Fisheries Policy Development

OLRAC has been involved at a number of different levels in the process of developing a new fisheries policy for South Africa appropriate to South Africa's new status as a democratic country.

  In 1992/93 OLRAC was approached by the policy think tank of the ANC (African National Congress), the Land and Agricultural Policy Centre (LAPC), to develop policy options for South Africa's marine resources. The result of this is a 200 page document entitled "The management and utilisation of South Africa's living marine resource: Principles, concepts and policy options" which sets out the economic, legal and scientific theory of fisheries management and explores various fisheries policy options for South Africa (copies are available from OLRAC). This document was completed before the start of the consultative policy development process which is now nearing completion, and has provided an important reference point for this process.

  OLRAC has also been involved in the development of technical submissions to the consultative policy development process. Three policy submissions were developed in a series of workshop sessions with three different sectors of the fishing industry.

  A further desk study entitled "Options for the allocation of access rights for demersal resources in South Africa - practical lessons from other fisheries around the world" is the result of a literature study of global fisheries policy experience for trawl fisheries, and was submitted to a technical committee appointed by the Fisheries Policy Development Committee. Copies are available from OLRAC.