When I tell people there are penguins in Africa, most of them think I’m joking. But at the southern tip of the continent, just outside Cape Town, lives a colony of African penguins, the only penguin species that breeds on the continent. They’ve been here long before humans ever set foot on these shores. These birds once stretched all along the southern coast, their calls echoing through islands that are now silent. We wiped out 97 % of them in just one century. Overfishing stole their food, oil spills poisoned their waters, and the sand mining that built the cities destroyed their nesting grounds. What’s left is a fraction of what once was. A few surviving colonies like the one at Boulders Beach, clinging to a coastline that’s changing faster than they can adapt.

Scientists say we have about eleven years (until 2035) to undo the damage done to their world (and ours) in the past hundred. It’s a race against time, and not just for penguins. Every disappearing species tells us something about ourselves: how disconnected we’ve become from the systems that keep us alive. Standing on the boardwalk at Boulders Beach, surrounded by tourists snapping photos, I felt that mix of awe and guilt. These penguins aren’t surviving because of us, but despite us. If we want them to still be here in 2036, we have to rethink what protection means. We need to change what we consume, how we travel, and what we demand from those in power.