South African fisheries policy and marginalized coastal communities

¶ … South African Fisheries and the Approaches Needed to Solve Them.

The purpose of this paper is to show a current South African issue about policy problems and the official or department that does something about it. This work then produces the necessary research - a memo about policy - to that official about the problems present and the efforts required to resolve them.

The start of the democratic process in South Africa in the year 1994 sparked a law reformation process that aimed to resolve problems in the past and provide a platform to disadvantaged communities. This process was led by the South African Constitution (1996) which was supported by a number of human rights ideals present in the Bill of Rights (Witbooi, 2006). The undermining of fishermen on the South African coastline was due to their organized exclusion from the marine communities following many years of industrialization, racism and the growing privatization of marine assets by the use of policy instruments like quotas. The ANC government was tasked with the problem of changing an industry which was primarily controlled by a few numbers of white-owned firms. This action happened in a complicated policy surrounding that also included regulating South Africa's integration into the world economy and taking on neo-liberal policies of economics as well as the social policies of the Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP).

People of the low-income fishing homes had held great hopes for the new government that it would fulfill its earlier declarations of increasing the standard of the penniless communities on the coast by helping them with the path to marine assets (African National Congress, 1994). Moreover, a position document created by the ANC says that "For the sake of all South Africans and especially those whose lives depend on the sea, marine resources must be handled carefully… The government should also help the people who use these assets" (African National Congress, 1994). So people expected the fishing assets to help in reducing poverty and create employment as well as giving more rights and resources to the low income fishing areas.

Although there being a liberal constitution that focuses on protecting and respecting a series of social, economic and environmental rights and recognizing "living customary law" (African National Congress, 1994), the conventional small-scale fishing sector in the country of South Africa is still undermined. The use of assets, access to them and the bodies for the management of fisheries remain centrally controlled and commercial businesses are favored due to a doctrine that focuses on the market (Sunde et al., 2003). Reforms in various policies from 1998 to 2006 improved the procedure of accessing marine assets for blacks and that handful of advantaged members who had been left out in the past by shareholder places and combined enterprise. Even then, these changes were thought to be just superficial and to make an impression only but not aimed to actually giving back the fishing rights to the coastal people in South Africa or help them with any of their social or economic requirements (Nielsen and Hara, 2006). Particularly, communities belonging in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal were excluded very much because they were geographically remote and depended mostly on subsistence fishing.

Current Situation

An argument which has been quoted many times in traditional fisheries writings is marine resources will be destroyed if access is left completely open to all (Hardin, 1968). The idea behind this notion is that if limits and entry barriers are not set, it will lead to the exploitation of the assets, reduce the variation in them, destroy their ecosystem and completely finish the amount of resources present. Some other arguments include the fact that low income and undermined societies will consume the resources to the point that it would be difficult to recover them because of the difficult situations they would be in which would in turn lead to the further ruin of their living standards and diminish the resources (Pauly, 1997; Cunningham et al., 2009). If adopting this viewpoint, an approach which is focused on rights and produces barriers to optimize economical returns, is believed to be workable and sustainable (Garcia, 2005). This way has been used through a series of management systems which were all based upon the ideas of an efficient economy which contains rights for the private user as a main way for the policy to run.

Recently though, this approach has been criticized for not correcting the main policy issues like how to make sure that the revenue generated from fishery rents gives way to the growth of the economy and the welfare system (Olson, 2012). Those who favor this wealth-focused approach however argue that a crucial role of the fisheries is to catch the oceanic and marine wealth and convert it into a catalyst to transform and accelerate economic progress and end poverty by multiplying the wealth generated and redistributing it to different sectors (World Bank/FAO, 2009).

The wealth-focused approach to run fisheries is based on the idea of 'rent'. If we take it into accord, it says that the existing rights-focused approach is only an incomplete solution to the collapse of wealth in the fishing industry. The authors say that the rights have to be specified without any confusion and have to be backed by the particular institutions including legal and fiscal and others that give protection to the operation. A wealth focused approach needs a framework that focuses all areas of the management of fisheries to increasing the wealth provided by rent - it contains "the legal system; the economic measures; the management systems (including the hierarchy and nature of these management departments); the way of the organizational machinery and tools; identifiers; support of research; the management of communicational ideas and the workings in the research and the management sector; the layout of marine information machinery and so on" (Cunningham et al., 2009).

This wealth focused approach to administration is being furthered in Africa with the efforts of the World Bank and the regional fishing governing partners, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the African Union. Advocates of the system say that it will increase the growth of the economy and give benefits to the society by creating unemployment, helping with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), adding value and developing the living standards of the low income people. They also endorse it by arguing that it promotes the contributions of those small fisheries in decreasing poverty and by making the process of the value chain more efficient. This proposition would also serve as a catalyst for the formation of small and mid-scale businesses, in reality though these opportunities are fulfilled by the local advantaged and elite population and in the open market; it necessitates competition vs. The larger businesses. This does not usually help the lower income strata of the communities (Bene et al., 2010; Isaacs, 2011).

