Background

Background
OLRAC was founded in 1989 by Dr Amos Barkai and Dr Mike Bergh specifically to provide support for the international fishing industry. Their specialty is the assessment and management of living marine resources. OLRAC now consults to most of the major fishing groups in South Africa and has in the past consulted extensively in Namibia. At a time that international fisheries management is becoming increasingly dominated by complex numerical arguments and a very conservative tendency, OLRAC provides the fishing industry with the opportunity to communicate with management agencies on an equal technical footing, ensuring that decisions embody the principles of sustainability, scientific objectivity, political impartiality and economic pragmatism.
Although OLRAC’s business is based on state-of-the-art quantitative science, the economic and practical realities of fishing are also integrated into management recommendations. OLRAC is continuously involved in critical management issues across a broad spectrum of fish resources and other marine topics. These include demersal, pelagic and lobster fisheries, small-scale subsistence fisheries, research into near-shore shark dynamics, environmental impact assessments, fisheries policy issues and the development of new fisheries.
Areas of Specialisation:
OLRAC specialises in the implementation of sophisticated quantitative tools in fisheries science and management in an unorthodox and critical manner.
In addition, OLRAC has rich experience in conducting logistically complex field operations involving large numbers of divers and vessels. OLRAC adheres to strict timetables and deadlines in accordance with the needs and realities of the fishing industry.
OLRAC routinely deals with following:

All modern quantitative stock assessment tools (Bayesian assessment and decision making procedures, surplus production modeling, VPA’s, size based mathematical models, age structured production models and mark-recapture based assessment procedures).

Exploration of the quantitative implications of management decisions using a set of highly evolved mathematical modeling techniques including development tools for Operational Management Procedures.

Multivariate statistical analyses (General Linear Modeling) and a range of spatial modeling techniques.

Development of new mathematical and statistical methods and computer software when existing techniques are insufficient or non-existent.

Fishing gear studies and the design, supervision and execution of experimental field studies and stock surveys.

Environmental impact assessment of competing users of the marine environment.

Bio-economic appraisals of fisheries in the context of the scientific paradigms underlying their management.

The development of fisheries databases, which combine commercial and scientific information.

Major clients
OLRAC's main clients between 1989 and 2004 have been:
1. The West Coast Rock Lobster Sea Management Association (South Africa).
2. The South Coast Rock Lobster Association (South Africa).
3. The Deep Sea Trawling Industry Association (South Africa).
4. The Abalone Rights Holders Association (South Africa).
5. The Consortium of Horse Mackerel Quota Holders (South Africa).
6. Selected Private Horse Mackerel Quota Holders (South Africa).
7. The Namibian Hake Association (Namibia).
8. The Natal Sharks Board (South Africa).
9. The Association of Pelagic Quota Holders of Namibia.
10. The Marine Diamond Mining Association (South Africa).
11. The Association of Pelagic Quota Holders of South Africa (South Africa).
12. The Land and Agricultural Policy Centre (South Africa).
13. The GTZ program and the Namibian Government (Namibia).

Business Approach
When required, OLRAC has the ability to assume full responsibility for industry input into scientific deliberations including field work, quantitative analyses, scientific deliberations, the representation of industry views at all levels and fisheries policy developments.
Whenever necessary, OLRAC has the ability to provide fishing companies with immediate support by analysing complex computerised datasets regardless of distance.
Although OLRAC provides support and tools for the economic exploitation of marine resources and often promotes a more aggressive approach to resource management, it will under no circumstances condone a management approach which it considers to be irresponsible and which might lead to long term adverse impacts on the resource.
Since OLRAC's work is often the centre of intense scientific debate, we make our work and data available for any level of national or international scientific scrutiny.

