Meet the scientists, inspectors and regulators tasked with protecting South Africa's fisheries - often with outdated tools, shrinking budgets and little public sympathy.

For most South Africans, fishing policy feels distant: something that happens offshore, managed by people we never meet, argued about in courtrooms and harbours far from daily life.

But the health of South Africa's fisheries is a strategic national asset underpinning food security, coastal livelihoods and an entire web of industries - from processors and exporters, to dock workers and scientists.

In this series, fishers across the industry have spoken candidly about what they see as failures in the system: shrinking quotas, missed surveys, weak enforcement and a growing sense that the burden of conservation is being carried by communities rather than the state.

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In response, senior officials within the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment opened their doors, offering a rare, detailed look at how the system actually functions - and how it continues to operate under sustained institutional and resource pressure.

What emerges is not a story of denial or defensiveness, but of a department trying to hold together a complex, high-stakes system with finite capacity and resources, escalating compliance risks and increasing stakeholder expectations.

A system under pressure

Cheslyn Liebenberg, chief director for monitoring, control and surveillance, is blunt about the reality facing enforcement. "We've lost...