Abalone poachers: A nation at sea
An inflexible characterisation of abalone poachers as the enemy makes it easy to overlook the social and economic marginalisation that drives people to break the law
22 October 2020 - 05:00
I was sitting in my garden on Saturday evening, ruminating about what to write for my FM column this week. Suddenly, my neighbour shouted: "Bugger off! Get away, you thieves!" Actually, he qualified "thieves" with a nasty adjective, but I’ll leave that to your imagination.
Naturally, as a model 21st-century citizen, I immediately turned on my cellphone video before wandering over to offer help. It turned out he wasn’t being mugged, but was standing on his balcony yelling at perlemoen poachers diving off an inflatable boat a few hundred metres offshore...
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