DEPARTMENT TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING ON TRADITIONAL LINE FISH POLICY

20/04/2005: The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, as part of its public participatory process, will hold a public meeting tomorrow (Thursday 21 April 2005) in Cape Town's Good Hope Centre at 14h00 to discuss with interested and affected parties the draft Traditional Line Fish Policy. On 11 April 2005 the department published for public comment a draft policy on the allocation and management of long term commercial fishing rights in the traditional line fishery.
The draft policy sets out, as the over-all objectives of allocating long term fishing rights in the line fishery, to:

Increase the participation levels of black traditional line fishers;
Allocate rights to traditional line fishers reliant on traditional line fishing for their income;
Affirm fishing communities and coastal regions who depend on traditional line fishing;
Ensure fair labour practices are adhered to;
Carefully manage the effort to which line fish stocks are currently subjected to ensure that over-exploited and collapsed fish stocks recover;
Lay the foundations for the management of this fishery on a regional basis; and
Ensure substantially higher levels of compliance by fishers.
All members of the media are invited to attend. Please RSVP with Sandile Mawela at 021 4023028.

Issued by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism
Chief Directorate: Communications