KosiBay fishtraps: From dying out to too successful?

By Scotty Kyle, Regional Resource Use Ecologist, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife

 

In the early 1980’s Kosi Bay was a rural backwater of Apartheid South Africa with almost no employment opportunities. The migrant labour system milked the area of its youth and infrastructure was rudimentary. The result was that the traditional fishtraps, which were an important part of Zulu culture, were dwindling in numbers and trapping was a dying art.

The area was recognized as having outstanding biodiversity and scenery and steps were taken, at the highest level, to enhance its conservation status. Kosi Bay was proclaimed a Nature Reserve, Ramsar wetland of international importance and included in South Africa’s first World Heritage Site. During this process, efforts were made to investigate fish trapping and establish its impacts. Research results suggested that catches were sustainable and not in direct conflict with recreational and other fishers. Traps caught a fairly small proportion of the fish migrating to the ocean to spawn and recreational anglers in the lakes and had an opportunity to catch fish before their migrations.

 

As a result of the findings trapping was recognized as a legitimate fishing method and, while improved management reduced illegal and unsustainable fishing methods, it reversed the decline in trap numbers. The collapse of the migrant labour system, after the end of Apartheid, resulted in large numbers of unemployed young men returning to Kosi Bay. There were still few employment opportunities but one opportunity was to build fishtraps and sell the catch. The result was a marked and sustained increase in the number of traps, with more than a doubling in numbers between 1994 and 2000. Another result was to convert a generally subsistence fishery into a mostly commercial operation.