The department of environmental affairs and tourism on Friday released its final policy on the allocation of commercial perlemoen fishing rights for the area from Cape Columbine in the west to Cape Agulhas in the east.
This follows just days after Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Valli Moosa announced a dramatic increase in fines for perlemoen poaching from a maximum of R40 000 to R800 000 to further deter poaching.
The department said in a statement on Friday the final policy had undergone significant amendments in view of the public consultation process.
"The final policy remains premised upon co-managing the commercial harvesting of abalone on a sub-zonal basis," it said.
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The policy provided for the allocation of commercial rights to three different categories.
These were divers; legal entities owned and managed by historically disadvantaged persons who previously held a medium-term commercial abalone right; and perlemoen processing factories, such as fish processing establishments that currently had a right to process wild perlemoen and held a medium term commercial perlemoen right.
Rights to divers and legal entities would be allocated for a period of 10 years.
Rights to perlemoen fish processing factories would be granted for a period of three years. At the end of the three year period perlemoen fish processing factories would not be allocated their own perlemoen allocations.
The statement said in deciding to grant rights to perlemoen-processing factories, the minister recognised the factories:
employed hundreds of people trained in perlemoen processing (shucking, drying, freezing or canning);
had invested substantially in perlemoen factories and processing equipment;
could play an important role in assisting the department in preventing the illegal trade in perlemoen; and
required time to reduce their financial dependence on having their own allocations of perlemoen.
The department believed three years was sufficient for perlemoen-processing factories to re-train and re-skill their staff and to reduce their reliance on requiring their own perlemoen allocations.
"Minister Moosa confirmed that recreational divers will not be able to harvest abalone. This is until the resource has recovered significantly and the commercial fishery is no longer under threat of closure," the statement said.
The department would be inviting applications for commercial perlemoen fishing rights during the course of next week. - Sapa
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