Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
marine resources. During this period, various legislative mechanisms were introduced,
as well as the individual quota system, which further entrenched white monopoly
over valuable marine resources. The state provided funding for infrastructure devel-
opment, while the Fisheries Development Corporation, established in 1944, provided
support for the post-war modernisation efforts, including funds for the upgrading of
private fishing vessels (Van Sittert 2002). During this post war expansion period there
was an increase in international interest in the fisheries sector while competition with
foreign vessels, especially for hake resources, escalated. It was only with the procla-
mation of the Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ) in 1977 that South Africa was able to
restrict foreign vessels from fishing in its waters and this situation has been successfully
maintained until the present.
As the industry developed along the Cape coast, local artisanal fishers were increas-
ingly restricted from access to traditionally harvested resources and were instead
employed in wage labour in the fishing industry - working on boats or in the fac-
tories along the west coast. By the 1960s, fisheries were a highly politicised sector and
rights were granted based largely on political patronage (Van Sittert 2002).
A different scenario evolved along the east coast of South Africa, where harvesting
of inshore resources by indigenous people was largely regulated by African customary
law (Sunde et al. 2011), despite regulations restricting access and use. In these areas,
there was limited interference by the colonial and later the apartheid governments in
the allocation of access rights and management of resources. This was largely due
to the remote and inaccessible nature of vast stretches of the east coast, and the rela-
tively low value of coastal resources found along these coasts. Furthermore, during the
Apartheid era, large stretches of the eastern seaboard were declared 'homelands'.
13
In
these traditional authority areas, rights to access marine resources were inextricably
linked to relations of land tenure and social relations within the community (Sunde
2011). There is a dearth of literature on the customary systems that governed access
to and use of marine resources but what is becoming clear from research in the land
sector and more recent work on coastal resources (Sunde 2011) is that despite state
regulations, customary systems were the de facto legal system operating during the
20th century in many parts of the country (Sunde et al. 2011).
In general, the state did not interfere with customary systems governing the fish-
eries in the 'homeland' areas except in conservation areas where heavy fines were
imposed for any transgressions. Where conflicts arose, they were addressed internally
through sophisticated conflict resolution mechanisms that existed within these cus-
tomary systems (Kapfudzaruwa and Sowman 2009; Sunde et al. 2011). In the case of
the industrial sector, conflicts were handled through the legal systems set up in the Sea
Fisheries Act. In the Benguela region, strict implementation of state rules effectively
limited customary fishing activities and led to the erosion of local customary fishing
systems, although there is evidence that fishers continued to fish outside the state sys-
tem (Sunde, in prep). Conflict across the sectors in this region was minimised through
imposition of draconian legislation, confiscations and heavy fines. Thus a de facto
plural legal system based on vastly different philosophies, values and norms operated
13
'Homelands' is the term used to refer to the areas reserved for residence for African persons
during Apartheid.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search