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BuaNews,
21 February 2003
The Minister
of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Mohammed Valli Moosa, has praised
his department for once again cracking down on illegal fishing activities
by seizing a consignment of approximately five tons of Patagonian Toothfish
estimated at R500 000 from a warehouse in Cape Town yesterday.
The fish was discharged in Cape Town harbour in July
2002 from a Uruguayan registered fishing vessel, the 'Viola'.
The owners of the vessel have been unable to procure
the documentation required in terms of the Convention for the Conservation
of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), to which South Africa
is a party.
The purpose of the catch documentation scheme is to
ensure that there is an audit trail to prove that the fish that ends
up on the world markets has been legally caught.
Minister Moosa said that South Africa, as a member of
the international fisheries community and bound by important international
treaties, such as CCAMLR, takes its obligations seriously.
'We will take the strongest and most appropriate action
to ensure that marine resources, and specifically endangered resources
such as Patagonian Toothfish, are protected. South Africa had already
reported this violation to CCAMLR at its last meeting in October 2002.'
The seizure of the Toothfish consignment is only one
of government's major successes in recent months.
In its effort to prevent illicit wildlife trade, the
Gauteng Department of Agriculture, Conservation, Environment and Land
Affairs (DACEL) has achieved a court conviction of a man involved in
the export of Cape Fur Seal skins bound for Korea, without proper export
permits.
Mr Jan Bester of Pretoria was on Wednesday convicted
in the Kempton Park Court and fined R10 000 or 10 months in prison for
contravening the law regarding trade in endangered species.
Half of the sentence was suspended for three years on
condition he would not repeat the offence.
The illegal consignments, consisting of two lots, one
containing 135 skins and the other, 30 skins listed as Appendix II by
the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild
Flora and Fauna (CITES), were brought into Gauteng from Namibia without
proper import permits.
The consignments were later seized in Korea for arriving
in that country without CITES export permits from Gauteng. The consignments
worth about R 82 500 has been forfeited to the State.
Yesterday Minister Moosa told Parliament's National
Council of Provinces (NCOP) that his department had confiscated abalone
with an estimated value of R100-million since September 2001.
Responding to a question from a member of the NCOP,
Minister Moosa said the total weight of the confiscated abalone was
188 tons.
He added that the abalone was not yet sold by the department,
as it still needed to put control measures in place that would ensure
that abalone sold would not be purchased by poachers, thus providing
them with the means to have abalone legally in their possession.
He emphasised that the abalone would be disposed of
through a tender with strict and specific conditions of sale.
At a Parliamentary media briefing held in Cape Town
earlier this week, Minister Moosa made it clear that government intended
becoming tougher and more dangerous on abalone poachers.
This will be accomplished through a vigorous operation
that involved his department, the elite Scorpions investigative unit,
South African Police Service (SAPS), South African National Defence
Force (SANDF), and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).
He further indicated that the department was seriously
considering allocating abalone quotas only to small individual divers
along the coast and not to big companies.
Minister Moosa will today attend the launch of a shipyard
where four state-of-the-art fishing patrol boats will be constructed
on behalf of the department.
This is yet another
tough measure DEAT is taking against illegal fishing activities. - Candace
Freeman tel: (012) 314 2217
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