LANDMARK LITIGATION LAUNCHED TO PROTECT
THE AFRICAN PENGUIN FROM EXTINCTION

SANCCOB, together with BirdLife South Africa (BLSA), have taken a bold and crucial step to legally challenge the decision taken by the office of the Minister of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), who has implemented no-take fishing zones for a period of 10 years around six key African penguin breeding colonies. These closures are aimed at reducing the competition between African penguins and the commercial small pelagic fisheries; however, the closures implemented are inadequate in size and we do not foresee them providing a meaningful benefit for the species.

Biodiversity Law Centre (BLC): “The BLC initiated landmark litigation in the Pretoria High Court in the interests of Africa’s only penguin species: the Endangered African Penguin (Spheniscus demersus). Instituted against the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, the applicants’ challenge seeks the review and setting aside of the Minister’s 4 August 2023 decision on the closures to fishing around key African Penguin breeding colonies, instead of biologically meaningful closures. 

The African Penguin faces extinction in the wild by 2035 if more is not done to curb the current rate of population decline. The crisis is driven primarily by their lack of access to prey, for which they must compete with the commercial purse-seine fishery which continues to catch sardine and anchovy in the waters surrounding the six largest African Penguin breeding colonies. Critically, these six colonies are home to an estimated 90% of South Africa’s African Penguins.” READ FULL MEDIA RELEASE HERE.

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SANCCOB is a registered non-profit organisation with the primary objective to reverse the decline of seabird populations through the rescue, rehabilitation and release of ill, injured, abandoned and oiled seabirds – especially endangered species like the African penguin.