We the KZN SUBSISTENCE Fisher folks are concerned about the sighting of the suspicious fishing trawlers once again off our coastline. The vessels have been fishing illegally close to our coastline out of international waters. This continues to happen during the winter months when the sardine shoal and other game fish enter our shores.
The present of the international fishing trawlers continues to occur for a number of years without any of the necessary monitoring vessels from the fisheries department guarding our coastline .We find only once the society starts complaining is there any effort to put a vehicle in the ocean to monitor these fishing trawlers raping our fishing stocks which are depleted already by a number of factors such pollution and mining.
One vessel is not going to be able to monitor this vast ocean of water and there is a need to use more boats to monitor our delicate coastline.
Comment:
Your report is noted and frankly our department had been unabatedly been receiving reports of this suspicious vessel movements off the coast of Port Edward as of late. These reports had been escalated to the DAFF Fishery Patrol Vessel Unit under Mr. Andile Moshane and Mrs. Nwabisa Lutshete (copied above) and also to the Vessel Monitoring Unit (VMS) to track the movements of the suspicious vessel. It was also informed that a patrol vessel is soon to be deployed to area concerned _ Delricia Augustus
For more information Contact:
Desmond D’Sa
South Durban Community Environmental Alliance
Contact: 031 461 1991 / 083982 6939
Email: desmond@sdceango.co.za