LANGEBAAN LAGOON, South Africa — Deon Warnick’s three chest freezers stood silently in his living room, lids open. Without any fish to keep frozen, he was using them as cupboard space instead. In his backyard stood a stack of empty fish crates, and his boat, in perfect working condition, rested on its trailer, which in turn rested on bricks. Warnick tugged on the outboard motor’s cable. The boat hadn’t touched the water in a year.

Seven ringnets, 50-centimeter (20-inch) metal hoops for catching lobster, lay on his porch. Warnick was about to service their nets for a friend before the season began. Since he can’t use his fishing boat, he takes any jobs that come his way. As a member of the small-scale fishing community on Langebaan Lagoon in southwestern South Africa, Warnick operated a modest business selling harders (southern mullet, Chelon richardsonii) to local customers for years. But in November 2023, a conservation-informed permitting restriction had ground his business to a halt.

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment (DFFE) says harder stocks have collapsed in the lagoon, and that fishing effort must decrease so they can recover. DFFE says it’s accomplishing this by reducing the number of boats Warnick and his colleagues in the Langebaan Small-scale Development Cooperative can register for fishing with gillnets, long nets that hang in the water catching fish that try to swim through.

While the fishers agree that their catches aren’t as good as they once were, they dispute that the harder stocks have collapsed. “The government trusts their scientists, but they don’t use us to take them to the places where we catch harders,” Warnick told Mongabay. “That would give them a clearer picture of the situation. Now they say that we are overfishing. They are wrong.” Instead, the fishers blame declining catches on industrial developments in the wider Saldanha Bay.

For the fishers, DFFE’s permitting restriction only serves to deny them the opportunity to make a living from their traditional fishing methods. It’s the latest in a series of cutbacks that began under apartheid and now threatens to further exclude this mixed-race community from the water body they’ve been living and fishing on for generations.

Owners of the lagoon

Langebaan Lagoon is situated in the southern reaches of Saldanha Bay, roughly 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Cape Town and in the heart of West Coast National Park. Its warm surface waters and stable salinity, adjacent to the highly productive waters of the Benguela Current, make it the only lagoon of its kind in Africa. It provides habitat for a number of fish, mollusk and crustacean species, as well as Palearctic wader birds that travel here each spring. It’s also an ideal breeding ground for bony fish, including harders and the threatened white stumpnose (Rhabdosargus globiceps).

Independent researcher-activist Jackie Sunde tracked the evolution of fishing in Langebaan Lagoon from colonial times in her 2014 monograph “Marine Protected Areas and small-scale fisheries in South Africa.” According to Sunde, when Dutch settlers first arrived in 1652, they began supplying their settlement around present-day Cape Town with fish, seabirds and eggs from Saldanha Bay, eventually displacing the Indigenous Cochoqua people who had long occupied the area. Following the emancipation of the slaves in 1834 in what had become the Cape Colony under British rule, landless mixed-race families settled along South Africa’s West Coast, “eking out an existence as net and handline fishers wherever they could get access to vacant land,” Sunde wrote in her monograph. Over the next century, key fishing families on the lagoon took control of the areas they fished. Many of Langebaan’s current gillnet fishers are descendants of those families.

By 1921, there were 74 mixed-race fishers on the lagoon who would later be classified as “coloured” under the apartheid government that formed in 1948. In correspondence with authorities, they referred to themselves as “we, the skippers and fishery owners of this portion of the Bay,” and the authorities gave them preferential access to the lagoon, acknowledging their long-practiced customs. This was evident in 1969 when the authorities drew a line across the lagoon to restrict the fishing grounds available to recreational fishers.

Warnick, 60, grew up near the lagoon’s eastern shore, on the premises of the Oyster Shell Factory in the town of Langebaan. Sitting at his kitchen table, drinking a cold beer while his new boerboel pup played on its mother that lay cooling down on the tiles, Warnick reminisced about his youth.

“Back then life was good. Everything was near us … on my way home from school I would walk along the shore and I would pick a boat, and [fishing gear] would be in it because that’s where the fishermen kept their boats. I would row for a few meters and catch enough fish to fill a bag. I’d arrive at home with one bag filled with my schoolbooks and another filled with fish,” he told Mongabay.

“I grew up in that whole lagoon. From the yacht club till way south, I know it like the back of my hand,” he said.

