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Moeneiba Isaacs in association with the Ocean View Development Trust was responsible for organising the fieldwork sessions in Ocean View - a community situated in the southern part of the Cape Peninsula.
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Entering Oceanview |
Oceanview - part of the settlement with the mosque in the foreground |
Welcome byTrevor Edwards - Executive Director of the Oceanview Development Trust |
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A display highlighting many different activities in the community |
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Formal welcome included a history of the settlement and insights into the work of CBOs |
The community was forcefully removed by the apartheid government in 1968 from locations in coastal settlements like Simonstown, where many people had pursued livelihoods as fishers and dumped in Oceanview with no immediate access to the sea.
In recent months coastal livelihoods and fishing policy have been very much in the news. It is alleged that the quota system has had a number of unintended consequences. Critics argue that it has favoured established interests in a number of ways. For example many 'new entrants' into the industry become 'paper quota holders' - people who have no background in fishing but meet affirmative action criteria, who then sell their quotas on to established fishing companies. Small fishers argue that the system has effectively marginalised artisanal fishers - people whose lives and livelihoods are bound up with fishing, leaving them little alternative but to poach to secure their livelihoods. There are also conflicting perceptions about the health of the resource. Artisanal fishers do not appear to share the views of scientists from Marine and Coastal Management about the imminent collapse of the resource, or if they agree they point to the failure to oversee large industrial fishing companies that strip mine the sea as the prime cause.
The field investigation in Oceanview enabled course participants to examine close up the impacts of fishing policy on the livelihoods of different actors in the industry. Participants divided into a number of teams for the purposes of the fieldwork. Collectively the teams set out to:
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develop a rapid profile of Ocean View its history and socio economic context and the contribution that marine resources make to local livelihoods |
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analyse the livelihoods of households involved in fishing in Ocean View and identify the particular social and material assets; the capabilities and range of activities that contribute to their livelihood strategies |
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understand the seasonal dimensions of the livelihood strategies of households depending on fishing/marine resources as a major source of livelihood |
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investigate the factors enhancing or undermining the livelihoods of local fishers in the social economic, political, institutional and biophysical environments at local, provincial, national, regional and global levels |
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identify the principle trends and changes that have emerged over time |
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analyse current fisheries policy, quota and licensing systems to assess their impacts and examine any unintended consequences on households in Ocean View |
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compare the different stories told by local fishers, officials, scientists, commercial fishing enterprises that relate to the state of fish stocks and the overall health of the marine resource environment and identify the different perspectives on the causes of any decline in the resource base |
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identify the key arenas of conflict that have emerged over access to marine resources, profile the parties to the conflict, and their respective interests and needs |
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identify elements of a possible conflict resolution strategy |
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develop suggestions for a lobbying and advocacy strategy that could be used by local fishers and the Ocean View Development Trust to advance the interests and defend the livelihood security of artisan fishers in the new policy environment |
Over four days in the field teams worked with key informants to interview a range of people involved in fishing from fishers without quotas coping with lost livelihoods, through to quota holders, boat owners, officials etc.
The field research was then distilled into three syndicate presentations prepared for delivery on the penultimate day of the course. The course organisers are in the process of synthesising the three presentations to be able present the key issues arising out the fieldwork investigations back to fisher groups and Ocean View Development Trust.
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| Moenieba Isaacs and Ocean View fishermen |
Oceanview fishermen in discussion |
Women fishers gather for a group portrait | |
