At the Interface: Marine Compliance Inspectors at Work in the Western Cape

At the Interface: Marine compliance inspectors at work in the Western Cape Marieke Norton Supervised by: Associate Professor Lesley Green Associate Professor Astrid Jarre Thesis Presented for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY School of African and Gender Studies, Anthropology and Linguistics Faculty of Humanities UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN June 2014 The financial assistance of the National Research Foundation (NRF) towards this research is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at, are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NRF. Financial support was provided by the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation, through the Research Chair in Marine Ecology and Fisheries, and the National Research Foundation’s SeaChange Fund, via the School of African and Gender Studies, Anthropology and Linguistics. Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to heartfully and humbly thank the many inspectors who spent hours with me: the men and women stationed with the units of Kalk Bay, Hout Bay, Kommetjie, Foretrust, Gansbaai, Arniston, Stilbaai, St Helena Bay, Lamberts Bay and Doringbaai. My presence could not have made your job any easier. Many, many thanks for your patience and openness. Special thanks to S’Thembiso, Anel, Tracy and Pat, and all the others who went out of their way, so often. Lesley Green has been my supervisor for close to 8 years now, including my MA and this project. It has been an important journey for me, in so many ways. While I owe much of my thinking to her and her careful, scholarly mentoring, I also owe her thanks for always pushing me to find my own voice and ‘line of flight’ – and then patiently indicating where I might want to return to earth. Astrid Jarre’s expertise in fisheries management and marine ecology – and patience – was vital in my lay-woman’s navigation of the complex field of marine science. This project was made possible through her support and valuing of the contribution anthropology has to make as a partner to the sciences. Andrew ‘Mugsy’ Spiegel is due my eternal gratitude for admitting me into the Social Anthropology MA programme in 2005 at the last minute, without much to go on except my enthusiasm and insistence. He has always been a supportive, if eternally teasing, presence in my anthropology career. Baie dankie, Mugsy. Thank you to Team Fish – Tatti, Kelsey, Greg, Jen, Sven – whose collective work helped shape this project, and who have made several valuable contributions to the scholarship in this vital field. Thank you, my fellow Contested Ecologies seminar attendees and C.E. PhD’s (Chris, Artwell, Josh, Munya), for an informing journey, and for always being ready with insightful, thoughtful comments. Congratulations on your own journeys. Rosemary Ommer and Barbara Paterson are both owed thanks for the many conversations we’ve had, via Skype and in person, on the subject of this wicked problem of fisheries management. Many thanks to Phil Snijman, whose input on environmental law and jurisprudence was vital. Thank you also to Jan Glazewski for a read-through of material. The indomitable Colleen Petersen could run countries in her spare time: I owe her so many thanks for all the times she made my life easier, and for the chats that always left me smiling. Amber Abrams gave her ear, and more than one good idea, during our teas and forest rambles with the beasts. Crystal Wilson reminded me to take care of myself in the field, and brought me a hot-water bottle when my back gave out from sitting at the desk. To Hannes and Marie. I am so grateful, all the time, for all the million things you do, big and small. To Moija and Miezan, for the friendship (and related perks, like dog-sitting and procrastination emails). To Kola Bear, whose park needs resulted in some very productive think-walks. And all the gratitude that remains (which is plenty but never enough) goes to Bob, who has been much-tried but is always beloved. Like Rachel Carson and the many others who have followed in her footsteps, we are motivated by “a sense of wonder” at the miracle we call Earth and seek to protect it and all those who inhabit it as inclusively as possible. Burns Weston and David Bollier, Green Governance, 2013:261 If we had a more inclusive idea of what our home is, of what constitutes inside and outside, and accepted that our home does not end at the coastline, but only barely begins there, we wouldn’t be facing the possible collapse of our marine ecosystem. David Attenborough, Life: “Fish”, 2009. CONTENTS Abstract i List of figures ii Glossary of terms and abbreviations iv Introduction 1 . The crises, 2009 – 2014 5 Accounting for the current instability in the fisheries . Literature 17 . Thesis Structure by Chapters 26 How the argument proceeds 1: Fieldsites 30 Overview of Western Cape fisheries and the fieldsites of my research . Fieldwork 42 Methodology and the practicalities of being in the field 2: The Job