South African Deep-Sea Trawling Industry Association

South African Deep-Sea Trawling Industry Association SADSTIA is an association of South African trawler owners and operators.

It is a recognised industrial body that interacts with government, non-governmental organisations and other interested parties for the benefit of the South African deep-sea trawling industry. SADSTIA and its affiliates represent all right-holders in the deep-sea trawling industry, accounting for 100% of the hake landed by this fishery. The Association is governed by its members and an executive committee is responsible for its management. The chairman and/or deputy chairman and an executive secretary take care of the day-to-day management of the association.

01/10/2026

Think of the hake stock as a bank account. The fish spawning each year are the interest. The breeding population is the capital.

The catch limit exists so the industry only ever takes the interest. What else do you know that works on the interest and never the capital?

More on the MSC certification of South Africa's trawl fishery for hake: https://youtu.be/QPx4nwxzedg?si=_3oCMYqvmFpLq0rc

A trawl net at the end of a long shift looks much the same as it did twenty years ago. The work around it does not.Since...
30/09/2026

A trawl net at the end of a long shift looks much the same as it did twenty years ago. The work around it does not.

Since the last certification cycle, crews have changed how they handle the large animals that occasionally come up in the net. A seal or a shark now has a better chance of going back into the water alive, because there is a protocol for it.

Skippers and crews have also taken on more of the recording. The people pulling the net are now the people logging what was in it. New technology is being trialled to make that information better. And nets at the end of their working life are recycled rather than discarded, which keeps them off the seabed and out of the ghost fishing statistics.

None of this was required for a certificate to be reissued. It is the work that happens between assessments.

➡️ More on how the fishery operates: https://sadstia.co.za/

Globally, the number of fish stocks under pressure from overfishing is rising. The 2026 State of World Fisheries report ...
29/09/2026

Globally, the number of fish stocks under pressure from overfishing is rising. The 2026 State of World Fisheries report sets that out plainly.

Stocks in MSC certified fisheries are going the other way.

South Africa's hake trawl fishery sits in that second group and has done since 2004, when it became the first hake fishery anywhere in the world to be certified. This year it was re-certified for a fifth time.

That did not happen by standing still. It happened through a catch limit reset every year on scientific advice, an audit every year, and a full re-assessment every five.

The trend runs one way. This fishery has spent twenty-two years running the other way, one decision at a time.

➡️ Read more: https://doi.org/10.4060/cd8357en

Different countries have made very different choices about how long to allocate fishing rights for.Some issue rights in ...
28/09/2026

Different countries have made very different choices about how long to allocate fishing rights for.

Some issue rights in perpetuity. Others limit them to ten years with strong legal commitments to renewal. Some sit between the two with indefinite concessions or annual privileges that carry high confidence in renewal.

The recent international review by Prof. Kevern Cochrane sets the choices side by side. The carousel below summarises a few of the patterns that emerge.

The review finds that across these examples, rights of sufficient duration are associated with higher investment, better product quality, improved job stability, and stronger stewardship of the resource. Where systems lack adequate duration or security, the patterns tend to reverse.

➡️ Read the full Cochrane review via https://f.mtr.cool/0gua6ulqx2

A Review of International Experiences in the Security of Tenure in Fishing Rights, prepared by Prof. Kevern Cochrane . T...
23/09/2026

A Review of International Experiences in the Security of Tenure in Fishing Rights, prepared by Prof. Kevern Cochrane . The report was commissioned by SADSTIA to inform the conversation around possible revisions to South Africa's Marine Living Resources Act, which was passed in 1998 and is being considered for update.

Prof. Cochrane is one of the world's most respected fisheries management experts. He served for many years at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome and is co-author, with Serge Garcia, of A Fishery Manager's Guidebook, a globally recognised reference text. He started his fisheries career in South Africa.

Prof. Cochrane's review examines how a wide range of countries structure fishing rights, drawing on the experience of Australia, Canada, Iceland, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Peru and the United States. Some of these systems issue rights in perpetuity. Others issue them for a fixed period with strong legal commitments to renewal. The duration of rights varies considerably, as does the regulatory environment around them.

His report does not argue that any single approach is correct. It identifies the principles that emerge from international experience and considers their relevance to the South African context, particularly for capital-intensive fisheries such as the deep-sea trawl fishery for hake.

The findings will be unpacked across several posts this month. The full report is available here: https://f.mtr.cool/a2ec1qr4us

A summary of what Dr Kevern Cochrane's international review actually found.Duration drives investment. Fishing rights of...
21/09/2026

A summary of what Dr Kevern Cochrane's international review actually found.

