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Have your say on the draft Strategy

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Notice

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Section ONE

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Section TWO

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Section THREE

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Articles of interest

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SUMMARY

South Africa, renowned internationally for its abundant wildlife provides market opportunities that could derive from the harvesting of game meat and related value-added products.

“The strategy and implementation plan are aimed at creating a formalised, thriving and transformed game meat industry in South Africa that contributes to food security and sustainable socio-economic growth,” said Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Barbara Creecy.

The aim is to attract investment in the game meat sector and to open local, regional and international market opportunities. This requires transformation of the industry to ensure future growth in this sector.

The game meat industry, currently mainly a by-product of hunting, is predominately an informal industry that operates in a fragmented manner. The industry is largely untransformed, and there is a very low participation rate of previously disadvantaged individuals. In addition, there are large areas of community-owned land that is suitable for plains game, and which provides opportunity for community-based enterprises to drive rural socio-economic development. There are also high barriers to entry, which would need to be addressed.

The aim of this strategy will thus be to create a formalised game meat industry to achieve the economies of scale necessary for commercial ventures based primarily on game meat production, harvesting, processing, distribution, and marketing. There is a need to ensure that the potential of game meat as a driver of rural socio-economic development founded on biodiversity-based land use, and which is leveraged to create wealth, jobs, and climate friendly and resilient meat-based food security. Game meat enterprises, complimenting other biodiversity economy activities, need to be commercially and socially viable, and ecologically sustainable, and the Strategy sets out to achieve this.

The strategy acknowledges the significant contribution that is being made by current wildlife businesses and the various associations that drive critical elements of the value chain. Key to taking the new Strategy forward will be to harness their experience and expertise. New private sector investments will be needed, and partnerships and collaborations will be essential, meaningful, and with buy-in from all stakeholders. The Department will continue to engage strongly with current and potential industry participants, including through the Wildlife Forum, in order to capitalise on the collective energy that went into developing the draft Game Meat Strategy, and to create the momentum for its successful implementation.

“The need to create new value, open up new opportunities, generate new growth, and deliver new efficiencies are all key to transformation, and will necessitate change along the entire Game Meat value chain,” said Minister Creecy.

Members of the public are invited to submit written comments on the Draft Game Meat Strategy 2022 by within 30 days of publication of the Gazette to the any of the following addresses:

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Cape Independence Advocacy Group

Dear Speaker,

I am writing to you on behalf of the Cape Independence Advocacy Group (CIAG) and the seventy thousand South Africans who actively follow our work.

We wish to comment on the ‘Electoral Commissions Amendment Act, 2021’, which is proposed by the Democratic Alliance (DA) and was published in the Government Gazette on 21 June 2021.

Given our mandate, our comments are made in the context of the Western Cape, although we appreciate and respect that the constitutional rights enacted through this bill will rightfully apply to all provinces.

This bill is essential to restoring some degree of functional democracy to the voters of the Western Cape and we therefore unreservedly and wholeheartedly endorse it.

Through their voting behaviour, Western Cape voters have made it abundantly clear that they do not endorse many of the policy and ideological positions of the South African national government, but are left utterly powerless to resist them because the voters in other South African provinces, who greatly outnumber them, hold starkly different ideological and political opinions.

In terms of seeing their democratic will enacted, for the majority of Western Cape voters, the democratic era has not offered much of an improvement over the apartheid era. It is a statistical fact that, since 1994, the majority of Western Cape voters have never been governed by the political party they voted for, and they have no foreseeable prospect of ever being governed by the party they vote for. As such, they cannot be said to have functional democracy.

One of the few glimmers of democratic hope Western Cape voters do have, is the provision of Clause 127(2)(f) of the national constitution, and 37(2)(f) of the Western Cape constitution, which allows them, at the discretion of the premier who they elected, to have their voices heard on matters which are important to them, without being drowned out by a national majority who fundamentally hold different views.

To deny Western Cape voters this constitutional right would be a very serious infringement of their political rights and freedoms, and would be a clear indication that parliament and the national government are not interested in the constitutional rights and democratic wishes of Western Cape voters.

We therefore call upon parliament to pass this bill at the earliest opportunity, and without objection.

Yours Faithfully

Phil Craig
(On behalf of the Cape Independence Advocacy Group)