The mussel, a shellfish long known as a gourmet treat for the rich, has gained new significance for a community living in poverty on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast.
For the people of Sokhulu, mussels are not a luxury, but a necessity – a valuable regular source of protein which keeps starvation at bay.
Before 1996, laws prohibiting mussel harvesting off South African coasts meant the shellfish were not considered a subsistence food. People foraging on the rocks ran the risk of being fined or arrested for poaching.
Recent laws are more flexible, and a mussel research project initiated by the KwaZulu-Natal Nature Conservation Service gives the people of Sokhulu the opportunity to collect enough mussels to live on, much as their ancestors did.
Every month when the tide is at its lowest, the mussel collectors, mostly women, wake up before dawn and walk 5km to the ocean. There they balance on precarious rock ledges, waiting for a lull between waves.
Each collector gathers mussels and scoops them into her skirt. When her skirt is heavy, she runs to the beach to fill up a 25kg bag.
It is not easy work. The waves are brutal, lifting some of the elderly women off their feet and dashing them against the shell-encrusted rocks. The women have forbidden their young children to collect mussels, fearing they may get washed out to sea.
The collection is done with implements designed to have a low impact on the rest of the marine environment. “There is a 2km stretch along the coast which has been divided into zones. The collectors are allowed to collect more in some zones than in others,” says marine ecologist Jean Harris.
“We keep an eye on the mussel life cycles. We can see which zones are suffering and which ones are surviving, so we can work out the best level of harvesting for subsistence without damage to the environment.”
The project is run by a committee of mussel collectors, conservation service representatives, project monitors and researchers. “We went through an very in-depth process before we got to the collection stage. The people who were once arrested for poaching and those who did the arresting sat at the same table,” says Harris.
The rules of collection are complicated because they have to please both researchers and the subsistence pickers. Collection only happens in certain zones, with specific intensity, and only on certain days. The rules are respected most of the time, but in lean months some collectors have been known to break them. They have been punished with fines or suspensions.
Many community members feel empowered as a result of their involvement in the decision-making processes. There are new offshoots beginning to blossom from the project too: an adult literacy programme and a craft project have been initiated.
To mark the research project on the beach, large signs have been put up identifying the area as a non- recreational collection zone. Unfortunately, the signs have caused bitterness among recreational fishermen who used to drive up the coast from Richards Bay. They feel robbed of a prime mussel-collecting spot.
Zanele Shange (20) is one of the monitors, appointed by her community to keep an eye on other collectors. She says there been much resentment about the project: “When the project first began, the recreationals saw the boards but still collected here. The recreationals were told not to collect here and they got angry. They set their dogs on one collector, and chased him and threatened him with knives.”
Though things have calmed down, the relationship between collectors and recreational fishermen is still not friendly. A nature conservation officer often watches the beach on collection day, resembling a bodyguard.
High tide returns within a few hours, and the collection ends as soon as the bags are full. The monitors weigh the bags and measure the mussels. This gives them an indication of how many mussels are growing to adulthood.
Meanwhile, the weary collectors change out of their wet clothes and build fires to cook the mussels. Large drums that once held paint are used as mussel- boilers. When the shellfish are soft, the collectors scoop out the flesh and discard the shells. Huge piles of the heavy purple shells are left behind on the dunes.
Thembelina Sibiya, a pensioner, says the mussels she collects feed her family of five for a few days, and of course, they taste wonderful.
“We might eat it straight away after we boil it,” she says, “or we might fry it or we might make curry with it and eat it with rice or phuthu.”
ENDS