Change comes to the lagoon

Eventually the Oyster Shell Factory closed and the Langebaan Yacht Club rose in its place. Warnick’s family was forced to move farther north in line with apartheid’s spatial planning in the 1970s; many “coloured” fishing families were ultimately moved to the northern part of Langebaan town, whereas some white families managed to remain in the southern parts, and others remained in the area that would become West Coast National Park. It was a painful time for Warnick. Nearly 50 years later, he said he still feels a pang when he goes to the yacht club, where the fishers launch their boats.

Sunde wrote that fishing in the lagoon was largely unregulated until the 1970s. In 1973, the government proclaimed the lagoon a marine reserve, and between 1980 and 1990 it was formally divided into three zones that still exist today. Farthest south, Zone C was a no-take zone; in the middle, Zone B was reserved for traditional net fishers; northernmost Zone A was for line fishers, including recreational anglers. However, the most significant change came in 1985, when the national park was established. That “changed the entire system of the lagoon,” Warnick said. “That’s when we started needing permits for this and that … So you could work in a particular place and not another.”

In April 1994, apartheid ended after the country’s first democratic elections. The next decade brought major changes to the net-fishing sector.

In 1997, the Langebaan gillnet fishers had 24 commercial net-fishing rights. They work in pairs, so at least 48 people were able to fish regularly. In 2000, the department in charge of fisheries that later merged into DFFE approved a 40% reduction in effort for the gillnet fishery in order to reduce part-time fishers and help rebuild the harder stock, which it had determined was under pressure, according to the government’s annual fishery report for 2023.

In 2005, when the department began issuing long-term fishing rights that would persist for a number of years rather than the shorter-term rights it had been issuing, it used a similar rationale in allotting just 10 commercial gillnet fishing rights for the lagoon — a stark reduction. Three of them went to white fishers with addresses in the park, in areas called Churchhaven and Stofbergsfontein, two of whom were wealthy landowners. The remaining seven rights went to Langebaan community members, bringing the number of participating fishers down to around 14.

There’s been no follow-up on the impact of those huge cuts on the livelihoods and cultural rights of the Langebaan gillnet fishers, Sunde said.

In May 2007, as a result of a class action by artisanal fishers from across the country, including Langebaan, the country’s Equality Court ordered the fisheries department to develop a specific policy for small-scale fishing. Although the sector had long existed, including in the lagoon, it was ignored in fishing policy and rights allocations, which focused entirely on larger-scale commercial fishing. The government announced so-called interim relief (IR) measures to allow small-scale fishers to work while it developed the new policy.

However, according to Sunde, government scientists convinced the department to leave net fishers out of IR. “They were saying, harders is too threatened,” she said.

In 2009, the Langebaan small-scale net fishers returned to court to fight for inclusion into the net fishery. In 2010, the court ruled in their favor and the department granted three small-scale gillnet fishing rights (referred to as exemptions under the IR), to be administered by a community fishing cooperative. Since then, the Langebaan community has held 10 gillnet fish rights in total: three cooperatively held for small-scale fishing, and seven individually held for commercial fishing.

The IR period would last 13 years. During most of it, the Langebaan small-scale net fishers were able to use all 11 of the boats they owned for gillnet fishing, provided they would only operate three at a time. The arrangement allowed 22 fishers to work regularly without impacting the overall fishing effort.

These were productive years for Warnick. He said he built up a network of regular customers he’d deliver fish to, and with his earnings bought equipment: chest freezers, crates, packaging and a van to get his boat to the yacht club and back. The COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t easy, but South Africa deemed small-scale fishers essential workers and they were able to fish and sell their catches during the lockdowns. “I still made the effort to drive out to the people to sell harders. Sometimes I’d give it to people on credit because not everyone could afford to pay each time,” Warnick said. “Some of those people still call me wanting to buy fish today.”

‘Outdated data’

However, the IR period also brought challenges. From 2012 until 2016, only the fishers with addresses inside the park, who were all white, were allowed to fish in Zone B. Langebaan’s commercial and small-scale fishers were restricted to Zone A, along with the recreational fishers.

The Langebaan fishers went to court in 2013 to have the restriction removed. According to the judgment, DFFE’s reasons for restricting the Langebaan fishers from Zone B included “the need to manage the harder resources to ensure their recovery and their optimal sustainable utilisation, and to uphold the integrity of the MPA … and to protect the Palearctic waders and the seagrass and avoid the exploitation of juvenile white stumpnose by-catch.”

The evidence authorities submitted to the court revealed that DFFE decision-makers had used “outdated data” on harder stocks in determining how many rights and exemptions to issue for the lagoon between 2012 and 2015, Sunde said. Namely, a fish survey conducted between 1999 and 2001 and published in 2002 that concluded a reduction in the number of net fishers was needed to make the fishery more sustainable.

