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New strategy needed to stop
poaching Guy Rogers ENVIRONMENT; TOURISM EDITOR May 1, 2008 THE battle against perlemoen poaching is being lost and a radical new “social compact” needs to be devised and implemented, former Marine and Coastal Management (MCM) deputy director-general Horst Kleinschmidt said yesterday. Kleinschmidt, who is now a partner with former MCM compliance director Shaheen Moolla in heavyweight marine consultancy Feike in Cape Town, said the main reason why the authorities were not managing to stop or at least curtail perlemoen poaching was because they were targeting “the wrong culprits”. “They‘re hitting the divers and the runners. They‘re also culprits, but they‘re on the lowest rung of the ladder. We should instead be targeting the syndicates and the triads, who are the buyers.” The reason for this “misdirected” approach appears to be coming from the highest quarters, he said. “There is a lack of political will. These buyers have a lot of money and connections. It is not as if they are not known to the police. I personally know that they do know them.” Smart policing and under-cover surveillance should be enough to pinpoint suspects, to establish the movement of money and then to allow for the framing of charges that will stick, he said. “We all know the stories of the drug lords in South America and how hard it is to put them in jail. Often, it is not tracking them down that is the problem but a matter of corruption at higher levels.” Besides changing the focus of law enforcers battling the poaching plague, a government-run re-seeding project involving some poaching elements needed to be rolled out, he said. “The idea is to divide and rule. Some thought must be put into where to draw the dividing line but we need to avoid turning every diver who was once caught taking out perlemoen into a criminal for ever and a day. We need to bring some of them into the tent rather than keeping them all outside with the worst elements.” The first step would be to establish a government facility which would supply perlemoen “spat” or babies to private individuals or groups. Sections of coastal “turf” suitable for installing and growing these spat would be assigned to each party on the condition that they take responsibility for securing the stock, Kleinschmidt said. “Nothing looks after property as well as the private sector. The existing perlemoen farms on our coast are guarded by private security firms and they are one hundred per cent secure.” By the same token the poachers themselves operate according to a turf system and abide by it, he noted. The 102 legal perlemoen harvesting right holders who were banned three months ago as part of a new effort to stem the collapse of the species, would get first option to participate in the project, he said. “Thereafter, we can bring in those poachers who want to go legal and are deemed suitable. “The state facility supplies them on credit with spat. They must pay this money back once their harvest starts coming through. If they do this and if they are looking after the stock, then they can buy more. It‘s a system that is working well in Chile.” It takes about two years for the spats to grow to optimal “cocktail size”, the most favoured product on the market at the moment. To allow the right holder to support himself and his family during this period, thought could be given to giving him a fishing and wild perlemoen harvesting right for his turf. Those who abused any of their turf rights would immediately lose them, he said. “At the moment there is no plan and the police are not winning because the incentive to poach is too high.” MCM spokesman Carol Moses said the directorate saw no benefits in Kleinschmidt‘s proposal, however. “Our anti-poaching strategy is comprehensive. It does not only target one tier of the poaching chain. The view that ‘authorities are targeting the wrong level of the poaching industry‘ is an ill-informed view.” Guided by experts, government implemented “the best scientific and management measures available in attempts to recover the resource”, she said. “The department is not interested in striking deals with poachers, which will allow them to remain in our waters to continue plundering our natural resource base.” http://www.theherald.co.za/herald/news/n06_01052008.htm |
