Azra Hoosen | ah@radioislam.co.za
25 August 2024 | 15:30 CAT
2 min read

Settlement talks are underway in a crucial lawsuit aimed at protecting the endangered African Penguin from extinction. Conservation groups BirdLife South Africa and SANCCOB, represented by the Biodiversity Law Centre (BLC), sued South Africa’s Environment Ministry over insufficient fishing restrictions around key penguin breeding areas.

With African Penguins facing extinction by 2035 due to competition for prey with commercial fisheries, newly appointed Environment Minister Dion George has directed his legal team to pursue an out-of-court settlement. However, despite public optimism, no concrete proposal has been put forward yet, and the legal battle continues.

Nina Braude, a senior attorney at the Biodiversity Law Centre, told Radio Islam that litigation is ongoing, and they are currently awaiting affidavits from the respondent, as well as a favorable settlement proposal for their clients to consider. The industry is also awaiting the same outcome.

Former Minister Barbara Creecy chose not to follow the scientific panel’s recommendation, leading to a legal case being brought against the Minister’s Office. This decision is now set to be corrected by Minister Dion George.

“The main dispute is that when the former minister handed down a decision last year August, she agreed with the recommendations from an international panel of experts  that island closures and closures of these fishing grounds, around 6 of the 7 breeding colonies should be implemented, but what she failed to include in her decision was the trade-off mechanism as it’s called, and what that allows for is precisely insuring that closures both benefit penguins and do not negatively impact on the fishing communities,” she said.

Braud emphasised that this is a spatial issue.

“The really critical thing is that the particular fishing community’s we are dealing with are tied to purse-seine fishery and anchovy fisheries,” she said.

The DA statement, issued by MP and DA spokesperson on Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment, Andrew de Blocq, welcomed Minister Dion George’s decision to pursue an out-of-court settlement regarding the closure of areas surrounding African Penguin colonies to fishing.

Braude highlighted that Boulders Beach is actually not one of the colonies affected by the fishing closures. Instead, the issue extends up to Saldanha and along the south coast, impacting other key penguin breeding areas.

“An ideal situation will be that the trade-off mechanism is implemented,” she said.

According to DA spokesperson, de Blocq, the minister has not explicitly stated that he will implement the closures. However, de Blocq believes that something very close to it is implied in the intention to settle and can be confidently assumed.

LISTEN to the full interview with Ml Junaid Kharsany and Nina Braude, a senior attorney at the Biodiversity Law Centre, here.