Dr. Dion George, the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment, has requested public feedback on proposed regulations for the environmental management of offshore oil bunkering. These regulations aim to decrease the risks of bunkering to the marine environment, especially the endangered African Penguin species.
Bunkering, which involves supplying fuel for ships, poses risks such as oil spills that can cause fires, explosions, harm to marine life and humans, and make seafood unsafe to eat.
Dr. George emphasized the need to protect the coastal and marine environment. The regulations seek to prevent bunkering in sensitive areas, limit its expansion, reduce noise impacts, and require wildlife monitoring and spill prevention measures.
Currently, offshore bunkering is authorized in Algoa Bay, Eastern Cape, where four oil spills have occurred since 2016, affecting about 260 African Penguins. These incidents require extensive efforts to clean the oiled penguins, compromise penguin eggs, lead to abandoned chicks, and negatively impact breeding and reproductive success.
Dr. George inherited a groundbreaking lawsuit last year against the previous Minister, Barbara Creecy. This is the first litigation in South Africa invoking the Minister’s constitutional obligation to prevent the extinction of an endangered species. It follows her failure – since at least 2018 – to implement biologically meaningful closures around African Penguin breeding areas, despite scientific evidence that such closures improve the species access to their critical sardine and anchovy food source, thereby contributing toward arresting the decline of the African Penguin. The court case is set for March 20-22 in Pretoria, South Africa.