Directors:

Dr Amos Barkai - Biography
Amos Barkai was born in 1952 in a small Kibbutz on the Sea of Galilee near the Syrian and Jordanian borders.
In 1970 he jointed an elite combat diving unit in the Israeli navy. Following a training injury he left the unit, completed an officer's course and took part in the 1973 war. He retired from the Israeli army in 1975 with the rank of Lieutenant.
In 1976, after a short career as a commercial diver, he joined an anti-terrorist unit assigned to securing Israeli merchant vessels in international waters and foreign harbours. In 1977 he joined a small fishing company operating from a remote location in the Sinai Peninsula.
In 1978 Amos started a B.Sc. degree in Biology, first at Haifa University, but moved later to Tel-Aviv University. In 1980 he took a year break from his studies and ran the 'Red Sea Divers" diving centre. After finishing his B.Sc. in 1981, Amos and his wife decided to further their studies at the University of Cape Town where they were accepted as postgraduate students in 1982. Amos completed his Ph.D. at the University of Cape Town in March 1987.
During his studies he obtained certificates as an open sea skipper and scientific diving supervisor. In 1988 Amos participated in the first scientific diving expedition to Marion Island aimed at investigating the benthos around this remote sub-Antarctic Island.
In 1988 he received the Oceana group prize for the best scientific publication based on Ph.D. research on a marine topic. In 1989 Amos received an FRD (South African Foundation for Research and Development) distinguished postdoctoral scientist bursary to carry out a year of research at the Inter-university Marine Centre in Eilat, Israel.
His work on the complex dynamics of rock lobsters and other benthic species has been published in international journals including the prestigious journal Science. The work on lobster-whelk interactions published in Science is now widely used in biology textbooks. In the late 1980's, his interest shifted from mainly academic research to practical fisheries management, leading to the establishment of OLRAC. Amos is married, has three children and lives in Constantia, Cape Town.

Dr Michael Bergh - Biography
Michael Bergh was born in 1957 in Paarl, Cape Province, South Africa. His early childhood was spent in the Western Cape, but he moved north to complete his high school years at Kimberley Boys High School.
With an intense schoolboy interest in physical science and mathematics, he registered for a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Cape Town in 1976, and graduated with first class honours in 1979.
During his undergraduate years his interest in mathematical modeling developed, and he chose astronomy and celestial dynamics as elective courses. He played open league rugby for UCT, developed a love for the sea and became an active recreational diver. After university he worked for a year in a high pressure physics research division at the CSIR studying the high temperature properties of refractory materials, and the super-high pressure properties of different metal alloys.
At the beginning of 1982, he chose to combine his mathematical interest and his affinity with the sea by registering for an M.Sc. degree in Marine Biology. This work, part of the Benguela Ecology Program, initially focused on large scale food webs in the Benguela Ecosystem.
Increasingly however, he became interested in the commercial motivation behind this research and hence in the quantitative management of fish resources.
This led him to extend his studies at the end of 1983 into a Ph.D. on the statistical characteristics of numerical techniques to estimate the population size of fish stocks, eventually graduating in 1986, with Industrial Sociology as an additional course.
He then spent a year at the University of California in Berkeley, where he published work on the mathematical properties of population models.
The next two years were spent at the University of Washington in Seattle designing experiments on the use of diamond versus square mesh cod-ends in the Pacific groundfish fishery. On returning to Cape Town at the end of 1989, he took up an appointment in the Department of Zoology at UCT to initiate an M.Sc. level course in Quantitative Resource Ecology. At the same time, OLRAC was formed with Amos Barkai as a partner. Michael Bergh is married, has three children and lives in Hout Bay, Cape Town.

Olrac Facilities:
Olrac operates from premises at the Steenberg Office Park in Cape Town, South Africa which comprises of 250 m² of ‘A’ grade office space which are equipped with all modern facilities such as air conditioning, ADSL internet connection, file and email servers, digital projectors, and a fully PC-equipped training room capable of accommodating 18 people. Ample visitor parking is provided on site as well as 24 hour security. The office park is located in close proximity to Cape Town city (25 minutes drive) and to Cape Town International airport via two main access routes namely the M5 and M3. A train station is also situated in the Lakeside area 5km away.

Map & Directions:

OLRAC - Steenberg Office Park, Silvermine House, Tokai, Cape Town, 7945,
Cape Town, Republic of South Africa
Tel: +27 21 702 4111, fax: +27 21 702 4333
Email: info@olrac.com