South African Deep-Sea Trawling Industry Association

South African Deep-Sea Trawling Industry Association SADSTIA is an association of South African trawler owners and operators.

It is a recognised industrial body that interacts with government, non-governmental organisations and other interested parties for the benefit of the South African deep-sea trawling industry. SADSTIA and its affiliates represent all right-holders in the deep-sea trawling industry, accounting for 100% of the hake landed by this fishery. The Association is governed by its members and an executive co

mmittee is responsible for its management. The chairman and/or deputy chairman and an executive secretary take care of the day-to-day management of the association.

By July, the cold fronts come in off the South Atlantic one after another, and the sea off South Africa's coast turns he...
16/07/2026

By July, the cold fronts come in off the South Atlantic one after another, and the sea off South Africa's coast turns heavy and grey.

This is the hardest stretch of the year to work at sea. The swells build, the wind does not ease, and conditions can turn in the space of an hour. The 53 trawlers in the hake fleet still head out, because winter is also when much of the country's hake is landed.

The crews who work those decks do it in cold, demanding conditions, on long shifts, far from shore. They hold the same safety standards and the same careful catch reporting they keep in calmer months. The fishery does not get easier because the weather has turned against it.

Behind every box of Cape hake on a winter shelf is a crew that went out in that weather to bring it in.

➡️ Explore the 2025 Annual Review at https://f.mtr.cool/gamgbcsmyi

14/07/2026

Off the deck of the hake trawler Lucerne, the sea broke open, and humpback whales surfaced right beside the vessel, close enough to film.
First Mate Moegamat Emandien caught it on camera, and woke skipper Solly Thompson to witness it, too.

Winter is humpback season along this coastline. The whales pass the same grounds where the hake fleet works, out in the open ocean for most of the year, and right here for a few winter weeks.

There is a longer story behind a moment like this. A century ago, commercial whaling had pushed humpbacks close to vanishing from these waters. Their recovery since is one of the ocean's great quiet comebacks, and the whales surfacing beside the Lucerne are part of that return.

A healthy ocean has room for both. A well-managed fishery, and a whale passing through on its way north.

🎥 Footage: First Mate Moegamat Emandien aboard the Lucerne, shared with permission by skipper Solly Thompson.

Sign up for more stories from the fishery at https://f.mtr.cool/rdfkktgpbr

Reducing the impact of a fishery is not the work of any single organisation.In South Africa's hake trawl fishery, it has...
09/07/2026

Reducing the impact of a fishery is not the work of any single organisation.

In South Africa's hake trawl fishery, it has meant scientists, regulators, environmental groups and the industry itself working from the same evidence, year after year. The industry did not dispute that trawling affects the seabed and a range of marine species. It accepted that, then set about measuring the impact and bringing it down.

The results have been quiet and real. The incidental bycatch of seabirds in the trawl fishery has been almost eliminated. The handling of other bycatch has improved across the fleet. Used fishing nets are recycled instead of going to landfill, creating value for the coastal communities the fishery depends on.

None of it happened quickly. It came from shared data, careful science and a willingness to act before anyone demanded it.

This is what a different conversation about trawling looks like in practice.

➡️ Learn more at https://f.mtr.cool/ojmrsbpkzm

08/07/2026

Hake is landed and processed in Saldanha Bay, in a Sea Harvest factory that has long been part of how the town earns its living. Elsie Tshabo manages production there.

Ask her why the ocean matters, and her answer reaches past her own lifetime.

"The ocean is important for me because it is our inheritance. It is for our children, their children, their children, and for the future generations to see the beauty of the ocean."

Inheritance is a deliberate word. You do not inherit something in order to use it up. You receive it whole, and you are expected to pass it on the same way, or better.

That is the logic a sustainable fishery runs on. You take what you need now in a way that leaves the resource intact for the people who come after. For a town like Saldanha Bay, where the factory and the fishery rise and fall together, that is not abstract. It is the difference between a job that lasts one generation and a job that lasts three.

The view from the factory floor turns out to be a long one.

Get to know the people who keep it whole ➡️ https://f.mtr.cool/lvdvtsgvuv

25/06/2026

Long before there was anything alive on land, there was life in the ocean. It is where living things began.

Dr Johann Augustyn spent decades as a marine scientist before becoming Secretary of SADSTIA. Early in that career he co-authored a book called Oceans of Life. The title stayed with him.

"Since then, I've always thought of the ocean as a source of life, and the cradle of life."
It is an unusual way for someone in a commercial fishery to talk about the sea. Most of the language around fishing is about volume and value. His is about origins.

That view shapes how the fishery is run. It is why a lower catch is accepted when the science calls for one, why vulnerable seabed habitat is protected, and why decisions are built on research before anything else.

A scientist learns to think in the timescales the ocean works in. Not seasons. Not quarters. Generations.

