South Africa: African Penguin lawsuit — Settlement talks ‘to prevent extinction’ under way

In March 2024, BirdLife South Africa (BLSA) and the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob), represented by the Biodiversity Law Centre (BLC), sought to review and set aside previous minister Barbara Creecy’s decision to implement biologically meaningless closures to fishing around key African penguin breeding colonies.

According to the applicants these closures failed to reduce competition with commercial purse-seine fishing, enabling them to…