Net Cast for the Poachers of False Bay

A man dashes from the water’s edge to a nearby knoll, surreptitiously looking over his shoulder and cradling a bundle in his arms.

“I’m sure he’s a poacher,” Zeph Dindikazi, a senior ranger at False Bay in coastal KwaZulu-Natal province, says as he maneuvers his motorboat toward the bank. “But there is nothing I can do unless I catch him with the fish.”

The ranger spots a mass of tangled net, a burlap sack and an overturned boat a few feet from the water. Closer examination confirms his suspicions: The few fish left behind--mullet, grunter and perch--are the victims of poaching, a crime that costs South Africa’s fishing industry millions of dollars in lost revenue each year.

Abalone, crayfish, prawns and at least 20 other types of sea creatures that fetch high prices on the international market have been dangerously exploited, marine authorities say. Many species have been driven to the brink of extinction.

The problem has become so great that the Marine and Coastal Management Authority, a government agency battling to turn the tide against poachers, is calling for stiffer jail sentences for poaching and seeks to give authorities more resources for stricter law enforcement.

In False Bay, part of the St. Lucia nature reserve, a protected UNESCO World Heritage site, poachers face destruction of their boats, fines ranging from $40 to $155, and the possibility of a month in jail, Dindikazi said.

Market demands are causing severe erosion of the marine food chain. Authorities and local fishermen say there are visibly fewer fish than in the past.

Marine conservation officer Johan Gerber said that 20 yards of net are needed to catch the same haul that a single yard brought in a decade ago.

He estimated that at least a ton of prawns is caught every day, worth an average of $4 a pound. Prawns are a protected species here; ordinary fishermen are forbidden to catch them, and commercial fishermen must have a license.

“At this stage, the [seafood] resource is under threat of being wiped out,” said Gerber, who heads the region’s anti-poaching law enforcement unit.

The poachers range from impoverished villagers seeking to bolster their income to recreational fishermen who catch more than their daily limit, then sell or barter their load.

They deal with middlemen--who often include local politicians, businesspeople and police, Gerber said--and the middlemen deliver the food to markets and restaurants.

Powerful local gangs and foreign syndicates pull the strings, said Robert Broker, a conservation officer with the KwaZulu-Natal wildlife service. “They control the whole [process] from the beginning.”

And they don’t take lightly to being challenged, said Dindikazi, whose team of 12 rangers is responsible for safeguarding False Bay.

“They don’t like us. We are seen as people who are trying to suppress them,” he said. Last year, poachers shot at Dindikazi, but he escaped unharmed.

Henry Oram was not so lucky. An award-winning anti-poaching officer with the KwaZulu-Natal wildlife service, he was found shot dead in his car in May. Police are investigating the possibility that Oram was slain in retaliation for his role in the Easter weekend seizure of 400 fish and about 375 pounds of prawns from a suspected gang.

False Bay, a favorite haunt of crocodiles and hippopotamuses, is also home to three tribal communities that live around the shores of Lake St. Lucia. There are 250 fishermen who depend on these waters for survival, and they must share 37 fishing permits awarded by the local authorities. They are not allowed to use nets longer than about 30 yards, and they may fish only between 4 p.m. and 6 a.m.; after that, recreational boaters and commercial trawlers have free range of the water.

Although local committees have been established to ensure that fishermen abide by the regulations, many flout the rules, using longer nets that indiscriminately trap all forms of marine life.

“Due to the fact that the net is not selective, we even find crabs,” Dindikazi said. “It’s not ecologically sustainable.”

A decade ago, about 550 yards of illegal netting were confiscated from poachers in the area of Lake St. Lucia, Gerber said. Last year, about 62,000 yards were pulled up in the same area.

Community fishermen say they are driven by hunger.

“There are no farms or factories here where we can work. Poverty is pushing us to [fish],” said Joseph Mdluli, a fisherman who insists that he obeys the rules.

Mdluli, 48, said he sells most of the fish he catches to other families and uses the money to support his two wives and nine children.

Rangers and marine officials said they were sympathetic but could not accept any behavior that would destroy the country’s lucrative and tourist-attracting marine environment.

“There wouldn’t be anything wrong with poaching if there were unlimited resources,” said Broker. “But people are taking too much--much more than what the resource can sustain.”

Said Gerber: “Poverty is a real problem. But it doesn’t help for people to exploit [the fish] to the extent that in five to 10 years’ time there will be nothing left. This will only lead to more poverty.”