(Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Forestry, Fisheries and Environment Minister Barbara Creecy must urgently make a decision on limiting fishing around South Africa’s six remaining large African penguin colonies to help protect the food resources of the dwindling, endangered seabirds.
“It needs to be closed very urgently and we have said that to the minister. She has promised to do that for the past two years and she still hasn’t done it,” said Lorien Pichegru, an adjunct professor in marine biology at Nelson Mandela University.
Once South Africa’s most abundant seabird, there were more than a million pairs of penguins in the 1920s. By 2004, there were about 50 000 pairs but these numbers have now plummeted to a record low of just 10 400 pairs in 2021.
Pichegru is part of a consortium that includes BirdLife South Africa, WWF-SA, the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds, the Endangered Wildlife Trust and scientists from the University of Cape Town. They are seeking a decision from Creecy on their recommendation to restrict purse-seine fishing, which targets sardines and anchovies, within a minimum 20km radius of Dassen Island, Robben Island, Stony Point and Dyer Island in the Western Cape and St Croix and Bird Island in the Eastern Cape.
New conservation plan
In 2008, to understand how fisheries may be affecting the iconic seabirds, the then-department of environmental affairs started a groundbreaking island closure experiment alternatively opening and closing Dassen Island, Robben Island, St Croix Island and Bird Island to the small pelagic fishing sector for a radius of 20km.
Research led by ecologist Richard Sherley showed how these small no-fishing zones improved the survival of chicks at Dassen and Robben islands, but there were mixed results for the chicks’ health and development.
According to the newly released draft Biodiversity Management Plan for the African penguin, the main reason for the recent population decline has been attributed to food shortages caused by shifts in the distributions of prey species and competition with commercial purse-seine fisheries for food.
“The shift in distribution has created a mismatch in African penguin breeding colonies and their prey, resulting in a localised shortage of food, particularly for breeding adults and their chicks, as well as for non-breeders recovering from their moult fast in the western breeding colonies.
“In addition to this distribution change, the status of the sardine stock is currently considered depleted along the West Coast, further reducing access to sufficient food for African penguins. The abundance of forage fish species is known to influence the breeding success, adult survival and juvenile survival of African penguins,” reads the report.
It details how analyses of results from the island closure experiment and interpretations have differed, but “indicate biologically meaningful effects” of fishing closures around breeding colonies, including chick survival and fledging success that affect the demography of the species. The report states that there is substantial scientific evidence to support the closures of important penguin foraging areas to fishing.
Critical state
The report acknowledged that fishing closures around penguin colonies alone will not prevent this species from going extinct and will have an economic impact on the purse-seine industry, however, the “critical state of this species requires all contributing conservation measures to be implemented urgently”.
It detailed how Creecy initiated a joint governance forum in February last year, which prepared a synthesis report. An extended task team within the governance forum was formed, which included representatives from the conservation and small pelagic fishing industry sectors. Following its recommendations, the consultative advisory forum for marine living resources was “engaged to consider and advise on the recommendations”.
Negotiated agreement
Fisheries department spokesperson Albi Modise said: “The consultative forum gave the minister a report which advocated island closures. Following receipt of the report, the minister consulted with both the conservation and fisheries sectors. Both expressed concerns. Subsequent to that, Minister Creecy requested the conservation sector and the small pelagic fisheries sectors to meet and discuss if they can reach agreement on island closures. Several meetings have taken place.”
Creecy, Modise said, has been advised that progress is being made on reaching consensus. “The minister is of the opinion that a negotiated agreement between the two interest groups is the best way to ensure a positive outcome for both penguins and fisheries.”
Peer-reviewed papers from both the penguin and fisheries research were studied to ensure that the socio-economic as well the ecological implications are understood.
“Furthermore, consultations are being held with the affected parties – and to ensure that agreement on these closures are acceptable to both portfolios of the minister.”
Modise added that the results from the island closure experiment have been controversial though, with different opinions on how to interpret them.
“The minister, based on the work over the last year and a half, has also assembled an expert team to develop agreed recommendations on the limiting of small pelagic fishing activities adjacent to penguin colonies. This is an ongoing discussion that is aimed at finding the best solution accounting for food availability for seabirds while managing the cost to the industry.”
‘Island closures not justified’
Mike Copeland, the chairperson of the South African Pelagic Industry Fishing Association (Sapfia), said analysis carried out using methods recommended by an expert international panel of scientists has indicated that fishing near penguin breeding colonies does not have a negative impact on the seabirds.
“These experts have also very recently pointed out flaws in alternative analyses which suggest otherwise and which are put forward by environmental NGO groups,” he said. “The industry would support island closures if defensible science indicated that they were justified – the current best scientific evidence does not do so.”
An analysis carried out several years ago and reviewed by an international panel of scientists, suggested that the losses incurred was approximately R24-million per year for each island closed on the West Coast, he said.
“Another study suggests that 10.7 jobs are lost in the broader economy, including the fishing industry, for every R1 million of turnover lost in the fishing industry. On that basis, the loss of jobs in the broader economy is 256 jobs per island closed to fishing on the West Coast.”
‘Willing participants’
The fishing industry, Copeland said, has been a willing participant in the island closure experiment since 2008 at “considerable cost to the economy”. Despite four islands being closed for 50% of the time since 2008, “numbers continued to decline alarmingly since then, again indicating that fishing around islands is not the major cause”.
Copeland added that Sapfia is committed to following the best scientific evidence which currently indicates that fishing around the islands is making a minimal, if any, contribution to the concerning penguin decline.
“The priority is to identify the main actual causes and to try to address those, if possible.”
In the “spirit of compromise”, he said that the association is supporting either a continuation of the island experiment, or a closure of 50% of the overall important penguin foraging area percentage at the six main penguin breeding sites.
‘Far too slow’
Meanwhile, Pichegru feels that the process of hoping that the NGO’s and the fisheries sector agree will be far too slow. “We’ve been talking together for the past 15 years and never reaching an agreement … The minister needs to make a decision. We were supposed to have a decision at the end of 2019.
“It’s now almost the end of 2022 and no decision has been made and while no decision is made, everything is open to fishing. No effective closures have been put in place for the past two and half years because of the negotiations.”
The fisheries sector, she said, has “all the interest to get to no agreement” and “postpone the discussions forever”, because in the meantime “they can fish whatever they want”.
Until now, she said, the fisheries sector has not shown any real cost to the industry. “So they keep threatening, saying how much jobs and income they’re going to lose, but they’re never really given any real data to prove that.
“It’s highly frustrating as a conservationist to have to fight against ghosts and shadows, while the penguins are dying. And, we now lost another 80% of all our penguins while we were talking, debating and trying to find a solution. How many more do we need to lose before we actually make a decision because we have proven many times that closing to fishing can help.”
Limiting fishing is not the only solution. “And they [African penguins] need all the solutions to be put together. And we are working on all the other solutions. We’re not only focusing on fishing and closing to fishing, but that is the most important one because we know it’s the food.
“We can’t change the climate, and we are not saying it’s only fisheries that took all the stocks out. But the only thing we can change to help penguins is just limit fishing around the colonies. Really, it’s not that much we’re asking. It’s quite unfair from the industry and they’re really not trying much,” she said.
[/membership]