Political sector

A clear change in the governance approach and philosophy of the small scale fishermen will be suggested in the policy in South Africa. This approach will shift from the approach of rights based on privatization and maximization of resources and economic advantages respectively, towards the approach that promotes and supports human rights and an approach of development for the governance of fishermen. The flexibility that will be given by the policy and the continuous recognition of the fishermen will exhibit the understanding that the small scale sector of fishermen has fluidity to it. The policy will also recognize the fishermen to be a part of a much more broad system of society and economics depending on the long-term sustainability. Keeping in mind the different faces of poverty in the areas, we will demand that provisions should be contained in the policy which will donate to the relief of poverty in different forms and they should be implemented judiciously according to the policy spirit (Sowman et al., 2014).

Socio-Economic Sector

Legal access will be gained by the fishermen of the coast to the resources rather than by the present system of sole rights and the process of allocation of ad hoc permit. Maximum fishermen will have the opportunity to take part in the sector while the complete quantity that will be harvested by every fishermen may be limited than the ones they will receive under the system of individual rights. This will maximize the opportunities economically by a unified action and scale economies (Sowman et al., 2014)

Financial Sector

The important role played by the fishermen in food security and sustainability of the living between the households of fishermen in the communities who depend on this sole occupation of fishing is recognized by the policy. The policy also keeps in check the essential role played by the fishermen as a net of safety in the poor communities, importantly where the houses have no access to capital or land during the time of economic or environmental crisis. There should be a need to recognize the customary rights of the communities in order to give them access will mean that the fishermen fulfilling the standards will gain admission to the resource although on a regulated and managed basis. However, in cases like gear availability, resource state and context, lawful access may only work as a net of safety, but in many cases, the livelihood of people may be expected to create the base and contribute to the security of food and other similar needs of socio-economic (Sowman et al., 2014).

Industrial Sector

The communities of fishing which have the resource customary system will harvest the resources following the customary practices and rules because these rules are feasible and adhere to the Bill of Rights. The principle will specifically apply to the communities that are customary in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape as the customary rights communities are guarded by the Constitution that recognizes the laws of custom to be equal and an independent law source (Sowman et al., 2014).

Policy Proposal Implementation using Logical Matrix Approach

The process of LFA planning throughout the years has been revised in many various ways. The meaning of critical and flexible handling of LFA is that the development should be recognized and seen that it is automated by creating opportunities and options for design adaption. It should also value the outcomes by creating them as precise in the log frame. The planning also avoids over-interpretation of big scale programs and projects by using several functions, a five layer log frame of an over-flowed log framer. The inclusion of the aspirations and visions of the people and recognizing the opportunities at the time of planning instead of focusing on the analysis of the problem only will help in handling the LFA. The recognition of indicators that are quantifiable and information that is qualitative like stories and opinions of paradigm are required more for the M&E. LFA also includes shielding against the control of bureaucrats by reporting the outcomes, improvements and impacts on the output rather than the activities and ignoring the matrix of log frame use by making sure that it will represent the vision shared by everyone for arbitration development by using it as a tool of management. The strategy of the project will also help to guide to track the assumptions as section of M&E.

It should be noted that LFA is just one way to design a project and there are other ways to design it as well. In addition to that, the use of LFA does not guarantee that the project design will end up being a good one and you have to be creative and critical in order to gain a process of design that is suitable for the current framework (IFAD and Cooperating Institution Staff, 2014).

Overcoming Expected Barriers

The community and the government level will require a lot of capacity of institution in order to realize and understand the policy goals. In order to carry out the shift and change towards the fishermen who are community based, the DAFF or the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and fisheries will have to accustom and increase its processes and structure. The communities of fishing will also have to get organized and act a main role of management in order to handle the enterprises of their own. However, some concerns are still clouding in relation with the capacity of grass root and governmental to carry out the ambitious shifts of institution that the policy envisioned (Isaacs, 2003). The fisheries branch of DAFF often is short of their staff, resources and they are controlled by the culture of natural institution based on science. These restrictions do not allow the authority and the ability of the fishermen to adopt the role of development. However, the fishermen even though agree to play the management role, lack the ability to achieve the responsibilities and roles because of their lack of resources, experience, education and their increased level of disputes. The danger that is pondered upon is that neither the fishermen nor the DAFF have the capacity to fulfill their roles of management and development during the implementation of the policies. This particular concern should be addressed by giving effective and comprehensive training arrangements during the process of implementation (Sowman et al., 2014).