Tag Archives: Cape Town

Fishing Rights: Small Scale Fishermen walkout of meeting with ministry over rock lobster suspension

Small-scale and near-shore fishers walked out of a meeting in Cape Town with the deputy director-general for Fisheries Siphokazi Ndudane yesterday, saying her explanations relating to the suspension of the West Coast rock lobster fishing rights allocation were not sufficient. Earlier, angry fishers blocked the entrance to the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries offices on the Foreshore again, protesting the outcome of the fishing rights allocation process and blocking entry into the offices. “We are asking for (Ndudane) and the minister to postpone the proposed reductions (of fishing allocations) on the rock lobster and stop the offshore allocations of commercial companies.  click here to read the story 20:30

The man who destroyed the West Coast rock lobster

It took only 14 years for Cape Town businessman Arnold Bengis to decimate one of South Africa’s most treasured marine species. Now he is being made to pay by a US court‚ which has ordered the 81-year-old to cough up $37-million (about R483-million) for pillaging thousands of tons of rock lobster. South Africa will be the first foreign government in the world to be compensated under a 117-year-old US law‚ the Lacey Act‚ which regulates imports of protected species.,,, Former DAFF head of fisheries Horst Kleinschmidt‚ who testified in the District Court in 2004 about Bengis’s fishing activities‚ quoted research that suggested that free-falling rock lobster stocks “immediately stabilised” after his operation was stopped. click here to read the story 11:53