Mr Qurban Rouhani is the Director of the Rural Fisheries Programme, a developmental unit within the Department of the Ichthyology and Fisheries Science of Rhodes University (South Africa). An interest of Mr Rouhani, is in the democratisation of inland fisheries. Inland fisheries in South Africa is still managed by unreformed environmental legislations, rooted in the country’s pre-democratic era, when there was a bias towards small scale fishers over recreational anglers. As such, currently, small scale fishers do not enjoy legislative comforts, and are at times criminalized.

Mr Rouhani has contributed to the development of the draft national inland fisheries policy, and works closely with government, civil society and small scale fisheries to ensure that the policy is aligned to national developmental objectives and the inalienable constitutional rights of both small scale and traditional fishers. Mr Rouhani is also active in the field of assisting small scale fishers to develop their sector, by assisting with technical support, resources development, developing value chains and with advocacy. A recent focus area, is how small scale fishes can participate in the fourth industrial revolution and bridge the digital divide, an issue that was highlighted again by Covid-19.