Thebe Mabanga
food
Seafood lovers might have to settle for life without their favourite line fish or bear a higher cost if they do get their choice. The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism intends to introduce regulatory measures designed to protect 20 species of line fish, among them red steenbras, seventy-four, red stumpnose and three species of kabeljou. “The substantial decline in stock abundance has necessitated stricter control measures and a change in line fish management policy,” says the department’s deputy director general of marine and coastal management, Horst Kleinschmidt.
He says the department estimates that there are 500 000 line fishing permit holders who exploit 40 key species for recreational purposes and commercial gain. In the past year the permits have been issued at an average rate of 20 000 a month. “The primary objective of these regulations is to protect people who depend on line fishing for a living,” says Kleinschmidt. This group comprises mainly subsistence farmers, whose ranks have swollen in recent years as a result of widespread retrenchment and who are not included in the 500 000 permit holders. “The first group that will suffer are people who have day jobs and engage in line fishing to supplement their income,” Kleinschmidt says, emphasising that the regulations expected in June will limit the quantity or size of various species that can be caught. He does not foresee total prohibition of any species. “We feel that it is unfortunate that these measures are taken when it is this late. The problem really is monitoring the actions of fishermen,” says Patrick Dwyer, food director of the Kristensen Ocean Front restaurant group, owners of the Quay Four seafood restaurant in Cape Town.
Kleinschmidt concedes both points. His department has found that the population of some species for example, geelbek stands at 5% of what it was 30 years ago. An ageing fleet of patrol boats has undermined monitoring capacity. In areas like the Eastern Cape there is virtually no means of patrolling the waters. A short-term solution, according to Kleinschmidt, is to outsource monitoring activities using private individuals and heri-tage preservation volunteers until a fleet upgrade is commissioned in 2002. A nemesis for monitoring authorities has been foreign fishermen, but Kleinschmidt says foreign fleets are not an issue in the line fish problem. This is because line fish are found nearer to shore than foreign trawlers operate.
Fisheries and restaurants seem to have gradually adjusted to life without the most popular fish and basically make do with what they have. Richard Key, a manager at the Musselcracker at the V&A Waterfront, correctly notes how scarcity of line fish has affected its price. Six years ago he could purchase a kilogram of kabeljou for R9. Today it costs him R16, largely but not exclusively due to increasing rareness.
Key’s restaurant, like Quay Four, has found that kabeljou and Cape salmon remain the most frequently available line fish. At the Musselcracker, regular diners will have found that a 300g portion has made a steady climb from R27 to R40 in about five years. For Key, other popular line fish species in his 33-dish buffet include yellowtail and snoek. Apart from these, he improvises, according to availability, using musselcracker, red stumpnose and red steenbras all on the endangered list.
Key says 90% of their line fish is grilled; olive oil is added just before it makes the move from grill to plate. Quay Four almost exclusively grills 99% of their line fish, says Dwyer with pecan butter brushed on at the end.