South Africa's Illicit Abalone Trade: An Updated Overview .

IntroductionA large sea snail that lives close to shore, grazing on algae, is being illegally harvested to thepoint of commercial extinction. Powerful syndicates operate a lucrative and highly criminalizedblack‐market to East Asia, where consumers pay hundreds of dollars per kilogramme for thesnail. This document summarises current knowledge of the abalone trade by exploring the past25 years of the industry and factors leading to the current poaching crisisA conservative estimate of 1723 tons1 of abalone—species name Haliotis midae—was poachedin South Africa in 2012, more than 10 times the official Total Allowable Catch. In the last 10years, it is estimated that more than 20 500 tons has been poached and illegally traded in total.Virtually all of this will have travelled to Hong Kong, the epicentre of the global abalone trade,before either being sold locally or re‐exported (Burgener, 2013).At the consumer end of the value chain it is prepared with great care and served at specialoccasions: to mark the conclusion of successful business deals, for example, or to celebrateweddings and other auspicious occasions.The supply side of the illicit abalone trade, the distal limbs of which have spread right across thebiogeographic range of the resource in South Africa, can be broadly characterized by violence,opportunism and plunder. Criminal organizations exploit a range of vulnerabilities (fromcommunity to State level and above) to operate an extraordinarily organized system of exportsthat has thus far defied all attempts to bring it under regulatory control.That the illicit abalone trade has survived for so long points to, among other things, thepersistence of the criminal black‐market, which in itself speaks volumes about South Africansociety. Crime operates in the shadows, and it is in shadow that some of the most revealingtruths about a time or place can be found. Taking a criminological lens to this country’s abalonepoaching epidemic thus highlights a much deeper set of problems—entrenched structuralinequality, weak governance, and widespread institutional failure—that allow this particularillicit trade, like many others, to continue to flourish.Part of the reason for the resilience of the illegal abalone fishery, as this documentdemonstrates, is that poaching has filled a socio‐economic void left behind by apartheid, offeringhistorically disadvantaged small‐scale fishers an unprecedented opportunity to earn goodmoney from the sea. Another component of the overall picture is that South Africa and itsneighbours have porous borders, enabling large volumes of contraband to be transported outwithout detection. In parallel with the southern African development context, sustainedeconomic growth in East Asia has boosted demand for high‐end goods in the past two decades.As a final piece to the puzzle, abalone, being a shallow‐water snail, is incredibly easy to harvest.In other words, abalone trade is a highly complex phenomenon. Sustained over‐harvesting haspushed stocks to the brink of commercial extinction for legal operators: a fisheries managementand conservation issue. The evolution of a potent criminal economy in coastal working classsettlements has introduced gangsterism and drug abuse, among other social ills: a welfare issue.The ease with which shipments of poached abalone continue to leave the country, despite theillegal fishery having been identified as a priority concern more than two decades ago, points toglaring weaknesses in the systems that govern border control and international trade: a high‐end governance issue.The authors of this briefing paper strongly believe that abalone poaching cannot be understood,let alone tackled, without engaging with these different layers of complexity in a holistic fashion.1“tons” in this briefing paper refers to metric tonnes. One ton is equivalent to 1000 kg.South Africa’s illicit abalone trade: An updated overview and knowledge gap analysis1

History of the commercial abalone fishery in South AfricaOf the five abalone species found in South African waters, just one, the endemic Haliotis midae, iscommercially exploited. A slow‐moving grazing mollusc, H. midae reaches sexual maturity afterseven years. It occupies shallow inshore waters from Cape Columbine on the country’s westcoast as far as Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape (Figure 1), with greatest densities occurring inwaters less than 10 metres deep. Taken together, these two biological characteristics—slowgrowth and late sexual maturity—combined with relative ease of access render H. midaeparticularly vulnerable to over‐exploitation, a threat compounded by the high value of abaloneproducts in East Asian markets (de Greef 2013).South Africa’s commercial abalone fishery began near Gansbaai, on the south coast of theWestern Cape, in the late 1940s. It was initially run on an open‐access basis, with teams of diversworking from small boats fitted with surface‐air supply equipment. Shore‐based harvesting alsotook place at low tide, as indeed it had for centuries throughout the biogeographic range of theabalone resource. Catch licences were required from 1954 onwards, but other than size limits ofa minimum 14 cm shell length, no harvest restrictions applied. This lack of regulation, coupledwith booming demand in key importer countries like Japan, allowed catches to rise tounsustainable levels, peaking at 2800 tons in 1965 before falling into rapid decline due todepleting stocks (Raemaekers et al. 2011).Alarmed at the prospect of over‐harvesting, fisheries managers imposed catch regulations forthe first time in 1968 (Table 1). The total quota was steadily reduced until the early 1970s,when annual catches stabilized around 700 tons. In the early 1980s this figure decreased toapproximately 615 tons, with no indications of significant long‐term decline (Figure 2).Figure 1 Map of South Africa and the Western Cape, showing the biogeographic range of abalone (Haliotismidae) and the spatial extent of the commercial abalone fishery. Since 1986 the commercial fishery hasbeen managed in seven separate zones (A – G on map). Adapted from Raemaekers et al. (2011).2South Africa’s illicit abalone trade: An updated overview and knowledge gap analysis