“[I]t is apparent that the limitations on the number of rights-holders for the Langebaan lagoon as set in 2001 by the Minister, were simply applied, as they were, from 2001 onwards, every year that the permits and exepmtions [sic] were extended without any attempt to obtain and to have regard for up-to-date information, and without any up-to-date re-assessment of the fish stocks and the biological and conservation considerations pertaining to any impact or target species, or the fishery bycatch,” the judgment stated.

The court evidence included a scientific analysis by Sue Jackson, a zoologist at the time with the University of Stellenbosch who had done extensive work on marine species. Jackson’s analysis found that the bycatch associated with harder fishing was lower than the department’s scientists had thought: less than 1% of their total catch, with their bycatch of white stumpnose being “insignificant relative to the 80 000kg per year caught by the recreational fishery.”

“The stated need to protect bycatch species is inconsistent with the complete failure to regulate or meaningfully limit the effort of recreational fishers,” Jackson wrote in her submission. She stressed the need for a fisheries management plan for the lagoon and recommended the redefinition of the zone boundaries, the protection of specific fish-spawning areas, and limits on recreational fishing.

In his judgment, Judge Mark Sher noted that another reputable marine scientist had also recommended restricting recreational fishing. He ruled that the decisions to exclude the Langebaan net fishers from Zone B “constitute unfair discrimination against the applicants on the grounds of race, and [are] thus unconstitutional,” and ordered that the restrictions against the fishers be set aside, allowing them to return. He urged the authorities to engage with the applicants with the aim of arriving at a “suitable accommodation” while taking into account “the applicants’ historical claim to traditional fishing rights, the imperatives of transformation and the need for ecological conservation whilst also allowing for sustainable utilisation and development of the resources concerned.”

Twelve years after that court ruling, Sunde said the relevant departments have yet to facilitate a thorough, inclusive process that seeks to implement this balancing act the court prescribed and to consider the historical and cultural histories of the Langebaan net-fishing families.

Small-scale fishing policy rollout

With the implementation of the small-scale fishing policy, the Langebaan net fishers expected to have greater access to marine resources. Instead, they found themselves worse off than during the IR period.

It began in 2022, less than two years before the small-scale fishing policy was implemented in Langebaan. DFFE told the small-scale net fishers they would no longer be allowed to register 11 boats for gillnet fishing under their three gillnet fishing rights, as they had done for years under IR. The Legal Resources Centre, the NGO that represented the fishers in the Zone B case, wrote a letter to DFFE asking that they be allowed to do so again. DFFE granted the request, and the fishers were able to resume using 11 boats until the last IR permit expired in November 2023.

In 2024, when they applied for their gillnet fishing permits under the new small-scale fishing policy, the issue resurfaced. “When we applied for the permits, [DFFE] said Langebaan was only going to get three boats out of the 11 boats, because we only have three rights,” Tommy Prezens, the co-op’s current chair, told Mongabay. DFFE told the co-op to nominate three boats for net fishing and that the remaining eight boats would be “sorted out at a later date,” Prezens said. But months have passed and nothing has been sorted out.

That was a big knock for the fishers who had already been grounded for months. “Only three boats can work during the day or night, but we’ve got 27 families to feed,” Mark Burling, the co-op’s secretary, told Mongabay. “Three boats in the co-op. It’s not beneficial for us.”

The small-scale fishers were told they must buy their own equipment when the IR period began, according to Prezens. “The guys took the little that they earned, saved some money and at the end of the day they have their own boats and their own equipment. A lot of money was invested,” Prezens said. “Now that same department said, ‘Sorry, I’m not gonna give you a license for your boat.’ So what happens with us now?”

For Warnick, the situation has become untenable. “I’m starting to think about selling my boat, if we don’t get our boat permits,” he said.

DFFE responds

DFFE maintains that the harder stock collapsed in Langebaan Lagoon and Saldanha Bay because of excess gillnet fishing under IR, and that to remedy it gillnet fishing must be reduced to the approved total allowable effort (TAE) — 13 boats for the lagoon, according to Peter Mbelengwa, the department’s chief director of communications.

“While the number of active fishers on the water in a given 24-hour period may appear similar to the Interim Relief period, the key difference is in the overall allocation structure. The approved TAE for gillnet fishing in Langebaan has been formalized, with only three vessels allocated to the cooperative. This structured approach ensures better control of effort and contributes to sustainable resource management,” Mbelengwa told Mongabay.

