Scientist Christina Hagen is at the forefront of one of the most crucial conservation battles of our time - to save the African penguin from extinction. Hagen talks about what it's like spending almost 10 years behind the scenes, trying to halt the decline of this special species and bring it back from the brink of extinction.

As BirdLife South Africa's (BLSA) driving force behind the establishment of the new penguin company at De Hoop, Christina Hagen, together with her colleagues at BLSA, the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob), CapeNature and others, is working tirelessly to save Africa's only penguin while it is being pushed to the brink of extinction by a man-made catastrophe.

Hagen is responsible for BLSA's work in establishing a new African penguin colony at De Hoop, identifying potential sites, investigating techniques that could be used and liaising with other stakeholders on this work.

Hagen is just one of the many parts in this group of stakeholders and her role goes far beyond research and planning; she is on the ground placing lifelike decoys and playing recorded penguin calls to mimic a thriving colony, all in the hope of attracting African penguins to De Hoop as a breeding ground.

Hagen has been the Pamela Isdell Fellow of Penguin Conservation with BirdLife South Africa since 2015, having worked as their coastal seabird conservation manager since 2012.

Hagen told Daily Maverick that the African penguin was in big...