African Penguins Contribute R1.9 to R4.5 Billion To The South African Economy

‘Happy Feet’ by © Dan Callister/Penguins & Sharks

An independent assessment by Anchor Environmental reveals that the endangered African penguin contributes a staggering R1.9 to R4.5 billion to the South African economy!

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Introduction

The African penguin Spheniscus demersus is the only penguin species that breeds on the African continent and is endemic to the southern African coast. The species has declined from an estimated 0.5-1 million breeding pairs in the early 1900s to the approximately 42 500 counted in 1991, and 8324 in 2023. The remaining birds are mostly found in just seven colonies in the Western and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa.

Several factors have contributed to their population decline. Initially, a key reason was habitat destruction through guano harvesting as well as egg collection. However, over the last few decades, a shortage of small pelagic fish species, the penguins’ main food source, seems to have been the main contributing factor. Increased vessel traffic and the resulting noise pollution has also contributed to the decline.

This study aimed to provide an assessment of the value of the African penguin in South Africa to inform decision-makers at all levels of government, conservation organisations and other stakeholders involved in decision making around African penguins. The study investigated the experiential benefits of the penguins as manifest in tourism, property, media and educational values, as well as the existence value of African penguins, as manifest in public willingness to pay. In particular, it focused on the quantification of tourism and existence value. The study also investigated the potential reputational risk of failing to adequately conserve African penguins. The study was based on information from existing published and unpublished sources, statistics provided by relevant conservation authorities, conversations with key informants, and surveys conducted among penguin visitors and among the general public in Cape Town.

While determining the economic value of penguin conservation is useful to inform policy decisions, it needs to be acknowledged that it represents one way to think about conservation. Besides economic arguments for threatened species conservation, arguments for species protection can also be made for moral reasons as well as due to South Africa’s international commitments under the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity to halt all species extinctions.

Tourism value

Tourists visiting penguin colonies generate revenues for the park authorities and for a range of tourism-related business, all of which generates knock-on effects in the economy. In addition, the tourists themselves have a willingness to pay for seeing penguins that may exceed what they have to pay, the difference being their “consumer surplus” or “net benefit”.

The willingness to pay and consumer surplus of tourists visiting the Boulders penguin colony was estimated based on a survey of visitors carried out during November 2023, using contingent valuation and, also in the case of Capetonian visitors, travel cost methods. Based on this study, for 2023:

• Revenues generated by SANParks through entrance fees were approximately R95 million;

• Consumer surplus of Cape Town residents was estimated to be around R3 million, both based

  on both the contingent valuation method and the travel cost method;

• Consumer surplus of domestic and international tourists was approximately R222 million, with R220 million of this attributed to international visitors, R0.6 million to SADC visitors and R1.7 million to domestic visitors from beyond Cape Town;

In addition, the penguin colonies have broader impacts on the South African economy. For the Boulders colony, this could be estimated as the proportion of tourism expenditure attributed to the penguin colony based on its contribution to attracting visitors to the Cape Town area. To extend this estimate, densities of geotagged photographs uploaded to the internet, which indicate the spatial pattern of tourism activity in South Africa, were used to estimate the total contribution of penguin colonies to the national tourism sector. To summarise:

• Based on visitor surveys, the total expenditure in South Africa related to the Boulders penguin colony, based on trip expenditure and the reported degree to which penguins played a role, was estimated to be in the range of R535.6 - 2273 million in 2023 based on median and average visitor expenditure, respectively.

• Based on spatial data, and fairly conservative assumptions, it was estimated that Boulders accounted for approximately R505 million of tourism expenditure, which was slightly lower than the above estimates, and that the remaining penguin colonies in South Africa generated some R108.3 million in tourism expenditure.

  The total tourism value of all penguin colonies, including Boulders, Stony Point, Dassen Island, Bird Island, Robben Island, Dyer Island, and St Croix Island, was thus estimated to be in the range of R613 to 2702 million in 2023.

  Existence value

  People benefit from knowing that African penguins exist and are willing to pay for their conservation. As part of this study, surveys were conducted to estimate the non-use or existence value of African Penguins. The survey aimed to capture the value South Africans place on simply knowing that the penguins exist or are preserved for future generations.

  A survey of approximately 400 Capetonians was conducted to understand the extent to which residents were aware of and cared about the future of penguins and the extent to which they had heard about or experienced them. The survey also elicited respondents’ willingness to pay towards the conservation of the African penguin, from which a monetary estimate of existence value was derived.

  The aggregate WTP for penguin conservation in Cape Town was in the order of R551 - 731 million per year. Even though WTP attenuates with distance, it is assumed that South African residents outside of Cape Town would also be willing to pay for penguin conservation. If the results from the Cape Town survey were extrapolated to the rest of the country, taking the relationship between WTP and income into account, the aggregate WTP would be an additional R771 - 1101 million. The main motivation for the respondents’ WTP was that they liked knowing that penguins exist, having the option of visiting them in the future, and protecting them for future generations.

  Other benefits – qualitative assessment

  In both Simonstown and Betty’s Bay, where colonies are in close proximity to built-up areas, the penguin colony has reportedly very little to no effect on the local property market. In Betty’s Bay, proximity to the Stony Point colony reportedly has a negative effect on property prices. Property prices in Simonstown are reportedly influenced very little by the penguin colony, except in as much as the protected area guarantees to the unobstructed views of the beach for some properties.

SANParks and CapeNature run several educational programmes to engage learners in conservation and to promote environmental stewardship. It is not possible to fully estimate the educational benefits of the African penguin in Rands. Environmental education and exposure to iconic species can change people’s outlook and behaviour over the long term, and also raises both the use and non-value of nature. To some extent, the South African government recognises the value of research through the provision of publication subsidies. In this way, publications on penguins generated subsidies of at least R1.9 million in 2023.

Penguins also star in advertisements for Cape Town and films and documentaries such as Penguin Town and have not only entertained but also raised awareness about penguin conservation issues. The direct media related value of the penguin colonies was estimated to be almost R2.9 million per year.

Total value

Based on the estimation of tourism value, existence value, property benefits, educational and media- related benefits, the total value of the penguin colonies of South Africa was estimated to be between R1946 million (lower bound) and R4545 million (upper bound) in 2023.

Reputational risks of failing at conservation

South Africa is legally considered as the owner of the African penguin and is morally its custodian. The loss of the African penguin would be a very large reputational risk to South Africa, especially because the African penguin only occurs in Namibia and South Africa. Just as South Africa's foreign policies and economic decisions contribute to its reputation, its position on environmental stewardship and the measures it implements to protect global assets, for which it is perceived as a guardian, will shape its international brand. If the African penguin population is lost completely, South Africa’s brand reputation as a naturally rich and environmentally healthy destination, famed for its natural assets, will suffer.

Successfully conserving the African penguins is not a one agency issue but requires big systemic changes. Ultimately, improved management and policy is going to be the answer: an ecosystem approach to fisheries is needed and Ocean health needs to be better managed.

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