It’s official: the African Penguin, the continent’s only penguin species, is now considered “critically endangered”.
According to GroundUp, the decision was announced on Monday by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) which manages the Red Lists of Threatened Species world-wide.
These lists are considered the “gold standard” for measuring extinction risk.
There are 18 penguin species globally, and the iconic African Penguin is the first to meet the criteria for this classification – just one rank below the “extinct in the wild” category.
According to the IUCN, the African Penguin has been raised from “endangered” to “critically endangered” because it is undergoing “an extremely rapid population decline, probably principally because of the impacts of competition with commercial fisheries and climate-mediated shifts in prey populations”.
Significant economic asset
According to a new report released just a week before Monday’s announcement, the African Penguin is a significant economic asset possibly worth billions to South Africa’s tourism economy annually.
Overall, the report estimated the total value that the African Penguin created for South Africa in 2023 was between R2 billion and R4.5 billion, when categories such as the property market, existence value, environmental education and brand awareness through media exposure were also taken into account.
The report authors estimate the total tourism value of the Boulders colony near Simon’s Town to be between R505 million and R2.3 billion annually.
Last year, this colony generated some R95 million in revenue from entrance fees alone.
The total tourism value of this plus the other penguin colonies is estimated to be in the range of R613 million to R2.7 billion per year, the report says.
A second category of value is benefits that people receive just from knowing of the continued existence of wild African Penguin colonies, irrespective of whether they aim to ever visit them.
This existence value benefit is expressed through their stated “willingness to pay” (WTP) to ensure the birds’ conservation, the report explains.
Based on a valuation study involving interviews with people from all parts of Cape Town, the aggregate WTP for penguin conservation of Capetonians is estimated to be in the range of R551 million to R731 million per year.
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