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?

Priorities For ICCAT

The general public may not be aware of the international regulations/ stipulations that is being recommended from such an organisation as International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF). Their latest article highlights the importance of the Regional Fishery Management Organisation (RFMO's) to govern and regulate their respective oceans for sustainability. In Cape Town the South African government is hosting the 23rd annual International Commission  For The Conservation Of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) conference. I was unable to attend as part of the 54 man South African delegation comprising the Department of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries (DAFF) and industry as for certain reasons. Besides this setback, I feel that the South African Tuna Pole Fishery will be well looked after by those representatives from our industry namely, The Large Pelagic SMME Association and The South African Tuna Association both of which I'm on the respective committees. Various topics will be tabled for discussion throughout this week concerning the tuna species in the North and Southern Atlantic Oceans. A more heated topic is that of the blue fin tuna with Japan and Spain baying for an increase to their respective quotas and in stiff opposition to this are the likes of Green Peace and ISSF, who will compellingly argue that scientific data proves otherwise. The South African quota is so small that our vessels manage to catch our country's quota in a matter of a few weeks and such, blue fin tuna on the long lines are simply cut off the line dead when the quota is finished. However, South Africa is in the final stages of full membership with the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) will subsequently have their quota increased substantially. South Africa which shares its quota with Namibia have consecutively under caught its ICCAT quota for albacore.

ICCAT is responsible for the management of the tuna stocks within the Atlantic and thus allocate Total Allowable Catch (TAC's) to each nation with an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Atlantic. Based on their scientific research conducted on stock assessment, they will issue each complying nation with a respective quota for each specie. ICCAT ensures that sufficient management systems are in place and functional to ensure correct governance of each flag state as well as a comprehensive fishing vessel register. In short the Atlantic tuna is only as well governed as the flag state within that particular stock is being caught and ICCAT ensures with all its checks and balances that thus is so.

The ISSF has notably made recommendations to ICCAT on the global issues of Harvest Control Rules and predetermined Reference Points to avoid and prevent over fishing of the stocks. ISSF is pushing for a closed vessel registry and a cap placed on the total number of fishing vessels allowed to actively fish in the Atlantic. Currently ICCAT does have this in place, but the ISSF is rallying even further for the reduction of the total fleet capacity to more acceptable levels. Under the topic of Fish Aggregating Devices (FAD's) the ISSF is challenging ICCAT for the comprehensive recording of data in log books for all catches concerning these as well as a FAD closure such as what is implemented in the Pacific for 2 months of the year. FAD's are responsible for the majority of juvenile tuna catches. Currently ICCAT does not enforce total catch retention to ensure that all tuna caught is landed and not dumped at sea. Undesirable species and sizes are discarded at sea to allow for the more valuable species to be landed.

Whilst ICCAT remains on top of all the five RFMO's with regards to compliance within the Atlantic, there is still scope for improvement from the pilot scheme that is currently been implemented by the ICCAT Compliance Committee. All in all our Atlantic Ocean is in good hands so to speak and is one of the better managed global oceans.