Description 58 How has the job of a compliance inspector come to take the form it has, and what does this say about how the problem of non-compliance is formulated in current marine resource legislation? . Penalties and incentives 63 How compliance functions are formulated . Deciding to comply 66 How non-compliance is viewed . Defining the Commons 69 The idea that is being regulated . Slippage 74 Differences between the job on paper and the job as performed . Partial descriptions 79 That which is lost in the moments of slippage 3: Assembling the Fisheries 84 What role ideas about space and processes of spatialisation played in the formulation of marine resource law and governance during the transformation of the fishing industry post-1994? . Transformation 86 Political and legislative changes in the Western Cape fisheries . Small-scale Fisheries Policy 91 Attempting to introduce human rights into fisheries management . Resources 95 The commodification of the marine ecology . Territory 99 Contestations over the control of space . Making Nature 102 Determining what the fisheries look like 4: Terms of Engagement 107 What relationships are present, and possible, in an environment dominated by state sanctioned protocols of control, bureaucracy and violence? . Violence 109 The physical dangers of policing marine resources . Documents 117 How bureaucracy operates to objectify inspectors and resource users . In the margins 120 The space in which the inspectors operate . Inside and out 128 How the inspectors are positioned within and outside collectives 5: Body of Evidence 133 How is the body of an inspector thought of, and how are they expected to operate? . The rule of law 133 How legislation and jurisprudence articulates the inspectors’ bodies . Eyes and feet 137 The importance of physical integrity and skill to the job . Whole persons 145 Re-evaluating the skills and experience of inspectors 6: Judging Success 151 What are the possibilities for reconsidering the manner in which we judge the successes and failures of marine law enforcement? . The web of relations 152 The complexity of relationships in the Western Cape Fisheries . Measuring harm 161 Deciding what is success or failure . Well-being 167 Alternative values for assessment . Knowing that dogs bite 173 The importance of relationships to nurturing networks of care Conclusion 180 References 187 i Abstract The Western Cape fisheries are heavily contested. Primary concerns in the contestations are over access to marine resources, which have been regulated through the Marine Living Resources Act of 1998. At the centre of these conflicts, is the figure of the marine compliance inspector, whose task is to enforce the state’s version of nature onto the collective of resource users. This thesis, based on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork alongside inspectors of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries: Fisheries Branch in the Western Cape, explores the everyday human interactions on which the implementation of marine resource law depends. Exploring interactions between inspectors and resource users, the dissertation seeks to contribute to the task of reimagining fisheries governance. Drawing on ethnographic material deriving from participation in inspection duties; observations of fishing behaviour; conversations with inspectors, resource user and marine resource management officials; and analysis of texts such as relevant legislation and job descriptions, I argue that the issue of non-compliance in marine fisheries in the Western Cape can only be partially understood by the framework offered in extant South African compliance scholarship, which has focused largely on the motivations of resource extractors, or the formulation of law and policy. Given that compliance functions are part of the wider social spectrum of contestation and that the compliance inspectors are the interface between the government of South Africa and its fishing citizens, the study explores the real effects of state-citizen-nature contestations on environmental governance, and presents evidence in support of an argument that the design of the job of marine compliance inspector itself needs to be re-conceived. While compliance is a central feature of fisheries management, the performance of its personnel is taken for granted as the simple implementation of institutional policy, in a number of ways. Efforts to address conflicts will fall short of the goal of providing solutions if the assumptions about nature and humanity that current marine resource legislation embodies are not questioned, and this will exacerbate existing suffering in the ecology of relations between state, science, public and marine species. ii List of figures Figure 1: Map of Western Cape fieldsites. Figure 2: South Africa's Marine Protected Areas. Figure 3: Lambert’s Bay harbour, empty except for two fishing boats. West Coast, South Africa Figure 4: Small pelagic vessels docked at their companies’ commercial jetties.

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