African penguins legal battle settled
The government, seabird conservation groups and the pelagic fishing industry have reached an agreement over fishing restrictions around six critical penguin breeding islands, reports GroundUp.
The African Penguin population – a species endemic to the SA and Namibian coastline – has crashed in recent decades and, without intervention, is predicted to become extinct in the wild by as early as 2035.
The ‘in principle’ settlement agreement, announced yesterday by Forestry, Fisheries & Environment Minister Dion George, appears to have staved off a major legal challenge by conservationists that was set down to be heard in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) over three days next week.
The agreement, which still needs to be made an order of the court, includes significant changes to the current closures of penguin feeding grounds that prohibit fishing vessels targeting the same species – sardines and anchovies – from fishing in the area.
The applicants in the court case – non-profit conservation organisations BirdLife SA and the SA National Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob) – had argued that the island closures currently in place were ‘biologically meaningless’ and did not adequately protect the penguins’ food source.
They went to court to have a new closure system implemented. BirdLife SA and Sanccob had not responded publicly to George’s statement at the time of publication.
George said in his statement that the ‘historic settlement agreement reached in principle…aligns perfectly with the department’s long-standing vision for collaborative conservation’.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
