Saving African penguins in South Africa involves multiple efforts, including legal action, conservation initiatives, and community engagement, all aimed at protecting their dwindling population and habitat. The main threats include overfishing, oil spills, and habitat destruction, which have led to a significant decline in penguin numbers.

Recently, the SA High Court ordered a 10-year no-fishing zones around six key penguin breeding colonies. The purpose is to reduce competition between penguins and commercial fisheries for their primary food sources, anchovies and sardines. This is a landmark victory for penguin conservation.

“In a last-minute bid to avoid litigation that could have lasted for years, BirdLife South Africa and SANCCOB, represented by the Biodiversity Law Centre, have reached an agreement with the South African Pelagic Fishing Industry Association and their members on closures around six key African Penguin colonies: Dassen Island, Robben Island, Stony Point, Dyer Island, St Croix Island and Bird Island. The aim of our focus on these particular colonies is to ensure regional representation towards maximising the benefits of closures for the global African Penguin population.”

Dr Alistair McInnes, the Seabird Conservation Programme Manager explained the work which has been going on behind the scenes to achieve this positive outcome.

“The settlement was hard fought for by our team of legal experts and scientists. Negotiations started in mid-February and continued for weeks during all hours and all days of the week. Given the fundamental challenge that both the fishers and the penguins want to focus their efforts where the small pelagic fish are most abundant, both the industry and the conservation bodies had to be willing to compromise. Importantly, the revised closures born of this effort will be enforced through a court order, which mandates that they be put in place immediately by the current Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment. A further benefit is that these will now remain in place for the next 10 years. This will enable our scientists to monitor the effects of the reduction in fishing around the colonies on penguin population numbers.”

Although the settlement is an important step forward on the journey to save this iconic species, there is still a long way to go. Much work needs to be done with government and other partners to ensure that all threats to the global penguin population are minimised.  It would seem that the key to this successful outcome is the constant collaboration and support of many researchers, academics, agencies, NGO’s, lawyers and journalists who give of their time and resources.  This really is a global effort.