DFFE was aware of the economic impact of its decision on the fishers, he said, but had no plans to return the eight boats to the co-op’s permit. “The allocation of effort is determined based on scientific assessments, stock sustainability considerations, and the need to align small-scale fishing operations with broader fisheries management objectives,” he said. He added that DFFE based its current stock assessments on a scientific paper published in 2019 showing that, at that time, “the [harder] stock in Saldanha Bay and Langebaan Lagoon [was] currently overexploited. The risk of recruitment failure and subsequent stock collapse [was] significant.”

Bycatch is a problem as well, Mbelengwa said. “The white stumpnose stock in Langebaan is also now overexploited to the point of collapse. The protection offered to smooth-hound shark [genus Mustelus] by the [MPA] has also been severely compromised by the commercial gillnet fishery as well as by direct targeting by illegal gillnetters,” he said.

When asked whether DFFE had any plans to limit recreational fishing to help reduce pressure on the stocks, Mbelengwa said: “Any decision to adjust recreational fishing effort will be guided by ongoing assessments and stakeholder consultations to ensure the sustainability of the resource while balancing socio-economic considerations.”

Sunde likened the three-decade-long exclusion of the Langebaan net fishers to a case of fortress conservation, in which local people are squeezed out of nature and denied access to resources they’ve long used in order to preserve them for elites.

“Fortress conservation uses different tools to enforce [itself],” she said. “We tend to think of it always in spatial terms, and Langebaan is a good example with Zone B, but they’ve also effected fortress conservation through limiting the numbers, and the fact that they’ve never implemented the court case properly.”

The fight continues

On the warm and windless morning of Dec. 26, 2025, Quinton March, a Cochoqua chief who holds a commercial net-fishing right, slowly steered his boat away from the yacht club before speeding up and heading to a fishing spot. His son had gone out earlier that morning and caught a few hundred fish. March was anxious to catch some as well.

It was the Christmas holiday season and dozens of recreational boats, including yachts, catamarans and speedboats, were out on the lagoon. A few of his fishing grounds were occupied by recreational water users, which frustrated March. He and his boatmate dropped their net a few times, pulling up only a few fish. “I think we need to wait until after the high tide,” he said, with a specific spot in mind.

While March operates with a commercial license, he’s also affected by the decisions based on the stock assessments. He said the Langebaan fishers, both small-scale and commercial, are being unfairly blamed for the decline in the lagoon’s fish.

“We used to catch fish in an area in Saldanha Bay, then they put in a gas line. All of a sudden there was no fish. Did we do anything? We didn’t do anything. So why is there no fish? Then you’re sitting with the military base here, testing bombs. When they do their tests our windows shudder. So what’s happening with the fish?” March asked. “If you look at the recreational fishers, every year more and more of them come. But if you take our people, with a maximum of 10 permits on the lagoon. We can’t overfish our stocks ourselves.”

Later on, back on the bay once high tide had passed, March was again thwarted. A boy who seemed to be around 15 years old was piloting a boat carrying two younger children in the vicinity, and March couldn’t risk having his net torn. After moving to another area and making a few unsuccessful net throws, he decided to head home.

Back at the yacht club, near where Warnick’s childhood home once stood, holidaymakers jumped off the jetty and horsed around in the water. The moorings, empty for most of the year, were now occupied by recreational boats.

At his home in the northern part of Langebaan town, co-op secretary Burling and a few fellow fishers contemplated their situation. Letters from the Legal Resources Centre, which had yielded results quickly in the past, no longer seemed to work. Still, they haven’t given up hope.

“Our tradition will die out if we don’t fight for our right to practice our tradition,” Burling mused. “If we don’t fight for our net-fish rights, or for our rights in the lagoon, one of the days the park and Department of Forestry Fisheries and Environment will say ‘The tradition has died out, there aren’t any fishers left.’ What then? Is it going to be exclusively for tourism? What about our children?”

Banner image: Deon Warnick at his home in Seaview Park, Langebaan. Image by Barry Christianson for Mongabay.

For South Africa’s small fishers, co-ops prove a necessary, but bumpy, step up

Citation:

Horton, M., Parker, D., Winker, H., Lamberth, S., Hutchings, K., & Kerwath, S. (2019). Age, growth and per-recruit stock assessment of southern mullet Chelon richardsonii in Saldanha Bay and Langebaan Lagoon, South Africa. African Journal of Marine Science, 41(3), 313-324. doi:10.2989/1814232X.2019.1657950