Page 121 - KBHA BULLETIN 3

118

And in looking at the whole situation we need to include the recreational and sports

fishermen. We need to consider the tourist industry, the businesses and the local residents.

Another question we should be asking is: Why after all the years of fighting against the use of

nets in the Bay, why are we doing it ourselves? When some of the local boats had licenses to
catch pilchards for bait these were for relatively small amounts, and the other local boats had

access to this bait. Today there are several quotas of 300 ton being netted in False Bay. These
belong to the quota holders and it is incorrect to say they belong to the Kalk Bay Fishermen.

The fishermen have to pay more than R20 a box of bait at retail outlets.

One of the major changes in the industry today is that of quotas. These have become very

important issues and we deal with that in the book. We have pointed out that these quotas

group fishermen together. That is not to say that these fishermen are all active in catching
these quotas, rather they are brought together because they benefit from the proceeds of a

quota. We have also described how some of these quota groups overlap, how some people

benefit from more than one quota while others are left out all together. This needs to be
understood before any long term decisions are made about the local fishing industry.

There have been several fishing factories in the past and they have failed for several reasons.
Apart from internal difficulties in managing them the main reason for their demise has been

the “lack of adequate and continuous supplies of fish”. This is not new, it is recorded, it is

history. Any new project along such lines needs to take into account the past records and,
more important, if it is going to claim to be for the fishermen of Kalk Bay then it must

include all those who fish out of Kalk Bay. That means it must accommodate the moving

population I described earlier and not just the boat owners but also the fishermen themselves.
All those who make a living out of the harbour should be part of such a scheme and it should

be discussed with them. They should be allowed their input. We need to remember the
popular words in our new democracy: “transparency and public participation”. Such a scheme

must take into account the congestion that already occurs in Kalk Bay when there are fish

being caught. It must allow for the fact that fish will have to be brought in from somewhere
else to keep a factory busy. I am not voicing an opinion for or against such a proposal. I am