New Environment Minister Dion George. (OJ Collotty, Gallo Images)
debtMinister of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment Dion George has “lent a helping hand” to the endangered African penguin by instructing his ministry's lawyers to settle a lawsuit brought by environmental groups challenging inappropriate fishing bans around the penguin colony.
The surprise announcement was made by the Democratic Alliance (DA) national executive in a social media post on Tuesday, which said George was “using his powers as minister to end the legal dispute and resolve the dispute over fishing rights and penguin conservation” to secure the African penguins' main food source.
The minister has instructed his ministry's lawyers to resolve the matter and “ensure the penguins have access to fish food for years to come,” the post said. The endangered penguin species “will now have a chance at long-term survival.”
The lawsuit, filed in March by BirdLife South Africa and the Southern African Coastal Birds Foundation, represented by the Biodiversity Law Centre, challenges the “biologically nonsensical” move by then Environment Minister Barbara Creecy to close the island to purse seine (large vertical net) fishing around a major African penguin colony.
Late Tuesday, Andrew de Block Scheltinga, spokesman for forestry, fisheries and environment for the district attorney's office, released a statement welcoming George's decision to seek an out-of-court settlement.
“This effort is essential to ensure penguins have enough food close to their breeding grounds, which biologists have identified as essential to penguin conservation,” he said. “By reducing competition between penguins and commercial fishing, this measure addresses a significant threat to the species. Continuing the legal battle while penguins starve and their numbers decline would be counterproductive.”
In addition to Mr Creasey, defendants in the suit include the deputy director-general for fisheries management in the department of forestry, fisheries and environment, the deputy director-general for oceans and coasts, the South African Deep Sea Fisheries Association and the Eastern Cape Deep Sea Association.
Kate Handley, executive director of the Biodiversity Law Centre, said the applicants were “caught off guard” by the prosecutor's statement.
“I am encouraged by the DA's statement demonstrating their commitment to protecting the African penguin,” she said. “If further action is not taken to slow the current rate of population decline, the African penguin will be at risk of extinction by 2035.”
Handley said the crisis was mainly due to “penguins' lack of access to prey”, as they must compete with commercial purse seine fisheries for sardines and anchovies in the waters around the six largest African penguin breeding colonies, which are home to around 90 percent of the country's penguins.
She said the lawsuit was filed as a last resort following Creasy's failure to implement an adequate island closure: “An extended government-led process convened between government, industry and conservation to reach agreement on an island closure. Essentially, this process was repeated four times, culminating in a high-level international scientific committee, but none of the attempts resulted in a resolution.”
“A committee was appointed for that purpose. So the minister [Creecy] It put in place these inadequate interim closure measures and then said it would keep them in place unless the conservation sector and industry agreed to alternative closure measures. [conservation] With no prospect of resolving this impasse, the industry had no choice but to go to court.”
The applicants are hoping for a favourable settlement offer from the minister's legal team, she said. The matter is due to be heard from October 22 to 24. “That remains the case. We expect to receive an affidavit from the respondent in the near future. We will then start preparing our counter affidavit,” she said.
She noted that the prosecutor's statement was “a bit misleading” given that the applicants have yet to see a favorable settlement offer, because “ultimately it is the minister's office” that needs to offer a suitable settlement to all parties in the litigation, not just the applicants.
“Of course, there are industry respondents, so a settlement is not a unilateral act. It actually requires the consent and involvement of the other litigants, so I think the statement was a bit premature,” she said.
De Block Scheltinga said the series of no-take zones proposed by the scientific committee had been carefully designed to be biologically meaningful while minimising the impact on fisheries. Creasey “chose not to follow this recommendation”, which resulted in legal action being taken against the minister's office. “This decision will be revised by Minister George.”
Implementation of the Commission's recommended closure zones would also have a positive impact on other dependent fisheries, such as linefish, and the maintenance of other marine predators, including whales, dolphins, sharks, seals, birds, and other fish.
“The Minister and his Department have a constitutional duty to ensure the survival and protection of endangered species. We are encouraged by the positive actions shown by the new Minister in this regard and we are confident that positive steps towards conservation will continue in the future,” De Block-Schertinga said.
George could not be reached for comment Wednesday.