On the long struggle for legal recognition of the small-scale fisheries (SSF) sector

SSF includes indigenous, traditional and artisanal fishers. They were subjected to extensive criminalization in South Africa and have fought a long struggle for legal recognition. They were recognized for the first time only in 2007, when the Equality Court ordered the then minister of fisheries to develop a policy to ensure they get acknowledged in the Marine Living Resources Act of 1998.

After a participatory process, we celebrated the gazetting of the Policy for Small-Scale Fisheries in 2012, amended to a statute in 2014. However, since then, progress to implement our visionary human rights-based policy, drafted in accordance with the SSF Guidelines, has been painfully slow.