BirdLife South Africa and SANCCOB today secured a historic victory for South Africa's Critically Endangered African Penguin when the Pretoria High Court issued an order of court after a hard-won settlement agreement was reached by the two conservation NGOs with commercial sardine and anchovy purse-seine fishers (subsequently endorsed by the State). The order provides for the delineations of no-take zones for the commercial sardine and anchovy fishery around six key African Penguin breeding colonies that lie within coastal areas where this commercial fishery operates. The six closures work together to secure biologically meaningful foraging areas for African Penguins in each of the west coast, southern Cape and Algoa Bay regions to help bring the species back from the brink of extinction. This settlement follows several weeks of exceptionally hard work and negotiations between the conservation NGOs and the commercial sardine and anchovy fishing industry. The order provides that the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) will have two weeks to ensure that these closures are implemented by amending the permit conditions applicable to commercial sardine and anchovy fishers (also covering redeye). These permit conditions are set to be renewed by the DFFE each January for the next 10 years. The 10-year period takes closures to the critical year, 2035, when the iconic African Penguin is predicted by scientists to be extinct in the wild - just a generation of penguins away. After a difficult six years of battling disagreement from fisheries scientists as penguin numbers dwindled from 2018’s count of 15,187 breeding pairs to just an estimated 8,750 at the end of 2023, BirdLife South Africa and SANCCOB took the difficult decision to resort to the courts in March 2024. Represented by the Biodiversity Law Centre, the environmental NGOs sought to hold the Minister accountable to the constitutional and statutory obligations to mitigate the threat posed by sardine and anchovy fishing to the world’s African Penguin population – most of which remains in South Africa. While determined to litigate, the conservation organisations have consistently maintained that a settlement which benefits African Penguins by securing important foraging areas would be considered. Negotiations with the representatives of the sardine and anchovy commercial fisheries resulted in settlement, agreed to by the State, the night before the three-day hearing was about to start on 18 March 2025.