While Easter is a time for families to be together and enjoy all type of fish as traditionally is the case, for many small-scale fish farmers the road to fully enjoying their benefits is filled with potholes. Many have cited a lack of government support and consultation on changes in the industry they operate in.
Industry leader and fish farmer David Fincham said fish farmers’ businesses are on the brink of collapse because of the threat to their livelihoods.
Fishing only source of income
“The challenges are always the operations for these farmers. It took the department of forestry and fisheries 18 months to renew licenses for small-scale fishing farmers and you have these communities that are waiting for licenses so that they can carry on with their lives and nothing is happening.
“It is a major challenge when it comes to the fishing environment. What is important to understand is that people have been fishing for centuries and their livelihood cannot be put on hold because some of those communities rely solely on fishing,” he said.
Fincham said even freshwater fishing has taken a knock in the past months. “The legislation is not in place for people to utilise the resources that are available. We agree that those resources must be managed and policed but who is going to do that? We need collaboration on that,” he said.
Waiting for the aquaculture bill
According to Fincham, they have been engaging the government for the past 15 years regarding the aquaculture bill and there has been little to no movement.
“That bill is currently sitting with parliament and that means it will not be signed into law until a new government is put in place and they have had a chance of looking at it and formed their committees. So that could be another two years before we get legislation that allows us to farm fish,” he said.
Fincham said stakeholder engagement and public-private partnerships in the industry are at the lowest point in recent years as proper engagement and recognition have not been in place.
“My message to farmers has been and will always be they need to start small and they should not wait for government. Even by starting small, you start developing your skills and understand the business and the markets so its important for farmers especially the youth need to invest in agriculture one way or the other,” he said.
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Industry engagement key
Meanwhile, minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment Barbara Creecy said the government has been working hard to provide policy certainty and a strong policy base for biodiversity conservation, sustainable use, and equitable growth in the biodiversity economy.
“The development, consultation on, and finalisation of the White Paper on Conservation and Sustainable Use of South Africa’s biodiversity was key to this. The white paper provides the vision of an inclusive, transformed society living in harmony with nature, where biodiversity conservation and sustainable use ensure healthy ecosystems, with improved benefits that are fairly and equitably shared for present and future generations,” she said.
Creecy said South Africa supports the sustainable use of all that is valued in nature and promotes a diverse biodiversity-based economy that includes both non-consumptive and consumptive uses of all the benefits and services of biodiversity.
“These uses include, amongst others, ecotourism, hunting, fishing, harvesting, boating, hiking, as well as cultural and spiritual uses, and their associated value chains.
“There are diverse successful approaches and enterprises associated with the biodiversity economy, many of which leverage value from otherwise marginal production land and seascapes, and this diversity enhances ecological resilience and offers further potential for growth,” she said.
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