4 research outputs found
Scoping study on the development and sustainable utilisation of inland fisheries in South Africa: Volume 2. Case studies of small-scale inland fisheries
Small- scale fishing on inland waters is a widespread livelihood activity which has been overlooked in
environmental policy and management arrangements flowing from South Africa’s democratic Constitution.
This has perpetuated the Apartheid and Colonial era legacies of marginalisation of rural communities
from natural resource access and, in the absence of clearly defined use rights, resulted in unmanaged
and unsustainable fishing practises, and growing user conflicts. A major constraint to addressing the
situation at policy level was identified as the lack of quantitative information on inland fishing for livelihood
purposes
Scoping study on the development and sustainable utilisation of inland fisheries in South Africa
South Africa’s inland fishery resource endowment has been overlooked as a means of supporting sustainable
livelihoods in the democratic era, lacking a guiding policy and legislation aligned with the country’s rightsbased
Constitution. The absence of an equitable inland fishing governance framework with defined use
rights has resulted in growing unmanaged and unsustainable fishing practices, conflicts between resource
users, and the perpetuation of Colonial- and Apartheid-era exclusion of rural communities from livelihood
and economic opportunities linked to aquatic natural resources. In response to this problem, the Water
Research Commission launched a solicited research project entitled “Baseline And Scoping Study On The
Development And Sustainable Utilisation Of Storage Dams For Inland Fisheries And Their Contribution
To Rural Livelihoods” to provide a knowledge base to inform the development of policy and institutional
arrangements for inland fishery governance.
The project was executed by a trans-disciplinary team of researchers with fisheries and social science
backgrounds from Rhodes University’s Department of Ichthyology and Fisheries Science; the University
of the Western Cape’s Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), and the South African
Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB)