Minister Dion George’s African penguin ‘lifeline’ a slap in the face for conservation experts

A recent event touted as a celebration of African penguin conservation champions by Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Dion George has instead left leading scientists and conservation organisations feeling deceived and flabbergasted. 

The event, held on the SA Agulhas II research vessel on 22 August 2025, was used by the minister to sign new offshore ship-to-ship (STS) bunkering regulations, which experts widely criticise as failing to protect the critically endangered African penguin and other marine life.

Adding to the frustration, at the event, George reportedly referred to the St Croix Island African penguin colony in Algoa Bay as the world’s largest, a claim demonstrably false given the colony’s dramatic collapse since bunkering began.

The event was themed, A Night For The African Penguin: Celebrating Our Partners In Conservation, for a special evening in honour of the champions protecting the critically endangered African penguin.

But the attendees said, “It was undoubtedly orchestrated around the minister’s intention to sign the regulations,” which conservation experts are strongly opposed to.

‘Deceived’

Professor Lorien Pichegru, a respected expert in African penguins and Adjunct Professor in Marine Biology at Nelson Mandela University, expressed her profound disappointment, posting on Facebook that she had the “sad privilege to be deceived” at the event.

Pichegru, who chairs the Biodiversity Management Plan, said she naively believed the invitation was a genuine gesture of recognition to the efforts of scientists and conservationists towards fishing exclusions and the Biodiversity Management Plan itself. 

However, she said the minister instead “cornered us into watching him sign off the ship-to-ship bunkering regulations”, which conservationists have strongly and loudly opposed as they believe it fails to properly mitigate the impacts of bunkering in Algoa Bay, where the St Croix African penguin colony is located.

Bunkering is the controversial practice of ship-to-ship refuelling at sea, which has been linked to oil spills affecting seabirds in Algoa Bay, increased vessel noise and the catastrophic decline of critically endangered African penguin populations.

Read more: Government seeks to clamp down on offshore ship refuelling operations

BirdLife South Africa and Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob) CEOs and scientists were also invited and attended the event, but did not know the minister’s intention to sign the regulations at the event. 

They told Daily Maverick, “Given that the comment period on the second draft of the regulations had only just closed a few days prior to the receipt of the invitation, and the fact that both organisations had raised concerns about the content of the regulations, it was surprising that the minister was already ready to sign the regulations, and that the event appeared orchestrated (unbeknownst to us) around the signing.”

‘Slap in the face’

Pichegru described her reaction as “flabbergasted” and “a slap in the face”, lamenting that none of the important comments sent to his department was taken into consideration in the final regulations. This was echoed by BirdLife South Africa, Sanccob and the Biodiversity Law Centre.

Like Pichegru, BirdLife South Africa Seabird Conservation Programme manager Alistair McInnes said he and his colleagues were surprised that the regulations had been signed and that the event centred around actually signing those regulations. 

This was because they had made it clear to the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) and to the minister that they did not support the bunkering regulations in their last commented form and believed that signing these regulations wherein their comments were not included, on a night meant to honour their efforts, was, as Pichegru said, “a slap in the face”.

McInnes said that when they saw the final draft, “There was very little change… none of our comments was considered, especially the significant ones that had an impact on penguins.”

BirdLife South Africa and Sanccob described the celebrations at the event as premature and expressed doubt about the efficacy of the regulations.

St Croix Penguin numbers decline 

Research points to a correlation between ship-to-ship transfer operations and the decline in penguin numbers on St Croix. BirdLife South Africa and Sanccob said the production of noise/vibrations was a significant negative side-effect of offshore refuelling, with the presence of two large vessels with engines running and equipment operating and the notable increase in large vessels entering the bay to be refuelled. 

“There is more research to be done about how noise propagates underwater and further investigations in this regard are under way.

“In the interim, the precautionary principle is an important legal principle (in section 1 of the National Environmental Management Act). Given what the penguin counts and data tell us about the effects of noise/vibrations, it is imperative that this principle is applied in relation to bunkering in Algoa Bay,” said BirdLife South Africa and Sanccob.

In response to the concerns raised, the DFFE told Daily Maverick that these regulations were twice published for public comments and all comments were “carefully considered, assessed and used to refine the regulations”. 

They said the department “closely consulted” maritime counterparts – the Department of Transport, the South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) and the National Ports Authority – to address important aspects of the regulations to ensure that the safety of shipping and its operations were not unduly compromised. 

“The department has the difficult task of having to strike a delicate balance between putting the necessary measures in place to conserve the environment, while still providing a space for sustainable development and inclusive economic growth,” a DFFE spokesperson said.

Minister’s ‘lifeline’ claim contradicted by scientific reality

George presented the new regulations as another lifeline to secure the future of the African penguin, asserting that they would secure the survival of the African penguin. 

This comes after a hard-fought settlement was reached earlier this year between conservation NGOs and the commercial fishing industry to agree on no-take fishing zones around key breeding colonies to combat the African penguin species’ decline and allow them access to more food.

The key concern with the new regulations is that Algoa Bay is exempted from crucial prohibitions related to offshore bunkering. What this means is that while the African penguins in the St Croix colony now have access to more food as a result of less competition with the pelagic fishing industry, the penguins could be deterred from this area by bunkering-related impacts.

Read more: Inside the African penguin litigation — how fishing industry, conservation groups found common ground

According to attendees of the event, George also claimed that Algoa Bay was home to the world’s largest African penguin colony.

However, this statement directly contradicts scientific findings and the current reality.

Pichegru said, “No, Mr Minister, what you are sending to African penguins is not a lifeline, as you claim. There are too many sinkers attached to it.” 

She said that, in fact, Algoa Bay was no longer home to the world’s largest African penguin colony because it had collapsed since bunkering began right on its doorstep. 

McInnes supported this, calling the minister’s so-called lifeline irrelevant to where it actually mattered, because the regulations made it clear that Algoa Bay was exempt from the meaningful regulations that he had proposed. 

“It’s not a lifeline and still allows the activity to continue within African penguin habitat around St Croix Island. So it’s very unlikely to make any meaningful difference,” said McInnes. 

Before bunkering began in 2015, the colony boasted between 7,000 and 8,000 breeding pairs. The population had since undergone a dramatic 85% decline to about 700 breeding pairs.

This study outlines the correlation of the African penguin population crash against the timeline of ship-to-ship transfer. It demonstrates that vessel traffic in Algoa Bay more than doubled between 2013 and 2019, from 96 vessels on average a month in early 2013 to 245 vessels a month in 2019.

The intensification of underwater noise levels in the African penguin’s foraging habitat was linked to the initiation and expansion of ship-to-ship refuelling activities, which intensified the maritime traffic in the area. 

Noise levels were significantly related to the collapse of what had been the world’s largest remaining colony of African penguins.

“The underwater soundscape of Algoa Bay, a hotspot of biodiversity, has now been profoundly modified. The situation is likely to worsen if more bunkering licences are awarded,” said BirdLife South Africa and Sanccob.

“All we are asking for is a respite in bunkering for this hotspot of biodiversity, home to these Critically Endangered penguins,” said Pichegru.

Flaws in the regulations

Conservation organisations told Daily Maverick about several critical shortcomings in the finalised regulations that render them ineffective, particularly for Algoa Bay.

The most significant flaw is that Algoa Bay, the “only place where offshore bunkering is happening in South Africa”, is explicitly exempted from crucial prohibitions. 

Regulations stating operations are banned within five nautical miles of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and Aquaculture Development Zones (ADZs), and within three nautical miles of the high-water mark, are not applicable in Algoa Bay in the current regulations. 

McInnes pointed out that these prohibitions were good in principle, but clause nine exempted Algoa Bay, which was the only place of concern. This appears to make the regulations contradictory in terms of what it was set out to do in the first place. 

The DFFE responded that the regulations put measures in place for bunkering along the whole coastline; therefore, these restrictions would apply to any new proposed sites. 

“Since bunkering commenced in Algoa Bay, prior to these regulations coming into effect, the current operations had to be considered, including the current anchorage zones, which are the only designated places that are safe enough to conduct this activity in the bay,” said the department.

The department said that while operations were not allowed within the Addo MPA, the current zones overlap with the general prohibitions and could not “reasonably be implemented retrospectively in Algoa as this would have effectively completely shut down the industry”.