The people who carry that thinking into practice ➡️ https://f.mtr.cool/ehqtystxca

From cadets to certified marine engineers ➡️ Three young South Africans who went from cadets to fully certified marine e...
16/06/2026

From cadets to certified marine engineers ➡️ Three young South Africans who went from cadets to fully certified marine engineers are Phiwe Jakuja. Siphelo Zwelibanzi. Xola Ndzima. If you missed this wonderful story, it's worth a few minutes of your time.

The South African hake trawl industry employs around 6 600 people directly. Many of those jobs are skilled, technical roles that take years to qualify for. Marine engineering. Skippering. Refrigeration and electronics. Fisheries observation. Factory management. The career paths exist, the training pathways exist, and a growing number of young South Africans are using them.

Fleet renewal of the kind happening across the industry right now creates the conditions for more of this. New vessels like the Santa Princesa, registered into the fleet in May, require the people who will operate them. Skippers. Engineers. Factory crews. Cadets are working their way through a structured training pipeline toward certification.

The story behind the industry is not only about boats and quotas. It is also about who has access to the careers that make those boats run.

Read more In the latest Annual Review: https://f.mtr.cool/skgcmblovd

12/06/2026

"To me, the ocean is our livelihood." - Innocent N. Dwayi, Chairman of SADSTIA

That is how one person whose life is bound up with the South African hake fishery describes the oceans off our coast. Not a resource counted in tonnes. A source of life.

For fishing communities from Cape Town to Saldanha, Gansbaai, Mossel Bay and Gqeberha, the ocean is bread on the table. It is work for people whose parents and grandparents also worked the sea. For many, it has always been the one thing that was there.

"Some of us, all we know is the fishing industry. All we know is there is food in the ocean. And that gives us hope."

There is a quieter truth underneath that. The ocean gives, and it can be taken away.

That is why sustainable management is not paperwork. Behind every stock assessment, every survey, every MSC audit, there are people choosing to protect a resource that holds their community's future. The science exists so the hope does not run out.

The people who do that work are rarely named. Here is a place where some of them are.
Meet the Ocean Heroes ➡️ https://f.mtr.cool/rrjqwlfpnd

11/06/2026

Robert Landman, Chair of SADSTIA's Scientific Committee, has spent his career turning data into better decisions for the hake fishery. His way of describing what is at stake is simpler than any spreadsheet.

"If we as humans would just care for what we have, look after that vital organ we have on this earth that is sustaining us. A duty of care. Educate that duty of care, and that would go a long way in protecting the oceans."

A duty of care is not a slogan. It is something you teach, one vessel and one crew at a time, until looking after the ocean is simply how the work is done.

Long before a fishery earns a certificate, someone has to decide the ocean is worth looking after, and then teach the next person who takes the wheel to believe the same thing.

Here are some of the people who have taken it on ➡️ https://f.mtr.cool/fxtrbioiqa

Santa Princesa, the newest vessel in the deep-sea trawling fleet, catches the allocations of three companies most people...
10/06/2026

Santa Princesa, the newest vessel in the deep-sea trawling fleet, catches the allocations of three companies most people in South Africa have never heard of.

Mayibuye Fishing. Ntshonalanga Fishing. Khoi Qwa Fishing Development Company. None of them owns a vessel of this size on their own. Instead, they pool resources, share a vessel and gain access to the kind of modern, refurbished, internationally specified equipment that would otherwise be out of reach.

This is one of the less-discussed parts of the deep-sea trawling industry, and it matters for two reasons.

The first is access. A 65 metre freezer trawler with a Wartsila main engine, an automated trawl system, Baader filleting equipment and a renovated onboard factory is a significant asset. Shared access to this kind of capability is what allows smaller and emerging companies to participate in the industry on something closer to equal terms with larger members.

The second is transformation. Black ownership across the South African deep-sea trawl fishery is estimated at around 86 percent. That number does not happen by accident. It is the result of a long, structural process that includes the allocation of rights, the structuring of joint catch arrangements, and the practical way in which fleets are shared and operated across companies of different sizes.

The Santa Princesa is one vessel. It quietly reflects how the industry as a whole is being built.

Read more here: https://f.mtr.cool/hhrpaanprg

08/06/2026

The deep-sea trawl fishery for hake works in waters hundreds of metres deep, in a part of the ocean almost no one will see. Yet, even after decades of research, much of what happens below the surface is still unknown.

Ina Botha, Vice Chairman of SADSTIA, puts it simply: "I think the ocean represents life to me, and it brings all of us happiness. We enjoy being around it, and I am fascinated with the mysteriousness of the ocean."

That sense of wonder helps explain why the fishery invests so heavily in understanding the environment in which it operates.

For more than twenty years, independent scientific observers have accompanied deep-sea trawlers to watch, measure and record everything the net brings up. Fishing crews now photograph and report every interaction with a shark, seal or seabird. None of this happens because anyone was compelled to do it. It happens because the fishery recognises there is still much to learn and believes that good stewardship begins with understanding.

The ocean does not give up its secrets easily. The people who work on it have learned to approach it with curiosity rather than certainty, and to protect the parts they may never fully understand.

See who keeps this work going ➡️ https://f.mtr.cool/nsxoyrvmpp

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