Mafaniso Hara

Fisheries Co-Management - An Institutional innovation?: lessons from South East Asia and Southern Africa

During the last decade the co-management concept has gained increasing acceptance as a potential way forward to improve fisheries management performance. It has, however, at the same time become increasingly evident that the co-management concept is not clearly defined and means very different things to different people. In this article, we attempt to document experience available from a recent study on fisheries co-management that has researched case studies of various implementations of co-management arrangements in coastal and freshwater fisheries in South East Asia and Southern Africa, and to present a more comprehensive understanding of co-management and to summarise the experiences with both the positive outcomes and the problems in actual implementation.

Experiences with Fisheries Co-Management in Africa

Since the 1950s when the wave of de-colonization began to sweep through Africa, the continent has gone through several changing perspectives of ‘development’ approaches. Hyden (1993) characterises the discourse on development as having passed through four cycles; modernization (1955–65), dependency (1965–75), popular participation (1975–85) and enabling environment (1985-onwards). This moved the paradigm from development being measured purely in terms of economic stages of development to the wholesome term of human development (Hyden, 1993) specifically, development should imply improving the readiness and ability of societies to ‘problematise’ issues. In other words development becomes meaningful to people when they have a chance to wrestle with end/means relations in ways that are relevant to their own predicament. It was symptomatic of this shift that by the end of the 1980s terms such as people centred development (The World Commission on Environment and Development — WCED, 1987), sustainable development (Hyden, 1993) and sustainable livelihoods (Chambers and Conway, 1992) became increasingly common in development language1.

A knowledge base for management of the capital-intensive fishery for small pelagic fish off South Africa

As a contribution to South Africas move towards an ecosystem approach to fisheries management, this study explores the existence of common perceptions about South Africas pelagic fishery between resource users and scientists. It represents a collaborative research effort of social and natural scientists. A brief overview is given of the southern Benguela upwelling ecosystem and small pelagic fish resources, the fishery, and management of the fishery. Stakeholder knowledge and views were determined by conducting open-ended qualitative local knowledge interviews. Candidate indicators to address five major issues raised in the interviews were selected: length-at-50% maturity, total mortality, exploitation rate, proportion of bycatch, mean length of catch, and centre of gravity of catches. The indicator approach is shown to be a useful tool to manage the South African small pelagic fishery, and can be made compatible with existing management approaches. The foundation of a good adaptive fisheries management system is a data collection system that enables multi-disciplinary analysis and provides a basis on which decisions can be made.

Governance of the commons in southern Africa: knowledge, political economy and power.

Millions of southern African livelihoods continue to depend on the successful management and sustainable use of the commons – land and natural resources that are supposedly or actually managed, with varying degrees of success, as common property. This, above all, is the challenge to governance. The poor must tackle it – and governments and development agencies must support their endeavours – in the triple context of knowledge, political economy and power. This paper highlights the major factors and trends in these three areas that we must understand if we are to optimise support for the governance of the commons in southern Africa. If more commons around the region are studied from the same analytical perspectives, it will be easier to share experience and lessons in ways that can usefully inform development and conservation policy and programmes. This is what the Cross-Sectoral Commons Governance in Southern Africa project, reported in this special issue, has tried to do.

Shallow waters: social science research in South Africa's marine environment

This paper provides an overview of social science research in the marine environment of South Africa for the period 1994–2012. A bibliography based on a review of relevant literature and social science projects funded under the SEAChange programme of the South African Network for Coastal and Oceanic Research (SANCOR) was used to identify nine main themes that capture the knowledge generated in the marine social science field. Within these themes, a wide diversity of topics has been explored, covering a wide geographic area. The review suggests that there has been a steady increase in social science research activities and outputs over the past 18 years, with a marked increase in postgraduate dissertations in this field. The SEAChange programme has contributed to enhancing understanding of certain issues and social interactions in the marine environment but this work is limited. Furthermore, there has been limited dissemination of these research results amongst the broader marine science community and incorporation of this information into policy and management decisions has also been limited. However, marine scientists are increasingly recognising the importance of taking a more holistic and integrated approach to management, and are encouraging further social science research, as well as interdisciplinary research across the natural and social sciences. Possible reasons for the lack of communication and coordination amongst natural and social scientists, as well as the limited uptake of research results in policy and management decisions, are discussed and recommendations are proposed.

