INVALUABLE data collected during 20 years of research into the lucrative perlemoen poaching industry has turned Rhodes University and its head of ichthyology, Dr Peter Britz, into global experts.

Worth an estimated R100 million a year, hard evidence that the illegal harvesting of perlemoen in South Africa is connected to Chinese Triads (gangs) and the drug trade has helped international experts get a better understanding of the problem globally.

Recently elected chair of the prestigious International Abalone Society, Dr Britz said yesterday that groundbreaking research by Rhodes University into the illegal industry had made it a world leader in combating the problem.

“The work by Rhodes University into illegal perlemoen fishing is very unique in the global context because it is normally very difficult to compile accurate information.

“The problem is much bigger than anyone ever thought.”

The bulk of the harvest is illegal.

According to Britz, years of Rhodes research showed between 2000 to 3000 tons of abalone (perlemoen) was illegally shipped out of South Africa every year to Hong Kong – via neighbouring countries such as Lesotho and Swaziland.

The shipments would, however, arrive in the Far East as legal imports – even though only 600 tons annually was allowed by law to be harvested and exported from South Africa.

South Africa had also experienced the “worst” perlemoen poaching problem in the world and had become very skilled at laundering money through drug syndicates and other front businesses.

An estimated 1000 to 2000 tons of illegal abalone was illegally harvested every year in the Eastern Cape.

Britz said the fact he had been elected at the seventh annual IAS symposium in Thailand to chair the group for the next three years was proof how highly South Africa was regarded in international abalone circles.

“Rhodes University is a world leader in nutrition and aquaculture of abalone and has helped develop some of the most advanced and modernised farming techniques. They also have the best research on perlemoen poaching.”

Since the harvesting of abalone in the wild was banned 18 months ago, South Africa has become a world leader in land- based commercial farming of the resource.

Britz said a benefit was that they were now at the stage where they could re-introduce abalone back into areas that had been virtually wiped out by poachers.

- By DAVID MACGREGOR, Port Alfred Bureau