Namibia’s Success Leaves South African Fishing Industry Shrugging Its shoulders

The recent newspaper article “Namibia limits oil exploration to cater for tuna migration” has left a bitter impression on their neighboring tuna industry in South Africa. Anna Erastus, a senior Namibian fisheries ministry official in conjunction with the Namibian Large Pelagic and Hake Long Line Association has successfully managed to postpone all seismic testing near the South African border in close proximity to Tripp Seamount. The oil exploration will now be conducted outside of the traditional tuna catching months when the albacore tuna (main target specie) migrate up the Benguela Current from South African waters. Following suit with the Australian blue fin tuna industries headway with seismic testing, the Namibian testing will now only be conducted during winter months namely, May to September when these species are absent. This has shown to not impede on the migration of the tuna and subsequent catches have been improved. The Namibian catches have gone from 4000 tons in 2011 to a mere 650 tons last year showing a steady decline in catch rates whilst seismic testing has been conducted.

                                                      News Paper Article 26.11.2013

All this effort would have been too no avail as the South Africa Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson has yet to even respond to formal letters addressed by her counterpart in Namibia requesting that this issue be prioritized. They have since sent her and the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa  a follow up letter but too the same avail. With the tuna migrating though SA waters up the coast and into Namibia, if South Africa still goes ahead with the proposed testing in the Orange Basin close to the border, the effects could possibly be detrimental to their season. It seems the Namibians are peeing in to that proverbial wind.

The Second Letter Addressed to Tina & Edna

With South Africa and Namibia sharing an ICCAT quota for albacore, Tina Joemat-Petterson needs to realize that it’s going to be the South African flagged vessels that will significantly loose out as these vessels are responsible for the majority of the Namibian landings. In essence, it will be local fishermen and their families that will ultimately pay the price. From a Namibian perspective, their industry relies upon the South African flagged vessels to employ the majority of their seasonal fishermen, the factories for volumes of throughput and other associated secondary services such as the ship’s agents and chandlers.

Nan Price of the Dolphin Action and Protection Group has been actively opposing the seismic testing being conducted and has commented that the effects of the underwater blasts have far reaching consequences which I will cover in a latter blog entry. For the affects of seismic testing on marine life please read an earlier blog post titled: Seismic Effects on the South African and Namibian Tuna 2012/2013 Season
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The Spectrum Map Showing the Seismic Testing Blocks In Purple

The consequences of the seismic testing have far reaching implications and is simply a trans border issue. I could even argue that this issue should be elevated to the level of the Benguela Current Commission but alas, we can’t seem to even get our Minister to put one foot in front of the other. I wonder what will motivate her? A sizable envelope no doubt?