Bye-bye abalone

Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk is optimistic that his controversial ban on abalone fishing will be as successful as the ivory ban has been in saving Africa’s elephants from extinction.

In his first interview since announcing the ban two weeks ago, he said there would be no abalone left in South African seas in a few years if drastic steps were not taken.

A similar fate faced Africa’s elephant populations in the late 1980s before an international ban was placed on trade in ivory.

‘When ivory was banned there was the same outcry and huge public debate,” he said, ‘but now that decision has proved to be the correct one. And for the first time it has put Cites [the Convention in International Trade in Endangered Species] in the position earlier this year to consider improving the legal quota of ivory trade, because the elephant population of the African continent has recovered.”

In June Cites approved the sale to Japan of 30 tons of ivory from South Africa, 20 tons from Botswana and 10 tons from Namibia.

Van Schalkwyk said pressures on abalone, which fetches huge prices on international markets as a marine delicacy, had forced several other countries, including Canada, Japan and Australia, to close down their fisheries. North American abalone fisheries have been closed for more than 10 years.

‘Critics have suggested that we don’t have a clue what we are doing, but this is not true. We are following good international examples and their advice is that the longer you wait, the longer it will take for the fisheries to recover.”

A three-year ban in Chile in the 1990s had not worked, ‘but this was because of many other factors that we don’t have in South Africa”.

His department announced a fortnight ago that Cabinet supported the immediate closure of local commercial abalone fisheries. After an outcry from trade unions and fishing communities affected by the ban, he extended the date on which it will come into effect to February 1 next year. There are 302 rights holders — 262 individual divers and 40 close corporations — involved in the legal industry.

Van Schalkwyk said the growth in legal abalone fishing since the mid-1990s had gone hand in hand with increased poaching and a devastating decline in the species. Ecological factors such as sea currents and predation by rock lobsters in abalone spawning grounds also played a part in the decline.

‘As a result in the past decade we had to reduce legal commercial quotas from more than 600 tons in 1995 to a record low of 125 tons for the 2006-07 season. At least 60% of the abalone we confiscate from poachers is undersized.

‘As minister of the environment I can’t sit back and give lower legal quotas every year and then wake up in a few years’ time to find abalone finished forever.”

Several leading South African environmental NGOs — including the Endangered Wildlife Trust, the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa, the Wilderness Foundation, the Botanical Society and World Wide Fund for Nature — came out in support of the assessment that abalone was in crisis and was facing imminent extinction.

‘If we lose this species, it not only casts a shadow on South Africa’s track record of sustainable utilisation and environmental custodianship but will result in a complete loss of income for all those affected communities — forever,” the NGOs said in a joint statement this week.

Van Schalkwyk said he was even considering placing a ban on all diving in certain areas so that abalone stocks could recover. ‘From a policing point of view it’s very difficult to clamp down on poaching when you don’t have a diving ban in force.”

The move has met with fierce opposition from politicians across the spectrum. Zodwa Magwaza, an ANC member of the Western Cape legislature, said it would have devastating effects on the livelihoods of coastal communities who depend on abalone to survive.

‘The ANC urges both the department of environmental affairs and tourism and the police to intensify their anti-poaching work to save the species. We should avoid a situation where law-abiding citizens abide by the suspension and poachers enjoy a free ride,” she said.

But Van Schalkwyk said that in discussions with unions and other critics since the announcement of the ban they had agreed that the bottom line was that abalone was endangered. ‘Behind all the grandstanding and people understandably not being satisfied, there is a realisation that we are really dealing with a crisis situation and an emergency in this industry.”