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On the apparent eve of the opening of the legal abalone fishery, the South African government has dealt a blow to sustaining the resource for legal rights holders by instituting a measure that will make it even easier for poachers to get their harvested stocks out the country. It is most disconcerting to learn that the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, who is responsible for regulating export of threatened and endangered species, has motivated for the removal of the most commonly harvested species of abalone from Appendix III of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, more commonly known as CITES. The effect of this is that this species, Haliotis midae, can now be exported without a CITES permit from South African authorities. The intention of the permit system in the first place was to verify that the abalone came from a legal source.

The question to be asked is what is the real intention of government's decision to delist abalone, and what reasons did government provide in the letter to CITES requesting the delisting. I will today write to the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs requesting a copy of the letter sent to CITES.

It must be noted that government did not consult with stakeholders about its intention, and even the scientific community has been caught unaware. The decision is therefore administratively irregular.

The Haliotis midae species was listed on CITES appendix III in 2007, with the express intention of making it far more difficult to export abalone that had been harvested in the wild by poachers. Since that time there has been no decline in poaching. In fact, poaching of the scarce abalone resource continues relentlessly and brazenly, with officials of Marine and Coastal Management displaying little will and capacity to reduce poaching. Therefore there can be no argument that conditions have changed since 2007, and hence the species should not be delisted.

There were no doubt serious problems faced by government in authorising export permits, particularly relating to its capacity to do so. However, one would think, that as the legal abalone fishery has been closed since February 2008, that government would have used the time since then to get its systems up and running with full knowledge that the legal abalone fishery would ultimately be opened again. In this regard, the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has been saying since November 2009 that the fishery would be re-opened soon. Government should, for example, have been fine-tuning the export system over the last two years using farmed abalone for export.

Government must not throw the system of authorising permits for exports out simply because it is burdensome. It was always going to be burdensome, but the intentions for authorising exports are far more important than administrative difficulties. There are numerous policy measures that can be taken to reduce poaching, and providing CITES authorisations is one of them.

If government is serious about protecting the abalone resource, it should immediately revisit its decision. Otherwise the legal fishery, in light of continued and sustained rampant poaching, will not survive for very long. The legal rights holders, who have been waiting patiently for the re-opening of the legal fishery, have every reason to feel let down by government's decision on the CITES listing.