When Dion George took office as South Africa's Minister of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment earlier this year, he inherited an admittedly complex task. George’s predecessor, Barbara Creecy of the ANC, left a legacy of eco-focused policies that George has leaned into, prioritizing deluded net-zero carbon finance projects and financing renewable energy initiatives.

George has found creating methods for holding out a begging bowl for rich countries to finance carbon reduction strategies for the COP29 conference (which they seem rather reluctant to do), but his main duties, after which his department is named, seem oddly beneath his dignity.

With a ministry whose primary mandate includes overseeing fishing and coastal ecosystems, George’s focus on green energy policy and carbon targets seems a tad perverse, especially given the obsession with the pointless and wasteful money pit that is “green hydrogen”.

However, the enormous power given by the draconian Climate Change Act perhaps seem far more enticing than the boring task of abolishing the corrupt racially-driven fishing license scheme that has choked the Cape for the past 26 years. But then again, saving the world is always more exciting than fixing local resource allocation, isn’t it?

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“Fishing for FA”

Announced earlier this year, George’s cheesy-titled “Fishing for Freedom” initiative purportedly aims to streamline fishing license applications for small-scale fishers, bridging coastal communities with the so-called ocean economy while preserving these resources sustainably.

George promised the project would directly engage communities, facilitating simpler licensing processes and ensuring a more inclusive, equitable distribution of resources. But promises have yet to translate into action.

Fishing community leaders across South Africa have complained that they were neither consulted nor directly engaged by George’s office (hardly a change from his predecessor). The initiative, which should provide a lifeline to marginalized fishers, is largely absent in the communities it claims to support.

In August, over 50 fishing community representatives gathered for the Fisher People’s Tribunal, an unprecedented grassroots initiative to amplify small-scale fishers’ grievances. Organized by Masifundise and its subsidiary Coastal Links, both admittedly far-left organisations with funding from opaque international sources, the Tribunal did provide fishers with an opportunity to air their grievances and recommend policy changes.

This Tribunal delivered a preliminary statement in October, highlighting small-scale fishers’ structural and institutionalized marginalization: the persistent exclusion of small fishers from policy-making, the government’s favoritism toward commercial interests, and the alarming environmental impacts of extractive industries.

Significantly, George, despite his professed commitment to ocean sustainability, did not attend the conference. The absence of the country’s fisheries minister at one of the largest gatherings of fishing community representatives casts doubt on his commitment to addressing their concerns.

Of course, the activists’ attention is predictably disproportionate, and the groups convening this forum are largely tools of international lobby groups - obsessed with carbon emissions and offshore gas drilling, neglecting more tangible issues like the permanent destruction of, and denial of access to lobster breeding grounds, diamond mines under Creecy’s watch. They also called for an end to externally imposed Marine Protected Areas, and proposed locally managed protection areas grounded in “indigenous knowledge” and co-management, which is a daft bit of academic wank.

But it at least opens a window onto the main issue - the community itself remains focused on the issues of licenses, which remain in the hands of a combination of inland black rentiers and legacy white oligarchies, rather than being reasonably apportioned to heritage Coloured communities in the Cape.

I don't much care for left-wing agitators, but I am also capable of thinking critically in their presence, and don't have to agree with them to extract information in their presence.

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Lax attitudes to BEE sectoral capture

The most glaring oversight is the lack of attention given to Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). The DA claims to support nonracialism. What is more, there is no constitutional mandate to enforce racial quotas, and there is a great deal of latitude for the department to set its own targets.

And yet the DA in general and Dion George in particular, seem entirely disinterested now that they hold the reins. Failure to tackle the deeply unpopular BEE policies in fisheries will continue to undermine goodwill, but fortunately for the DA, the activists in the sector are dominated by far-left activists who embrace racial discrimination anyway, and are unlikely to give them any pushback.

Under apartheid of course, commercial fishing was dominated by white-owned enterprises, leaving indigenous and local fishing communities on the periphery. but this was a structural oversight rather than an explicit exclusion. Traditional fishers generally operated without licenses but were not criminalized for their subsistence activities. In contrast, the regulatory overhaul that followed 1998 sought to instill uniformity and transparency but instead marginalized these communities further.

Of course, poaching is a serious issue, and marine compliance inspectors must be tasked with enforcing strict regulations, even on subsistence fishers who, by necessity, have often resorted to “protest fishing” to make a living. This culture of defiance, and perception of illegitimacy of the licensing system comes directly from the inconsistent, racist and corrupt licensing policy, and the inconsistency of enforcement created by an overstretched department with priorities elsewhere.

Had the department fostered a prioritisation of local and traditional communities over BEE partners inland, they would not be dealing with so much rogue fishing activity, and could rely on the cooperation of these communities to a much greater degree.

But instead, the sector remains dominated by those considered to be outsiders. A small elite within the industry holds overwhelming control. As of 2015, the top six companies in the hake trawling sector controlled 88% of the total allocated catch, with the most “transformed” companies at the helm.

The hake trawling industry, the nation’s most lucrative fisheries segment, is over two-thirds black-owned according to industry association statistics, but almost all of these BEE partners are situated far inland, and have no real connection to the Cape, and most had no connection to the industry itself prior to gaining access.

BEE has consequently become a tool of disenfranchisement. George’s silence on this distortion reveals a glaring blind spot in his leadership. Without an overhaul, the BEE framework will continue to sideline small fishers, leaving real social transformation out of reach.

As Minister Dion George champions grand ideals of renewable energy and sustainable development, he appears disconnected from the reality faced by Cape fishing communities. His approach reveals a concerning lack of appreciation for the core functions of his department.

Without significant policy reform, George’s tenure risks exacerbating the mess left by his predecessor. The communities affected by his policies do not require grand declarations or symbolic gestures. What they need is tangible, immediate action: scrap race-based license quotas, end coastal diamond mining, and include local communities in protecting their own fishing grounds.

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