The news has been full of horror tales of late, illegal Chinese fishing vessels plundering our shorelines and attracting international headlines.

What also tends to get people worked up is the Western Cape’s illegal crayfish poaching business, with Hout Bay’s Hangberg community often in the news.

Sure everyone loves to preach from their pedestals when it comes to matters like these, but it’s not often we get an inside look at what crayfish poachers really get up to in the dead of night.

EWN’s Aletta Harrison spent a day with the poachers, setting the story up as follows:

So on the afternoon I meet a group of crayfish poachers in Hout Bay to learn about their nightly activities, I am prepared for anything…

Poachers, as I was to learn, are not a different species. They are sometimes just regular fishermen who found themselves out of legal options to make a living, leaving them with little choice but to ply their only trade, come what may. They harbour a deep mistrust of the authorities, which stems from a long history of exclusion and exploitation; from watching big companies trawl tons of fish from the ocean, while getting persecuted for taking a fraction illegally; and it has contributed to a sense of rebellious entitlement.

It ain’t easy when your livelihood is outlawed by some bureaucrats in an office far away, but it looks like the wheels of change are finally in motion.

Check the video out for the full story.

[source:ewn]