Defining the traditional small-scale fisheries sector in South Africa

Introduction

In May 2007 a new process of developing a fishing policy for the traditional ‘small-scale fishing sector’ in South Africa was initiated.   Whilst Marine and Coastal Management  (MCM) have been in the process of drafting policies for the ‘subsistence’ and ‘small-scale commercial’ fisheries sectors for the past year, this process was given new impetus by the signing of a court order by Judge Nathan Erasmus. The court order stated that the parties concerned would engage in preparing a new “policy and legislative process” that would include all traditional fishers in South Africa (Equality Court in the High Court of South Africa, 2007).

Inherent in this Court Order was the recognition that to date many of these fishers had been excluded from the rights allocation process.  Masifundise and several others have argued that the current definition of ‘subsistence’ as it stands in the Marine Living Resources Act (MLRA) of 1998 had excluded many fishers who did not fit this definition (Masifundise, 2004 and Sowman et al., 2005). These excluded fishers are discriminated against as they are deprived of legal access to the sea and hence of their right to pursue their traditional livelihoods.