From 1986 onwards the commercial fishery was subdivided into seven fishing zones, with eachallocated its own Total Allowable Catch (TAC) based on stock assessments and previous yields(see Figure 1). These remain in place today. A commercial fishery was never established in theEastern Cape Province, despite the presence of a sizeable abalone population, as authoritiesdeemed the resource too patchily distributed to be economically viable (Raemaekers & Britz2009).Until the early 1990s these management interventions appeared to be working well. Harvestswere steady, divers were reporting improved catch‐per‐unit‐effort, and the prospect ofincreased TACs in the future was attracting new entrants to the fishery. Co‐operation betweenresource managers and rights holders, in other words, was seen to have put the abalone fisheryback on track (Raemaekers et al. 2011).Figure 2 Commercial abalone fishery landings and evolution of the Total Allowable Catch (TAC). Adaptedfrom Raemaekers et al. (2011).Inequality and the transformation driveAlthough tighter control brought a sense of optimism to the abalone fishery, its benefits werenot shared equally. Like in the rest of the South African fisheries sector, commercial abalonerights were reserved for white individuals during apartheid, essentially reducing the role of non‐whites to providing cheap labour. In the early 1990s five white‐owned companies held abalonepermits, with 52 divers—mostly coloured2 individuals—employed on a seasonal basis (Saur etIn South Africa, the term “coloured” refers to a diverse group of people—descended largely from slaves, indigenous Khoisangroups, and a wide range of other African peoples—who were assimilated into colonial society by the end of the nineteenth century.Being also partly descended from European settlers, coloureds are popularly regarded as being of ‘mixed’ race, and occupied anindeterminate status in the South African racial hierarchy during apartheid, distinct from the historically dominant ‘white’ orEuropean minority, ‘Indians’, and the numerically predominant ‘black’ African population (adapted from van Sittert et al. 2006).2South Africa’s illicit abalone trade: An updated overview and knowledge gap analysis3

al. 2003). This systematic exclusion meant that residents of traditional fishing communities likeHawston and Gansbaai had minimal formal access to abalone, sowing the seeds for the rampantillegal harvesting that was to follow.Abalone poachingtakes offEarly daysTable 1: Key events in the evolution of South Africa’s legal and illegal abalone fisheriesDateEvent1949*Commercial abalone fishery begins near Hermanus1954First commercial licences established; no catch limits1965Annual commercial harvest peaks at 2800 tons1968First commercial catch limits established1972Annual commercial harvest stabilizes at 700 tons1983Recreational licenses established1986Commercial fishery zones (A ‐ F) established1990*Southward migration of WCRL into Zones A & B; abalone recruitment failure1994Annual recreational harvest peaks at 750 tons1994Apartheid ends1994*The 'Abalone Wars' begin on Overberg coast1998Marine Living Resources Act adoptedFirst subsistence quota allocated, representing 10% of TAC1999Start of Operation Neptune2001Subsistence rights replaced with 'limited commercial' rights2003Environmental Court established in Hermanus‘Limited commercial' sector merged with commercial sectorLong‐term abalone commercial rights grantedCrisis managementMARINES established by Overberg MunicipalityNew Abalone Policy adoptedOverberg Municipality takes over compliance responsibility from MCMClosure of recreational fishery2004Abalone Protection Plan adoptedStart of Operation TridentTable Mountain National Park pr

Introduction A large sea snail that lives close to shore, grazing on algae, is being illegally harvested to the . coast as far as Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape (Figure 1), with greatest densities occurring in waters less than 10 metres deep. Taken together, these two biological characteristics—slow growth and late sexual maturity .