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06 Sep 2016

DA files marine petition

Judi Davis (South Coast Herald)

The Democratic Alliance has asked Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Senzeni Zokwana, to reinstate Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife as the custodian of the KwaZulu-Natal coastline.

About 80 well-trained and experienced Ezemvelo officials used to patrol the 560km KwaZulu-Natal coastline.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has filed a petition to the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Senzeni Zokwana, asking him to reinstate Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife as the custodian of the KwaZulu-Natal coastline.

For many decades well-trained officials from Ezemvelo and its predecessor organisations including Natal Parks Board, have monitored onshore and offshore fishing. They have checked the harvesting of shad, crayfish and other species and kept an eye on the activities of ski boats and other fishing vessels. Their organisation has also been very involved in marine conservation education projects.

However, in spite of Ezemvelo’s sound track record and its many years of experience, it has lost its mandate to protect KwaZulu-Natal’s marine resources. At the end of July this year, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (Daff) did not renew Ezemvelo’s contract to act as the department’s agency in this regard.

In a sitting of the Environmental Affairs Portfolio Committee this week, the DA handed over a petition containing over 70 signatures from concerned citizens and stakeholders who have taken issue with the department’s decision to cancel the Ezemvelo coastline protection contract.

Thomas Hadebe, the DA shadow Minister of Environmental Affairs, said poaching and overfishing would take hold in the absence of competent and vigorous patrolling services. Countless South Africans depended on the ocean either as subsistence fishermen or for jobs that would cease to exist should overfishing and poaching be allowed to deplete ocean species.

According to him approximately 80 Ezemvelo marine conservation staff members had been responsible for patrolling the 560km KwaZulu-Natal coastline before the non-renewal of the contract. Daff was now compelled to deploy and train an equivalent number of new staff.

Ezemvelo had not been given any reasons when it was informed in March that its contract to monitor and patrol the provincial coastline had been cancelled.
“These duties are supposedly being taken over by war veterans and other personnel from the Western Cape when the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries assumed responsibility on August 1,” Minister Hadebe said,

Recently the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Coastal Committee, a marine advisory body for government, urged the provincial Department of Environmental Affairs to push Daff into reversing this decision, saying that Ezemvelo and its predecessors had been looking after the KwaZulu-Natal coast for decades. To remove this competency would be a disaster.

“We demand that Ezemvelo continues to protect and act as guardians of the coastline and that their contract be reinstated,” said Minister Hadebe. The DA would continue to fight to ensure that our oceans were adequately protected, he said.

 

Online Article