MARINE MONITORING

In 2004, KEAG was approached by South African National Parks to set up the first ever Marine Monitor Project, and link it to our Working for the Coast team. Ten people have been trained to use handheld computers to collect data from coastal users. The team records fishing catches, notes all coastal activities and records all of this onto a database that is then forwarded to the Table Mountain National Park, Marine and Coastal Management and the University of Cape Town. The amount of information that could come out of this project is potentially enormous. The area covered is the southern Cape Peninsula from Chapmans Peak to Muizenberg. We have linked the two projects together, and four of our workers who had to leave the WftC project have now moved on to be data collectors. World Wildlife Fund-SA are looking at ways to procure funding for this project to be implemented on a national level.

The data collectors work seven days a week doing either coastal patrols or monitoring of slipways. Work times are completely randomised and all coastal users encountered are recorded onto the computers.

The objective of the project is to monitor the pressures being put on the Marine Protected Area by monitoring the environment and the human use thereof. The collectors monitor the following: Fishing activities conducted on and immediately adjacent to the coastline including commercial fisheries, recreational fisheries (boat and shore based linefishing, rock lobster, invertebrates and bait collecting). Popular recreational pursuits are also recorded.

The team is also used on occasion for specialised data collection such as the West Coast Rock Lobster Survey carried out early in 2005. Close to a 1000 rock lobsters were measured over this period.