The large-scale removal of natural resources from South Africa’s seas for sale on global markets may be profitable, but often comes at the expense of small-scale fishers. Members of affected coastal communities gathered in Cape Town on Monday to discuss the challenges and threats they face from extractivism.
There is a huge disparity between the wealth of oil and gas companies and that of small-scale fishing communities. These extraction companies, with their massive income-generating capacity, are often prioritised when it comes to government decision-making. Small-scale fishers, meanwhile, are continually pushed aside for the sake of development.
The state creates frameworks for development that promote extractivism – the removal of large amounts of natural resources for sale on world markets – at the cost of local fishers, according to Prof Moenieba Isaacs, academic coordinator for the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies.
“Small-scale fishers … are marginalised, they are overlooked; their positionality within the ocean is becoming smaller and their space, their access to livelihoods, is being threatened on a daily basis,” she said.
Isaacs was speaking at a gathering of small-scale fishers from coastal areas across the country on 9 May. The “Fishers Speak Out” meeting in Salt River, Cape Town, was intended to highlight the challenges and threats facing coastal and fishing communities due to extractive practices and industries.
Members of mining-affected communities were also present, with attendees drawing parallels between the injustices caused by extraction companies both on land and in the ocean.
The gathering coincided with the 2022 Mining Indaba, running from 9 to 12 May. The Mining Indaba, focused as it is on just transitions and sustainable mining solutions, did not provide space for discussions around the broader extractivism sector, according to Maxine Bezuidenhout, programme officer for the Right to Say No movement, as well as the Southern African Campaign to Dismantle Corporate Power.