The DFFE said that in the absence of completely shutting down the activity in the bay, they chose the core breeding season to limit operations.

The second major concern was that the revised regulations allowed bunkering at night under certain conditions, despite an earlier draft having forbidden it. This was considered extremely risky because previous spills had occurred at night. Darkness makes it difficult to detect oil and locate marine mammals and African penguins, complicating clean-up operations.

Conservationists also noted that since bunkering began in 2016, there had been four oil spills attributed to these activities, resulting in the oiling of hundreds of seabirds. 

But, the DFFE said, the regulations did not provide for an open-ended permission to bunker at night — unless specific requirements were fulfilled by the operator. 

“These details would need to be specified in a nighttime response plan, which forms part of the overall STS management plan, which has to be approved by the minister. Only if the measures proposed in that plan are sufficient and mitigate risk appropriately would nighttime bunkering be considered,” said the DFFE.

While the new regulations include pollution prevention measures, Sanccob said that many of these largely reiterate existing Samsa Bunkering Code of Practice requirements, and in some instances, the code’s requirements were stricter.

The DFFE said noise mitigation was to be addressed in the ship-to-ship management plan, based on the kind of operation, the type of vessels and the location of the operations. 

“It was not possible to pre-determine these kinds of requirements upfront in the regulations. The regulations must be pragmatic, reasonable and implementable,” said the DFFE.

Public consultation integrity and transparency questioned

Kate Handley, an environmental attorney and executive director of the Biodiversity Law Centre, said that, as with Sanccob, BirdLife South Africa and Pichegru, they were concerned that several of their comments had not been taken into account in the new regulations.

She said the most important of these were the comments on whether section 83(1) of the National Environmental Management: Integrated Coastal Management Act empowered the minister to make such regulations in the first place. 

The Biodiversity Law Centre was also “extremely perturbed” that comments in relation to bunkering in Algoa Bay had been ignored, effectively paving the way for bunkering to continue in Anchorage 1 and 2, despite a TNPA-commissioned Environmental Risk Assessment concluding that bunkering should not occur in Anchorage 2 because of its environmental sensitivity. 

“Algoa Bay is an area of exceptional biodiversity, and this risks being eroded by a harmful activity, the economic justification of which is questionable at best,” said Handley.

The new ship-to-ship transfer regulations were first gazetted for public comment in February 2025, and the revised regulations were noted by conservation experts to be more lenient with the bunkering industry compared with the first iteration.

Handley told Daily Maverick, “It certainly raises concerns around the department and the minister trying to assuage industry concerns at the expense of robust measures to mitigate harms to the marine environment.”

For example, Handley said the first draft of the regulations had an express clause relating to the mitigation of noise – a significant environmental impact of bunkering – by requiring that operators comply with the design adaptations in the International Maritime Organisation Guidelines for the Reduction of Underwater Noise. 

But, Handley said, this was excluded in the second draft on bases including that it would be too costly for the industry to comply. 

The DFFE responded to concerns: “We do not agree that the regulations are more lenient and, as indicated above, we are of the view that the regulations strike the correct balance.”

The department said that while some aspects had been changed, this was not to create leniency, but were required due to legal implications and lawfulness in relation to the proper implementation of the regulations. 

“New aspects were also introduced which were not in the first iteration of the regulations,” said the department.

Calls for real change

Dr Kirsten Day, policy and advocacy programme manager at BirdLife South Africa, said, “The regulations have been signed but not gazetted. If the minister were committed enough to engage with us urgently around the problems with the regulations before they are published, there is still an opportunity to find a workable solution.”

The organisations also urged the reinstatement of the Offshore Bunkering Environmental Working Group, which provided a crucial forum for engagement between authorities and environmental stakeholders, but has been suspended since a SA Revenue Service moratorium. 

This was because bunkering operations came to a temporary halt in late 2023 after several vessels in Algoa Bay were seized by Sars due to a legal dispute over fuel movement regulations under the Customs Act.

The focus, according to the conservation organisations and researchers, has to be on alternative management plans that constitute a “real lifeline” for African penguins, recognising that unless the negative consequences of bunkering are avoided, other conservation efforts such as the hard-won no-take fishing zones will be less effective. DM