Commercial Fishing Rights Allocation in Post-apartheid South Africa: Reconciling Equity and Stability

Abstract

The fundamental policy and regulatory framework for a post-apartheid dispensation to manage commercial fisheries in South Africa was put in place with the publication of the White Paper on Marine Fisheries Policy in 1997, and the enactment of the Marine Living Resources Act (MLRA) in 1998. In order to achieve equity within the fishing industry, a way had to be found to address the under-representation of historically disadvantaged individuals or companies. This presented a massive challenge to a government department that was, at the time, ill-equipped to implement the MLRA. Inadequate administrative capacity in the department, together with major new responsibilities, resulted in a virtually permanent state of crisis management, which was complicated by a system of annual rights allocations. A strategy for building a rational, legally defensible and transparent allocation system that met critical transformation targets was initiated in 2000. The new, medium-term rights-allocation system contains a number of key features designed to ensure a fair and equitable process. The allocation of fishing rights in 2001/2002 yielded mixed results in terms of meeting transformation targets, emphasizing once more that transformation is a complex process that can only be achieved over a period of time. Management interventions to optimize the potential social and economic benefits of marine resources continue to be constrained, primarily by institutional capacity. The challenge to government, the private sector and civil society is to build a partnership based on the three pillars of the MLRA: equity, economic efficiency and sustainability.