{"id":7998,"date":"2019-09-25T06:47:20","date_gmt":"2019-09-25T06:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/?p=7998"},"modified":"2019-11-06T08:21:37","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T08:21:37","slug":"greenpeace-africa-documentary-shines-light-on-the-stolen-heritage-of-western-cape-fishing-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/press\/7998\/greenpeace-africa-documentary-shines-light-on-the-stolen-heritage-of-western-cape-fishing-communities\/","title":{"rendered":"Greenpeace Africa Documentary Shines Light on the Stolen Heritage of Western Cape Fishing Communities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cape Town, 24 September 2019. <\/b>This Heritage Day, Greenpeace Africa shared a teaser for an upcoming documentary it produced to amplify the voices of small-scale fishers in the Western Cape. The fisher folks are battling for fishing permits, while harmful industrial fishing companies continue to destroy and deplete the country\u2019s marine resources.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The online documentary, called <\/span>GUTTED<\/span><\/i>, focuses on the Kalk Bay fishing community. It explores how laws favouring the industrialisation of fishing in South Africa have not only changed the socioeconomic situation of these communities, but also, the once vibrant and community-centric culture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey say you mustn\u2019t lose your culture; but the way that things have gone, they\u2019ve taken Kalk Bay\u2019s culture away. They took away fishing,\u201d said Moegamat Alie Fortune, an 85-year-old, fourth-generation fishermen from Kalk Bay.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ferial Davids, who cleans fish at the Kalk Bay fish market, said that there has been a drastic decline in the number of fish local fishers are bringing in. She suspects that it is a result of trawling along the Western Cape coastline.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a lot of fish around now lately. I suppose it\u2019s because of the big trawlers that are around. There used to be hundreds and hundreds of snoeks here on the harbour; but nowadays, it\u2019s like ten snoek, 20 snoek, not even a hundred snoek for the day,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

GUTTED<\/span><\/i> explores the trickle-down effect of harmful industrial fishing, which has led to many of these coastal communities having to engage in illegal fishing activities because they do not have permits to fish legally. This had tainted perceptions of local fishers, swaying local support, and further marginalising them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou will find that over a period of 30 years, the community is involved in these illegal activities, and they are criminalised based on the law that does not allow them to access the [fish] in the area that they are living in,\u201d said Professor Moenieba Isaacs, Academic Coordinator at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape.<\/span><\/p>\n

The documentary, which will go live on Greenpeace Africa\u2019s YouTube channel at the end of the month, is the first of a series of short documentaries that the organisation has produced in the build up to its ship, the Arctic Sunrise, docking in Cape Town. The ship\u2019s arrival in South Africa is part of the organisation\u2019s international ocean sanctuaries campaign, urging the United Nations to protect a third of the world\u2019s oceans.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Supporters are encouraged to sign the <\/span>#ProtectTheOceans petition <\/span><\/a>for updates about the ship tour, and the documentary launch.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Video and Photo files for publication<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Contact for more information:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chris Vlavianos, <\/span>Communications Officer – Greenpeace Africa, <\/span>Chris.vlavianos@greenpeace.org<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>+2779 883 7036<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cape Town, 24 September 2019. This Heritage Day, Greenpeace Africa shared a teaser for an upcoming documentary it produced to amplify the voices of small-scale fishers in the Western Cape.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":7999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"not set","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"not set","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[28,36,65],"p4-page-type":[14],"class_list":["post-7998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-protecttheenvironment","tag-oceans","tag-fishing","tag-southafrica","p4-page-type-press"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7998"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8002,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7998\/revisions\/8002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7998"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=7998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}