AND

The festive season should have been a time of joy and goodwill, but for various West Coast residents, like Christene "Poppie" Kok it has brought only sad memories and bleak prospects for the coming years.

This is because the 28-year-old single mother of two young children has failed to win a coveted 10-year right - or quota in the old terminology - to catch rock lobster in "Zone D", which includes the coast around St. Helena Bay and Hondeklipbaai where she has been fishing for the past 14 years.

To make matters worse, she and others like her at Elandsbay - "the real fishermen", she says bitterly - have noted several names on the provisional list of successful applicants to catch kreef whom they say don't fulfil the strict new criteria set by the government for winning long-term fishing quotas.  

In particular, they allege that four members of one Lambertsbay family have all been awarded the lucrative kreef rights - three of them as "new applicants" - while another family member has won a perlemoen right.

The hopes are now pinned on the Rights Verification Unit that assesses fishing rights awarded by the department of environmental affairs and tourism.  The unit is managed by independent chartered accounting company Deloitte.

Kok's sad memories are those of her fiancé and father of her two children, Mervin Layters, who drowned four years ago when the kreef boat he was crewing on capsized in heavy seas 2km off Doringbay.
 

Although Layters and three others who perished with him - one was his brother Llewellyn - were all wearing lifejackets, they succumbed to the harsh mid-winter conditions.

Kok, who was born in Ocean View and who left school after Standard Five (Grade Seven) to fish full-time with Layters, believes she scores highly on the department's ranking for the awarding of rights. Not only does she "get her hands wet" but she has also been a pioneer for women in the industry. 

Kok says there are many others in her situation in Elandsbay."The majority of us have been left out again; and again it's the people who have never been to sea who have got quotas."

At the start of this year, Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk announced the government's new fisheries policy to grant long-term rights in 19 sectors of the fishing industry, collectively worth an estimated R70-billion over the next eight to 15 years.

The days of "the teacher, the preacher and the undertaker" being awarded quotas are over, and real fishermen and women would be the major beneficiaries, he said.