INLSA

Tina Joemat-Pettersson

JOHN YELD

Environment & Science Writer

FISHERIES minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson has defended her department’s decision to allow commercial gillnet fishermen to operate in a restricted zone of Langebaan Lagoon.

She says the move to allow the Langebaan Netfishers to use their nets for a month in the lagoon’s restricted Zone B, which is part of the West Coast National Park and a Marine Protected Area, was partly for “food security”.

But the DA says the authority to allow fishing in the lagoon lies with Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa’s department, not with Joemat-Pettersson.

The fisheries minister was replying to a parliamentary question by John Steenhuisen, the DA’s spokesman on co-operative governance and traditional affairs, about the gillnet fishermen’s request. The group had been granted similar permission, again by Joemat-Pettersson’s department, over the 2010/11 festive season.

“A further consideration was food security and to ensure the economic viability of the netfish commercial fishing rights granted to the Langebaan Netfishers,”

Joemat-Pettersson said, adding consultation with the Environmental Affairs Department had been done through SANParks, who were not in favour of the request, “but indicated that (my department) has to take the final decision”.

john.yeld@inl.co.za