Cape Town – Greenpeace Africa's newest documentary, Gutted, which zooms in on the declining fishing culture in the Western Cape, explores how laws favour the industrialisation of fishing in South Africa and have changed the socioeconomic situation of fishing communities.
Gutted attempts to give a voice to small-scale fishers battling for fishing permits. This while harmful industrial fishing practices continued to destroy and deplete marine resources, Greenpeace said.
Eighty-five-year-old fourth-generation Kalk Bay fisherman Moegamat Alie Fortune is among those
featured.
“They say you mustn’t lose your culture, but the way that things have gone, they’ve taken Kalk Bay’s culture away. They took away fishing,” Fortune said.
Ferial Davids, who cleans fish at the Kalk Bay fish market, said there had been a drastic decline in the number of fish caught by local fishers.
Davids suspected this was the result of trawling along the Western Cape coastline.
“There have not been a lot of fish around lately. I suppose it’s because of the big trawlers.
%%%twitter https://twitter.com/hashtag/RT?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#RT @Greenpeace: RT @Greenpeaceafric: For Heritage Month Greenpeace Africa is premiering our new documentary "GUTTED", which shines light on how harmful industrial fishing has stolen the heritage of local fishers in Kalk Bay, SA. Sign our #ProtectTheOcea… pic.twitter.com/2enDnQtYUu
— Bito Mora (@bitomoramusic)
“There used to be hundreds and hundreds of snoek here in the harbour, but nowadays it’s like 10 snoek, 20 snoek, not even a hundred snoek for the day,” Davids said.
A socio-economic baseline study conducted by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries last
year found that most of the fishing communities lived below the poverty line.
According to the department,
there are more than 300 fishing
communities along the country’s coastline with more than 30000 fishermen.
Gutted explores the trickle-down effect of harmful industrial fishing, which has led to many coastal communities having to engage in illegal fishing activities because they do not have permits to fish legally.
It will be released live on Greenpeace Africa’s YouTube channel at the end of the month, as the first of a series of short documentaries that the organisation has produced in the build-up to its ship, the Arctic Sunrise, docking in Cape Town.
The ship’s arrival is part of the organisation’s international ocean sanctuaries campaign, urging the UN to protect a third of the world’s oceans.
Supporters are encouraged to sign the #ProtectTheOceans petition for updates about the ship tour.