SOUTH AFRICA last year lost more than R1 billion in illegal wild abalone exports to Hong Kong. That represents about 2 000 tons of the endangered ‘perlemoen’, around 20 times more than last season’s legal quota of around 100 tons, given that wild stocks are already depleted. At the heart of the problem is active, highly-organised poaching on the Cape West coast. The demise of the Hermanus environmental court and the Scorpions, once dedicated to working with the environmental department in the fight against organised crime but now largely a spent force in this sector, is part of the reason. In addition, Sarah Baartman, the vessel specifically acquired to protect the country’s offshore fisheries, is not fully deployed on this mission. Three smaller patrol vessels incapable of matching the speed of poachers’ rubber ducks are used. A fisheries industry consultant says the dilemma is tantamount to not a single South African vessel taking care of fishing in the southern seas, which represents billions of rands.
Abalone poachers cost SA billions of rands
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