Scientists warn that GLENCAIRN PERMT A THREAT TO LINEFISH.

The scientists who are promoting the unsustainibility of net fishing in Glencairn are not only facile but dangerously misleading. These fish harvesters have a long history of operation and are a practice that is strongly rooted in customs and tradition that as to be inviolable as law. There is a long history of antagonistic behavior towards the net trekkers along the Simonstown coastline due to attempts to keep the area exclusively for whites and conservation was the main tool used to get them out of the area. The very birth of the struggle against racism and oppression of the fishers within the apartheid times culminated from the Southern Cape area of False Bay and Ocean view where sexual favors, bribery, defiance, corruption and violence were to play a part. What raised controversy and is questionable was that during the allocation process four new entrants were allowed in the False Bay area while three groups of fishers who for years had being irking a livelihood out of net fishing were marginalized. Many fish working communities over the years have developed their own systems for managing the way fisheries resources were exploited, these systems under traditional social, economic and technological conditions often supported the sustainable use of the resources and the benefits from this. The systems introduced under the apartheid and recent Quota system conflicted directly with traditional practices and thus most of these policies have failed and has contributed to a fragmented society in disharmony and wide-scale poaching. Their predicted assessments by marine scientists around the world were proven to be wildly inaccurate and therefore notions that marine science is the beginning and end of it and their results are sacred are today being challenged as never before by fishers themselves and so-called maverick scientists. Most of the calculations done on the resource are just only predictions and the analytical methods adopted by our scientists have been inherently socially and politically biased. Sanctioned or not the inshore fishers knowledge has proved to be a great deal more valuable than the scientists, but arrogance , aloofness and their harmonious relationship with the old industrial establishments is making a marriage between them and us extremely difficult. To blame the small-scale or even the recreational fishers for denuding the ocean is to render invisible the deep-seated structural causes of over-fishing in our countries waters. Many problems should be taken into consideration if conservation is to be addressed in the False Bay area such as pollution, dumping, excess warship maneuvering, encroaching developments, inshore trawling and long-lining. It should be recognized that access to food is a fundamental human right and states have an obligation to respect, promote and protect the full realization of the right to adequate food by not taking any measures that result in preventing such access. The interim rights is basically a social net which is a temporary transfer program which seeks to reduce poverty amongst the vulnerable fishers and to assure a minimum of food while a new policy is being drafted. Fish is considered the food of the poor and the catches from the False Bay area has played an important role in this aspect by always provided this source of cheap food for the surrounding communities. We are facing poverty, unemployment, food insecurity as never before and the great challenge in order to address this is that restitution, transformation and a review has to take place within the fishing industry and here science must along with us play a positive role. The removal of the net trekking rights has plunged numerous families into more abject poverty and hunger than they were already experiencing, and they cannot understand why their plight is the result of guesswork by scientists. The fundamental element in building a successful fisheries management system and sustain the resource is to empower the fish harvesting communities and embrace their knowledge. All they want is to be accepted as human beings with the right to provide for their families, a just livelihood along with adequate food and to lead a life of dignity and not to be impoverished by prejudicial and guessing scientific mumbo-jumbo.
Andrew Johnston
Artisanal Fishers Association.
No 9. 8th Avenue
Fairways. 7800
South Africa
Phone—0217059183
Cell-- 0822933464