A fishy blame-game
In February last year, fisheries minister Bernhardt Esau reassured the country there were sufficient pilchard stocks to justify his decision to issue a 14 000-tonne quota.
Then - a mere ten months later - the same minister announced a three-year pilchard fishing ban, which was welcomed by scientists, but has effectively thrown the industry and thousands of jobs into disarray.
Esau went further, sowing a few choice blame-game seeds, by saying that besides the historical overexploitation by the South African apartheid government before Namibia's independence, scientists also suspect that the depletion of the country's pilchard stocks was due to Namibia's seal population.
Scientists said at the time that the moratorium might be a case of too little, too late to save the country stocks.
They rightfully argued that given the fact that Namibia's sardine stock is a mere fraction of what it used to be, and the ecosystem's dependence on this species, there is considerable doubt whether a three-year moratorium will be enough to turn the situation around.
This raises immediate questions around why the advice of marine scientists was effectively ignored during the February announcement and what role the Benguela Current Commission (BCC) is playing.
The commission is a multi-sectoral inter-governmental, initiative of Angola, Namibia and South Africa, which promotes the vision of the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem (BCLME), which is sustaining human and ecosystem wellbeing for generations to come.
Namibia's pilchard debacle has effectively highlighted the conflict between the fishing ministry's roles as both the protector of marine resources and the patron of the fishing sector.
Rightfully, unions are deeply concerned about the retrenchment of workers in the pilchard industry, while also raising the awful situation that workers find themselves in, including living in shacks after years of service. We would, in this light, support horse mackerel fishing rights being given to worker groups in the near future.
It remains critically important that the sustainable management of the country's fishing resources must be prioritised, while being finely balanced with curtailing job losses in the sector.
The naked truth is that without healthy fishing resources, there will be no long-term fishing businesses and no long-term jobs.
Then - a mere ten months later - the same minister announced a three-year pilchard fishing ban, which was welcomed by scientists, but has effectively thrown the industry and thousands of jobs into disarray.
Esau went further, sowing a few choice blame-game seeds, by saying that besides the historical overexploitation by the South African apartheid government before Namibia's independence, scientists also suspect that the depletion of the country's pilchard stocks was due to Namibia's seal population.
Scientists said at the time that the moratorium might be a case of too little, too late to save the country stocks.
They rightfully argued that given the fact that Namibia's sardine stock is a mere fraction of what it used to be, and the ecosystem's dependence on this species, there is considerable doubt whether a three-year moratorium will be enough to turn the situation around.
This raises immediate questions around why the advice of marine scientists was effectively ignored during the February announcement and what role the Benguela Current Commission (BCC) is playing.
The commission is a multi-sectoral inter-governmental, initiative of Angola, Namibia and South Africa, which promotes the vision of the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem (BCLME), which is sustaining human and ecosystem wellbeing for generations to come.
Namibia's pilchard debacle has effectively highlighted the conflict between the fishing ministry's roles as both the protector of marine resources and the patron of the fishing sector.
Rightfully, unions are deeply concerned about the retrenchment of workers in the pilchard industry, while also raising the awful situation that workers find themselves in, including living in shacks after years of service. We would, in this light, support horse mackerel fishing rights being given to worker groups in the near future.
It remains critically important that the sustainable management of the country's fishing resources must be prioritised, while being finely balanced with curtailing job losses in the sector.
The naked truth is that without healthy fishing resources, there will be no long-term fishing businesses and no long-term jobs.
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