CHAPTER THREE
ABALONE POACHING IN SOUTH AFRICA
This chapter examines the origins and history of abalone poaching in South Africa, and why the criminal justice authorities have difficulties with the problem. The chapter also looks at the reasons for the increase in abalone poaching and at how the quota system, as it is practised today, gives rise to poaching.
3.1 General Information relevant to abalone in South African territorial waters
3.1.1 Introduction
The South African seashore stretches to about 3000 km, joining the east and west coasts of Africa. These coastlines are rich in biodiversity.50
The previous chapter mentioned the maritime zones provided for in UNCLOS, as incorporated into the Maritime Zones Act. These zones are made up as follows:
Further south, the continental shelf broadens and the current moves further from shore to more than 200km offshore south-west of Cape Agulhas.53 The continental shelf here is known as the Agulhas Bank and is extremely important for several varied fisheries, including trawling, long lining and squid jig fishery.
Most of the poaching takes place along the coastline where the Indian and the Atlantic Oceans converge at the southern tip of Africa and along a 160-km strip of South Africa's Western Cape shoreline.54
Fig.1. Map "showing the commercial fishing zones defined for abalone Haliotis Midae in South Africa" 55
This paper focuses on the four main fishing areas, (A-D) as indicated in the map above. Area C has been divided into a poached sub-area where the main poaching activities occurs (CP) and an area where less poaching takes place (CNP). The shaded region illustrates the location of the Betty’s Bay marine protected area (MPA)56
3.1.2 The kinds of abalone
South Africa has five endemic species of abalone, but only one, Haliotis midae, has commercial value. It is called in Dutch ‘Paarlemoer’, and ‘perlemoen’, meaning ‘mother – of – pearl’ in Afrikaans. It is "a large marine snail with a shell length of up to 230mm that lives in shallow water and takes seven to nine years to mature. It is believed to live for 30 years or longer."57
Haliotis midae is a marine mollusk that inhabits rocky surfaces on the sub tidal zone.58 It is reported to be endemic to South Africa.59 One record in the Lobito Bay of Angola was listed by the Abalone Mapping Project (ABMAP) as a "doubtful" area to find H. midae, but some farming of it in Namibia has also been reported.60
Slow growth rates are said to increase the vulnerability of H. midae to overfishing.61 H. midae is said to take seven to nine years to mature,62 reaching a maximum size of about 20 cm shell length after more than 30 years of age.63 Furthermore, the species is considered to have a "vulnerable reproductive strategy", and the highest regeneration success is reported to be found in the aggregated populations of juvenile individuals residing in shallow waters, which are also the most easily accessible areas for poachers.64
3.1.3 The quantity of abalone available
Due to increased poaching and ecological factors. the stocks of abalone are heavily depleted.65 Approximately 90% of the world’s abalone Haliotis midae is fished in South Africa.66 Scientists estimate that abalone will be extinct on the Southern Cape coast by 2034, that is, if poaching is brought down by 58%. If not, the abalone will vanish sooner.67
Before over-exploitation threatened it with extinction, abalone was prevalent in a vast part of the South African coastline, stretching from Cape Town to the shores of the Eastern Cape.68
According to the TRAFFIC report, the estimated legal exports of abalone (comprised of the commercial total allowable catch (TAC), abalone aquaculture production and exports of confiscated abalone) increased from 791 200 kg in 2004 to 1 318 823 kg in 2010.69
The statistics are indeed astonishing, particularly considering that, "when dried, perlemoen shrinks to one-tenth of its original size,70 and that 100 tons of dried produce is thus equal to 1 000 tons of fresh abalone. The total catch in the 2002/2003 period was less than 350 tons". 71 Therefore, over a period of two seasons, considerably more South African perlemoen was entering Hong Kong, in fact more than the entire legally harvested quota.
3.1.4 History of the harvesting of Haliotis midae
The South African abalone (Haliotis midae) resource is under considerable pressure from illicit organised fishing practices which intensified since the 1990s.72
In 2009, Raemaekers and Britz published studies that