EAST COAST ROCK LOBSTER

Watch the East Coast rock lobster fishery film

Fishery profile

The East Coast rock lobster is an important natural resource for communities along the Transkei coast of the Eastern Cape. With few employment opportunities in the rural parts of the region, many households are food insecure and heavily dependent on the ocean for their lives and livelihoods. Fishers harvest numerous species for local consumption, including bream, rock cod and grunter, as well as limpets and mussels.

But the most important species by far is the East Coast rock lobster. Local fishers collect lobsters by hand during the day. Lobster catches are too valuable to be eaten by the fishers and are sold instead to processors. The majority of the lobster catches are exported to U.S. and Asian markets, while the rest are sold locally, to hotels and restaurants. The lobsters are a vital economic lifeline to the region.

The fishery is managed through a system of size and bag limits. Fishers are allowed to collect no more than eight lobsters per day each, and every lobster landed must be of a permissible size. Harvesting is prohibited during closed seasons, which have been established to protect the species during its reproductive season.

The fishery has only recently embarked on its journey towards sustainability, and faces several challenges. Data are limited, but the stock is thought to be fully fished across its entire distribution, and overfished in certain localised areas. Fishers without permits harvest lobster illegally and during closed seasons, undermining sustainable management. And most recently, the coronavirus pandemic and associated lockdowns have cut the fishers off from the rest of the value chain, reducing local incomes.

Nonetheless, there are encouraging signs that the Fish For Good project is starting to contribute to improved management of the fishery.

Fish for Good Improvement Actions

Some of the actions include:

• The fishery is undertaking to design and implement a system to collect information on catches and interactions with other species. This will be used to inform an assessment of the status of the stock and develop a fishery-specific management plan.
• Other information will be collected to better understand how the fishery impacts benthic habitats, and if required, a strategy will be developed to manage these impacts. 
• An anticipated future development is the creation of a more inclusive governance structure that provides an opportunity for all stakeholders to be heard.