Ngami fisherman face eviction… and starvation
Scores of fishermen camped along the shore of Lake Ngami blame the lake’s Conservation Trust for their booming but illegal fishing trade.
The men maintain they have no choice but to break the law, citing the Trust’s continued failure to issue fishing licences as the cause of their criminal activity.
Breaking down the situation into simple terms for The Voice, one of the fishermen, Sekakela Sekakela, explained for many the option is simple: fish of starve.
“The Trust has long promised to issue us licences, but to date they have not issued a single one. We could not just sit back and watch people from other areas harvest fish from right under our noses while we wait for licences. So we followed them into the lake and did the same because we also have to benefit from resources in our land,” explained the Maun native.
Supplied photo
A fishing trip near Fort Frances has ended up costing a Minnesota man $5,000.
Cody Christensen of International Falls plead guilty in a recent court case to fishing without a licence and failing to comply with a court order.
Ministry of Natural Resources Conservation Officer caught Christensen fishing at Black Sturgeon Bay on Rainy Lake in September 2019 even though he was under an order not to do so.
He had been banned from fishing in Ontario for two years in 2018 for not having a licence.
Because of the latest infraction, the court added an extra year to the previous sentence along with the fine.