Over the Christmas holidays, my partner and I took my favourite five-year-old to the Two Oceans Aquarium. As we stood in front of the Kelp Forest exhibit, my partner, who has spent a great deal of time in the sea since his childhood diving, spear-fishing, surfing, told Daniel, ’Fish are very curious. If you stand still for long enough, they will come to check you out.’
So Daniel stood in front of the glass, a tiny tenth of its height, and sure enough, after a while five mature red stumpnose, from different directions, came waggling awkwardly through the blue, swollen foreheads first, and pressed up to the glass to peer at the boy. He was amazed. And so was I. Surprised. And charmed.
I have learnt (and am learning) from swimming and snorkelling with documentary maker and champion of the ocean, Craig Foster, that the creatures of the sea are interactive and have personality. Sometimes as I’m floating above an octopus or shy shark, they react in a way that shows, I swear it, personality. Just like the pets I love.
But in fact, their personality is not important at all. This was just a way to lure you into this story – but please bear with me, because this next part is important. Our Marine Protected Areas protect thousands of these creatures, and their personalities are the least of my concern. What is my concern is that we humans are threatening to plunder yet more of their territory. On 8 January this year a proposed pilot fishing project in the Tsitsikamma MPA was successfully opposed and will no longer be going ahead. However, the Minister of the Environment still plans to open 20 per cent of the reserve to recreational fishing. The Tsitsikamma MPA is the oldest marine protected area in the country, and so it is extremely valuable as a breeding ground for many species. I’m asking you to write to the Department of Environmental Affairs to continue to object.
Why should you? After all, it’s only 20 per cent. The point is this: we don’t have many MPAs, and we’ve already monopolised all other coastlines besides this. We couldn’t preserve those adequately, so what makes us think we will be able to manage these? The fish need their space to keep our oceans healthy. We haven’t even studied a fraction of what’s in them, and how important they are to our ecosystem.
So if this makes sense to you, please write to this address: [email protected]
If you don’t have time to write, you can also voice your concern by signing this online petition.
The deadline for comment is 1 February so we have until this Sunday to voice our concerns.
And if you want to find our more, read this petition by Steven Benjamin, and forward on, gather the forces, do what you can in the few days we have left:
Dear Xola Mfeke and the Department of Environmental Affairs
Thank you for taking the time to consider and read this comment regarding the future of Tsitsikamma National Park and its Marine Protected Area.
I would like to oppose the opening of any section of Tsitsikamma National park to recreational fishing. The aim of this comment is to hopefully ensure the on going protection of the living marine ecosystems and resources of the Tsitsikamma National Park for the benefit of current and future generations of South Africans.
Why Tsitsikamma should NOT be opened
The Tsitsikamma National Park is the oldest Marine Protected Area in Southern Africa. For over 50 years it has protected healthy intertidal and sub-tidal ecosystems and associated populations of reef fish and invertebrates.
The MPA protects many resident, long lived, slow growing and endemic reef fish species, that can not handle a high-level of fishing pressure and have all but disappeared (severely depleted) from areas outside the MPA. One example would be the black musselcracker, this fish only becomes a sexually mature male after approximately 18 years, and has a potential life span of 45 years. This is info from the South African National Park’s own website!! . The late maturity and long life span of reef fish species makes them vulnerable to over-exploitation. Fishing rapidly depletes the abundance of old individuals, which have much higher egg or sperm production than young ones. This results in a massive decrease in the reproductive capacity of the population and reduced juvenile recruitment. Most of the fish species that Tsitsikamma MPA protects are also highly resident, meaning adult fish stick to one area of shoreline their whole lives. So once an area has been fished out, it’s unlikely to be repopulated by new individuals. Other fish in the park that are also slow growing endemic species are Red Steenbras, Red Stumpnose, Dageraad, Red Roman, White Musselcracker and Bronze Bream.
Tsisikamma MPA acts are a receiver of healthy fish populations that spillover into other areas outside the park. These fish and invertebrates are able to breed and the eggs and larvae drift out of the Protected Area and settle in adjacent areas. In this way the protected area is able to ensure that people living adjacent to it are able to harvest fish and invertebrates sustainably. Fishing in the reserve will destroy that and everyone will be negatively effected.
As the oldest Marine Protected area in Africa, the pristine ecosystems of the park provide an important reference area that scientists use to understand change in marine ecosystems. Long term monitoring and many research projects rely on the exclusion of fishing to detect and understand change and to provide science to support resource management. By opening the park to recreational fishing you will undermine and destroy years of baseline studies of our precious natural heritage. With wide scale fishing all along our coastline, these No-Take MPA’s are all South African citizens have left to show what the richness of our waters used to be like.
There have been previous attempts to open Tsitsikamma. In 2007 and again in 2010 proposals were made to open the reserve to limited fishing for the local community. In both cases the relevant Ministers of the Environment took heed of scientific advice. The decision was made that opening the reserve to fishing would provide very short term benefits to very few people – to the detriment of both the local communities adjacent to the park, and the people of South Africa.
The Trial Fishing Period (15 Dec 2015 to +-10 Jan 2016) was stopped due to legal opposition by the Friends of Tsitsikamma to the unlawful opening of the park before public comment had been heard.
During this trial period, it become clear that SAN Parks was not able to police the four fishing areas AND the recreational fishermen were not able to adhere to the laws and failed to stick to the protocols. Fishermen were catching more than their quota and fishing more than 4 times a month or failing to sign in and out of the fishing areas. There is ZERO confidence in the policing or law abiding nature of the community, if the park were to be opened.
What are the alternatives
I feel that local communities must value the Tsitsikamma MPA, which at the moment they do not. But the short term gain of opening up fishing to a few, is not the solution. Some alternative options are listed below for you to consider.
1) Extend the Tsitsikamma MPA and give those new area’s to local residents to fish either side of the existing MPA. They will act as a buffer zones to the core MPA, be easier to manage and provide the fishing rights the community wants.
2) Employ more staff from the community and develop them into park managers or positions of influence.
3) Make sure that goods, materials, labor or skills are first sourced from the municipality, to show the people around the park the benefit of having this National Park as a neighbour.
Thank you for receiving my comment
Steven Benjamin
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