Coastal communities on the frontline of the climate crisis — Hondeklip Bay, Northern Cape

Read Part 1 here

The small, coastal, Namaqualand village named after a dog-shaped rock is accessible only by gravel roads from Koiningass and Klipfontein. Springbok, the nearest commercial hub, is two hours away. There is no supermarket, high school, or petrol station. The tall floodlight meant to provide light at night hasn’t worked in years.

Hondeklip Bay has a natural harbour that was first used to ship copper ore in the mid-1800s, and later by the commercial fishing industry. Many people living in Hondeklip Bay have been fishers for generations. Some like Boy Adams, have family members that died when boats capsized in the 1950s.

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The closure of the mines and the collapse of the commercial industry in Hondeklip Bay has left residents with very few employment options. The small-scale fishing industry is one of them and the presence of the harbour makes Hondeklip Bay an unlikely meeting point for fishers across neighbouring provinces, despite the difficulties involved in accessing it.

30 March 2024: A fishing boat can be seen exiting Hondeklip Bay’s harbour at the “bek”, through an opening in the abandoned factory at Hondeklip Bay. (Photo: Barry Christianson)

Each year, around Easter time, at the start of the snoek season, shoals of travelling fishers, who “chase the snoek”, arrive in the small village and make it their home for as long as the “fish are biting”. Marketers they work with make the trek to Hondeklip Bay each day the catches are good, and return to the areas where they sell their fish on the same day.

Some residents make money by cleaning and gutting fish, carrying fish from the boats, cleaning the areas where fish are cleaned and gutted, as crew for boats that can accommodate them, and through renting the travelling crews’ accommodation. Some of the poorer residents wait around for unused parts of gutted fish to take home for cooking.

The reliance of the village on fishing makes many people, such as Boy Adams, anxious about the risks attached to marine oil and gas extraction offshore from Hondeklip Bay. Should extraction go ahead in the future the coastline may become vulnerable to oil spills which would have far-reaching environmental and social impacts. DM

This work was supported by the Pulitzer Center. Daily Maverick will publish a series of four photo essays this week. This is part two.

31 March 2024: Boy Adams was fortunate to get a spot as a crewman on Cracker Jack, a boat belonging to Christian Adams, a small-scale fisher from Steenberg’s Cove in St Helena Bay. Boy has fished for most of his life. His father worked as a skipper for Oceana and his mother worked in the crayfish factory. As is the case with many fishers, he wasn’t successful in his application to join Hondeklip Bay’s small-scale fishing cooperative. These days he only gets to fish when a boat has an open spot for crew. (Photo: Barry Christianson)

30 March 2024: Fishers push a boat into the surf. (Photo: Barry Christianson)

31 March 2024: For the last 10 years Patrick Rulph has worked at the Hondeklip Bay Small vessel Safety Monitoring Center. The centre was funded by the Kamiesberg Municipality but the funding has stopped and Rulph is without work at the moment. When the conditions are dangerous, or when there is dense fog, Rulph would give each of the boats location devices which he tracks using software. When the boats are set to return, he is able to guide them in safely. (Photo: Barry Christianson)

30 March 2024: The dark gravestone holds the names of fishers who died at sea in 1957. Among the dead are members of Boy Adams’ family. (Photo: Barry Christianson)

30 March 2024: On a day when lots of snoek were caught, the Hondeklip Bay beachfront came alive when it was transformed into an outdoor fish market. Young people waited around hoping to get the job of cleaning and gutting fish, others to clean the surfaces on which the fish was processed. Residents and holidaymakers gathered around to watch the spectacle. (Photo: Barry Christianson)

30 March 2024: Two fishers offload their catch at the beach while an official inspected their permit as part of Operation Phakisa. Weeks earlier large amounts of fish were confiscated from fishers at Hondeklip Bay with the help of the South African National Defence Force. Many of the fishers who had their catches confiscated did not have valid permits as the Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and Environment had been late in issuing the permits. Residents of the poor village were unsure of what happened to the confiscated fish. (Photo: Barry Christianson)

30 March 2024: Andreas Adams and his nephew Christian Adams are among the community of travelling fishers who were staying at Hondeklip Bay ‘chasing the snoek’. (Photo: Barry Christianson)

30 March 2024: On this day the catches were bigger than expected. Only a few fish marketers made the gruelling journey to Hondeklip Bay and some fishers such as those pictured were left struggling to sell their fish. In the end, someone from Hondeklip Bay agreed to buy the fish and these fishers ended up working into the night by the light of their van. (Photo: Barry Christianson)

29 March 2024: Boy Adams (left) chats with a group of visiting fishers after smoking a snoek in his yard. Boy has extended his home to include some basic accommodation for visiting fishers, making it a social hub during the season. (Photo: Barry Christianson)

31 March 2024: Children play on the beach as the fishers prepare to head to sea. (Photo: Barry Christianson)