Accreditation row threatens SA's hake exports

The loss of SA's deep sea trawler-caught hake export market - estimated to be worth half the country's total R2,89bn a year deep sea hake market - would cause a price collapse as unaccredited fish would flood the South African market, said Tim Redell, chairman of Fish SA, an umbrella body of fisheries associations, on Tuesday.

"We are losing southern Europe because of the economy, and we will lose northern Europe because of MSC. ... [If that happens] the hake market will collapse. The South African market cannot absorb 100000 tons of hake a year," Redell said.

SA's MSC accreditation is in jeopardy because changes made by Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson have collectively meant that SA's patrol and survey vessels are tied up in Simon's Town. SA has already missed this year's MSC-required "hake survey". Only SA's deep sea hake trawler catch is accredited by the MSC. MSC Southern Africa programme manager Martin Purvess said an independent observers' surveillance report expected on July 9 would give clarity on what steps SA needed to take to retain its accreditation. Accreditation relies on annual surveillance "audits", or other steps deemed by the MSC to be equivalent, and is valid for five years assuming the "audits" are done, or other equivalent measures are taken. SA's accreditation was last granted in 2010.

Joemat-Pettersson suspended the observer contract this year.

Observers also monitored SA's small pelagic fish - pilchards and anchovies - and other stocks, said Purvess.

Democratic Alliance agriculture, forestry and fisheries spokesman Pieter van Dalen asked yesterday for a parliamentary debate on Joemat-Pettersson's suspension of the observer programmes, and the possible effect of the loss of MSC accreditation for SA's fish-for-export market. The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries' spokesman on fisheries, Lionel Adendorf, had not replied to questions at the time of going to press.

The fishing industry is sponsoring the second of two surveys to determine stocks of small pelagic fish in a bid to ward off losing accreditation. It is hoped that the ship, with fisheries inspectors as crew, will set sail today. SA's pilchard catch last year was worth R1,85m, the anchovy catch R5,73m.

Without a second survey a maximum catch limit would not be set for the second half of the year, meaning companies involved in the small pelagic market, especially those that were small and black-owned would "go to the wall", said Shaheen Moolla, MD of Feike Natural Resource Management Advisers, an advisory service in Cape Town.

"There is already a shortage of anchovies. They go into fishmeal production. This could have been a boom time. The price is high and the rand is weak," he said.

University of Cape Town biologist Colin Atwood said it was a concern that, apart from the MSC accreditation, SA was not patrolling its exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles from the coast. SA had sovereign fishing rights in this zone, but had to protect them, Dr Atwood said. "That's why we have three nice, bright red, patrol vessels. Unfortunately they are tied up in harbour. ... [That the fishing industry was sponsoring the pelagic survey] shows the desperation of the industry, which already pays levies on their catch," he said.

The levy was supposed to cover government research and patrolling, he said.

Source: Business Day