Efficacy of rights-based management of small pelagic fish within an ecosystems approach to fisheries in South Africa

South Africas small pelagics fishery is moving towards a management strategy using an ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF), with rights-based management (RBM) as the key rights allocation system. While EAF strives to balance between, among others, ecological and social-economic objectives, RBM is driving the sector towards economic efficiency. Within EAF itself, there are still underlying mismatches between the two top objectives, ‘human wellbeing’ and ‘ecological wellbeing’, in effect requiring a better balance between these objectives than there is currently. For example, fishers do not believe they should be competing with marine mammals and birds for allocation of the resource, yet this is one of the primary trade-offs that have to be made when setting the annual total allowable catches (TACs) under EAF. A balance between the two objectives could be achieved through acceptable trade-offs between them among all stakeholders within inclusive governance. Implementation of RBM has had both positive and negative effects on the objectives for EAF. Of concern are the negative effects of RBM on human wellbeing. For example, fishers feel that RBM has weakened their bargaining position, thereby reducing their benefits. In addition, RBM has resulted in job losses and insecurity of employment within the fisheries sector. The most affected have been the most vulnerable — the low level workers — who ought to be the key beneficiaries of RBM. Thus prioritising and protecting vulnerable groups and fishing communities need careful consideration when creating RBM, even in the context of EAF. Rights-based management has also had negative effects on ecological wellbeing through practices such as increased dumping and ‘high grading’ as part of industrys drive for increased efficiency under RBM. Whereas scientists believe that variability is largely due to environmental conditions, fishers strongly feel that dumping, high grading and high fishing pressure are the main factors. One of the positive aspects of RBM has been improved understanding among rights-holders and fishers of the need to consider other organisms in the TAC and to protect these through establishment of marine protected areas, island perimeter closures and limiting bycatch, thereby impacting positively on ecological wellbeing.

Policy evolution in South African fisheries: the governance of the sector for small pelagics

This article analyses the evolution of policy in South Africas fishing industry using the fishery for small pelagics as a case study. Policy changes were largely instigated to reverse the inequitable distribution of economic resources and productive assets that had historically favoured the white minority at the dawn of democracy in 1994. The analysis combines ‘actor-oriented’ and ‘institutional’ perspectives, and proposes that the evolution of policy is driven by interests, networks, alliances and discourses, which are largely determined by the power and resources that can be mustered by specific actors. A major lesson from the study is that it is particularly difficult for new entrants to influence policy for transforming capital intensive fisheries, where the need for capital, market forces and conservation ideology collude to raise the entry bar.

Could marine resources provide a short-term solution to declining fish supply in SADC inland countries? The case of horse mackerel

Abstract Food insecurity, usually manifested as protein deficiency, is a growing problem in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region. In the land-locked countries where fish is an important component of the dietary protein, one of the factors contributing to this phenomenon is the declining per caput supply against growing populations. In such instances, national production from capture fisheries or aquaculture has not kept pace with population growth. Meanwhile, some of the maritime states in the region such as Namibia, South Africa, Angola and Mozambique have abundant under-utilised fish resources which, if brought into production, could help in reducing this imbalance, provided that the economic, technological and marketing constraints pertaining to exploitation of the low-value species in question can be overcome. Of the species in question (horse mackerel in Namibia and South Africa, round herring in South Africa, anchovy in Mozambique and sardines in Angola), horse mackerel from Namibia holds the best promise of being easily brought into play in the short term. A precedent exists whereby entrepreneurs from Zimbabwe and also from Malawi and Zambia have been importing horse mackerel from Namibia since the early 1990s. But in order to boost production substantially for export human consumption, the support and facilitation of the governments concerned would be vital. This should be in the areas of appropriate research and studies necessary to overcome the constraints, development of infrastructure and putting in place enabling policies.

Fragmented participation in management of the fishery for small pelagic fish in South Africa – inclusion of small-rights holders is a complex matter

The reasons why most small-rights holders do not participate in management of the fishery for small pelagic fish (‘small pelagics’) in South Africa, despite legislation and policy encouraging their participation, were analysed. Membership of the Small Pelagics Management Working Group (SPMWG), the main participatory governance organ, is limited to representatives of recognised stakeholder associations. Rights holders therefore have to belong to a stakeholder association, which then selects a member or members to represent them on the SPMWG. Small quotas and the difficulties of sourcing capital mean that small-rights holders are not able to invest in infrastructure. Besides, most of the small-rights holders and their companies lack experience and management skills to survive independently in this highly competitive industry, which is based on high volume and low profit margins. As a result, most of the small-rights holders have no option but to enter into complex catching and processing agreements with vessel- and factory owners belonging to the existing recognised stakeholder associations. For the small-rights holders, it does not make sense to join these associations or even to form their own if they cannot actively participate in the industry independently. Greater participation by small-rights holders should start with their genuine integration into the industry through improved ability to invest in infrastructure and through management skills development. Most likely, this will require an interventionist approach by government.

Analysis of South African Commercial Traditional Linefish Snoek Value Chain

ABSTRACT Commercial traditional linefish snoek reaches consumers through retail outlets supplied by large hawkers and processors or directly through small hawkers. While the former channel caters to middle- to hlgh-income consumers, the latter mainly services low-income consumers. Retail outlets govern the first chain, while fishers believe hawkers are the lead actors in the second chain based on the thinking that they have a monopoly on the selling of snoek in townships. The real reason most fishers do not practice forward integration, though, is the impracticality of extending value chain functions beyond catching. Three suggestions are put forward for improving the value chain position for fishers: making crew members rights holders in their own right; forward integration into retailing and delivery contracts with processors and fish shops; and/ or direct supply contracts with supermarkets. All these options would require government policy intervention and financial and technical backing for fishers. JEL Code: Q21.