Cape Town - A “full suspension” of West Coast rock lobster fishing for up to 10 years is what a Noordhoek woman is asking for in the Western Cape High Court.
Judith Sole’s case is that the resource is in decline, fishing quotas aren’t sustainable and that the species is close to “commercial extinction”.
She said while the resource needed to be pushed up to 20 percent of its pristine stock level in order to meet international standards of best practice, it was only at 3.1 percent.
Sole lodged the application in the public interest in January.
She argued the matter herself - though she is not a lawyer - before Judge Burton Fourie yesterday.
Sole told the court that “drastic” action was needed in the form of full suspension of the fishing of West Coast rock lobster.
Alternatively, she asked for commercial fishing to be suspended, only allowing subsistence fishing.
When Judge Fourie asked for how long she proposed the suspension be imposed, she said five to 10 years, but acknowledged she had no scientific basis for this timeframe.
Lawyers for respondents Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson and former fisheries deputy director Greta Apelgren-Narkedien, among others, questioned several aspects of her application, including whether she had properly considered the socio-economic consequences of such a suspension and whether the state of the stocks was in fact an “emergency”.
Attorney Steve Broekmann, representing the SMME West Coast Rock Lobster Offshore Association, commended Sole for her activism, but branded her behaviour in bringing her application as “obsessive, irrational and importunate”.
He said that while the allegations she’d made were “dramatic stuff”, it “wasn’t true”.
Advocate Fatimah Essop, for the minister and deputy director, said a suspension would affect 2 500 rights holders.
She argued that the department’s scientists believed there was no basis to shut down the fishery. Stock levels had been at between 2 and 4 percent for the past 50 years.
“There was a massive drop and over-exploitation but now it’s under control… “ said Essop. “There’s a comprehensive re-growth strategy in place and (Sole) doesn’t seem to acknowledge this.”
Advocate Coriaan de Villiers, acting for the West Coast Rock Lobster Association and the Oceana Group, said it was not in the interests of the rights holders for the resource to become commercially extinct.
Sole, however, said unless something was done now, “all we’re doing is transferring the ever-increasing problem to tomorrow”. Should a suspension be implemented, she proposed a plan be established - either through the government, international groups or large fishing companies - to assist with subsidies.
Judgment is expected on Thursday.
Cape Times