Duration drives investment. Fishing rights of sufficient duration are essential for giving right holders the confidence to invest in vessels, processing facilities, staff and the long-term sustainability of the fishery. This pattern holds across very different countries, fisheries, regulatory environments and political systems.

Duration is not a substitute for good management. The review is clear on this. Secure tenure has to operate alongside strong science-based stock assessments, effective regulation and transparent governance. Where any of those are missing, no amount of rights security will produce a well-managed fishery.

Governments may legitimately want flexibility. The review acknowledges that governments may want to retain flexibility to pursue social, political or economic objectives through fisheries allocation. In such cases, any planned transitions and the criteria for renewal should be clearly articulated and transparently applied, so that right holders and the financial institutions that lend to them can plan accordingly.

Duration matters most in capital-intensive fisheries. In mature, well-regulated fisheries where substantial investment in vessels and processing is required for participation, the duration and security of rights can play an important role in supporting investment, employment, product quality, SMME development and stewardship of the resource.

That is the international evidence. The review presents it without advocating a single position.

Download the full report at https://f.mtr.cool/i3yb1v1vv5

A note on who wrote the report we have been sharing this month.Dr Kevern Cochrane is a fisheries scientist with a career...
17/09/2026

A note on who wrote the report we have been sharing this month.

Dr Kevern Cochrane is a fisheries scientist with a career that started in South Africa. He served for many years at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, working on fisheries management policy at a global level. He is co-author, with Dr Serge Garcia, of A Fishery Manager's Guidebook, a globally recognised reference work used by fisheries managers, scientists and policymakers around the world.

Dr Cochrane is known for being independent and nuanced. He does not argue simplistically. His review on fisheries tenure, commissioned by SADSTIA, draws on the actual experience of countries that have tried different approaches. It builds its case from international evidence, not from policy preference.

The choice of an independent expert to write this kind of review matters. South African fisheries policy will continue to be debated. The most useful thing any industry association can do in that debate is to bring credible, evidence-based research into the room and let the evidence speak.

This week's LinkedIn article unpacks the full study in more depth, with the international comparisons, the principles and the nuance about the trade-offs all laid out properly.

➡️ Find the full report at https://f.mtr.cool/o4b4nwqv58

We know that when it comes to biodiversity, management is everything 🌊The research behind our March mailer suggests that...
16/09/2026

We know that when it comes to biodiversity, management is everything 🌊

The research behind our March mailer suggests that improved fisheries management could increase sustainable catches by an estimated 16 million tons per year.

By those calculations, that could help protect over 1 million km² of rainforest that might otherwise be cleared for agriculture.

The point is not “no fishing restrictions” whatsoever, but getting the balance right: protect ocean ecosystems and avoid shifting pressure onto land.

Learn more at https://sadstia.co.za/fishing-and-biodiversity-understanding-the-bigger-picture/

Next time you are standing at the freezer, turn the pack of hake over and look for a small blue ecolabel.It takes up alm...
15/09/2026

Next time you are standing at the freezer, turn the pack of hake over and look for a small blue ecolabel.

It takes up almost no space and it carries a lot of information. It means an independent body assessed the fishery that fish came from. Whether there is enough hake in the water. What else the fishing affects. Whether the whole operation is run by people who adjust when the science changes.

It also means the assessment gets repeated. There is an audit every year. Every five years the full re-assessment starts again from the beginning, and South Africa's hake trawl fishery has now been through that five times, the first in 2004.

One small label, and twenty-two years of checking behind it.

➡️ What the label means: https://sadstia.co.za/the-msc-certification/

A vessel comes alongside in Saldanha before the town is properly awake.By the time the first crates are moving, a chain ...
09/09/2026

A vessel comes alongside in Saldanha before the town is properly awake.

By the time the first crates are moving, a chain of other things has already started. A processing shift clocks in. A truck booked last week gets loaded. A supplier who sells nothing but gloves and boots has a reason to invoice someone. Somewhere in the town a household plans its week around a boat that came in on time.

None of that is visible from a supermarket freezer.

The fifth MSC re-certification is usually read as an environmental result, and it is. It is also the reason that chain keeps moving. Certification keeps the ecolabel on the box, and the ecolabel is what keeps international buyers ordering. That access sustains an estimated 12 400 direct and indirect jobs and contributes around R8.5 billion to the South African economy every year.

Repeat that morning in Cape Town, Gansbaai, Mossel Bay and Gqeberha. Then repeat it for twenty-two years.

Sustainability is often described as a cost an industry carries. In these towns it reads the other way around.

➡️ More in the 2025 Annual Review: https://sadstia.co.za/publications-and-media/annual-reviews/

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