By Kouthar Sambo

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) has announced that it is finalising a policy for the small-scale fishing sector in the Western Cape, which enables them to catch new species.

This comes as the small-scale fishing rights of communities, whose livelihood depends on it, have been struggling to have their fishing rights recognised.

Speaking on VOC’s Drive Time on Wednesday, the Programme Manager at Masifunde, Carmen Minaro, confirmed that the policy, which, according to her, is dated back to 2004, responds to the needs on the ground to increase the baskets of species for small scale fishing communities.

“This is a long time coming in terms of the implementation of the policy since it was published in 2012, and the process started in 2007 – it has been almost 20 years in the making. We finally have our rights granted to small-scale fishing communities cooperatives in the Western Cape,” explained Minaro.

However, we are seeing that the basket is not sufficient, remarked Minaro, as the department failed to make enough allocations for this fishing basket even though it knew this was coming.

“The traditional fishing species which fishers (both men and women) have been relying upon are dwindling, and so, the idea of new fisheries is now emerging,” said Minaro.

“There is a mixture of feeling that we have about this, but the timing of it all, with an election coming up, so this is very suspicious and makes us worried that this is not going to materialise after the election fever is over,” declared Minaro.

Photo: Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE)/Facebook