Today there is only a desultory coming and going of vessels in search of heavily depleted fish stocks on the West Coast.
Across the road from the harbour, holiday homes have sprouted on the slopes above the town – a phenomenon that is replicated down the coast in villages like Paternoster and Langebaan, where quaint cottages that once belonged to fishing families now host visitors from around the world in a thriving tourist industry.
For better or worse, change is rippling up the coast as the disruption of the marine ecosystem spills over on dry land.
But a collapse in the population of the iconic West Coast rock lobster, whose tender flesh draws foreigners in droves during the season, may finally sever the area’s ties to its fishing past, driving its people into new forms of employment and leaving only a few commercial outfits behind.
The Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI) has listed the species as endangered and called for the fishery to be closed after Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Senzeni Zokwana reneged on a recovery plan for kreef that had been thrashed out with scientists in his department and stakeholders in the fishery by announcing an unchanged total allowable catch for the 2016/17 season.
The situation is so dire that even small-scale and commercial fishers have come out in support of SASSI, with a group of big suppliers under the aegis of the Responsible Fisheries Alliance warning last week that unless the government took heed of scientific evidence and significantly reduced the total allowable catch, the sustainability of the fishery would be under threat.
The alliance, which includes the Oceana Group, Viking, Sea Harvest, I&J and Pioneer, said steps in foreign markets like the US – South Africa’s biggest customer for frozen lobster - to ban imports of seafood from potentially illicit sources could damage trade in the sector.
The lobster fishery was one of the most valuable, with an annual turnover of R530m, supporting 4,100 direct jobs and providing livelihoods and food security for many more in the small-scale sector, the alliance said.
SASSI estimates from an analysis of catch data and extrapolations of poaching levels, among others, that the kreef population now stands at just two percent of historical levels, warning that it could vanish within five years.
This view is supported by anecdotal evidence.
Outside the Visko Seeprodukte building in the Sandy Point Harbour, Heinrich Sias, Zander Papier, Bryan Adams, Warren Fortuin and Connery Januarie while away their downtime by sprucing up the company’s Number 7 vessel.
They struggle to find lobster these days, they say, sometimes forcing them to remain at sea for days at a time before they have caught enough to justify the trip. They agree in unison that the cause of the problem is rampant poaching. But they blame the fisheries department’s glacial processes in issuing permits — and inadequate quotas for those who do get a licence — for the proliferation of poaching. As a result, some fishers double as poachers by night, they say.
