these resources for food and the basic needs of life. Within the context of food security, regular scientific work to understand the dynamics of these resources and the provision of reasonably accurate assessments of their status is therefore important for information-based management to ensure that these resources can be utilized sustainably. While research alone cannot prevent stocks from crashing, it remains one of the key components of the overall management system which includes resource management and monitoring, control and surveillance.
The 2012 Status Report confirms that South Africa stocks show no exception to global deteriorating trends as local wild resources generally continue to decline.
Abalone stocks remains in a depleted to heavily depleted state as the resources continues to decline due to increasing levels of poaching and ecological factors.
Linefish resources range from heavily depleted to optimal states depending on species, but there are signs of a positive response of some species to the emergency management measures implemented in 2000. Given the low population sizes of many other linefish species, however, present management measures are expected to assist to allow stock sizes to increase
The West Coast rock lobster resource show some signs of recovery under the current operational management procedure. Deep-water hake remain depleted but the status of this resource is improving, whereas shallow-water hake are considered optimal to abundant. The implementation of precautionary management approaches in the hake fishery in recent years has resulted in a faster than-anticipated recovery of deep-water hake. Harders, which are the main target of the beach-seine and gillnet fisheries, remain in a depleted to heavily depleted state. Environmental anomalies and Illegal netting have impacted on the recruitment of the species in recent years.
2012 South African Government