A region long characterised as a victim of ocean exploitation is taking a leadership role in a huge emerging conservation effort.
When the high seas treaty entered into force on 17 January, it established an important milestone on the journey towards protecting approximately 43% of Earth’s surface. This international agreement represents a triumph for the politicians and campaigners who fought for it.
For those from West Africa, this moment is not only about protecting a vital part of the ocean. It is also a chance to redefine Africa’s role in global marine governance.
At the centre of this redefinition is a proposed marine protected area (MPA) covering a vast patch of the Atlantic Ocean’s high seas that traces the curve of the West African coastline. Here, two mighty currents converge to produce a sea rich in marine life. Small pelagic fish are abundant, as are large predatory species, including yellowfin tuna and barracuda, alongside dolphins and pilot whales.
The high seas treaty, also called the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) treaty, enables this MPA proposal. The treaty has created the legal framework for protecting marine areas that lie beyond national jurisdiction – beyond the “exclusive economic zones” of coastal states.
“There are a lot of countries outside our region that are the ones benefiting from that particular ecosystem we are planning to designate,” says Sikeade Oluwakemi Egbuwalo, the high seas lead at Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Environment. “We feel the injustice has been going on for a while, and a few powerful actors have dominated our sea.
“It’s time for us to sit at that table and start demanding. This treaty has given us the chance to correct that imbalance.”
A plan for protection
The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has proposed an idea that could shape the future of the region’s fisheries: one of the world’s first high seas MPAs.
The area would cover the convergence of two Large Marine Ecosystems, defined as coastal ocean areas of 200,000km2 or more: the Canary Current and the Guinea Current. This hugely rich ecosystem stretches from Cape Verde and Senegal in the north to Nigeria and São Tomé and Príncipe in the south.
In the absence of regulations or any protection, people are already fishing in the high seas that lie off the coasts of Mauritania, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Sierra Leone. These countries have major artisanal and/or industrial fisheries. Advocates for the MPA say the lack of regulations risks damaging a valuable ecosystem.
Egbuwalo says the creation of this high seas MPA is motivated by science, ecology, geopolitics and local economics. She believes it will create employment opportunities for coastal communities and boost their catches in the longer term: commercially important fish species will have a chance to thrive in the protected area, before these replenished populations spill over into unprotected areas to be caught. The area has been exploited by fleets from outside the region, and regional governments should now take control and protect it, she adds.
A change of perspective
For decades, West Africa has been battling with illegal fishing, legal fishing by foreign-owned boats and climate-related threats to the ocean. This high seas MPA proposal indicates the region’s willingness to become a standard-setter on global environmental issues.
At the time of publication, 17 of the 85 countries that had ratified the high seas treaty were African, while another 17 countries from the continent had signed it. These numbers indicate the vital role that African nations are playing in this process.
“Africa has needed no permission to lead this global effort,” wrote Liberia’s president Joseph Nyuma Boakai last year. “The African Group, a bloc of 54 nations, was a pre-eminent voice in the negotiations because we understand that the problem of ailing oceans does not belong to any one country, and no one country can solve it alone.”
If Ecowas’ MPA proposal is approved under the treaty’s still-emerging framework, the proposed protected area could restrict industrial fishing and deep-sea mining exploration.
This would be a major step toward the global goal of protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030 (30×30), the most ambitious area-based conservation goal in existence. It would also assert African sovereignty over waters traditionally heavily influenced by external powers.
The paradox of protection
This work on waters beyond national jurisdictions clashes with an uncomfortable truth: most West African countries are struggling to protect their own waters and coastal communities.
According to a report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, at least 16,000 km2 of marine areas in West Africa are protected as of 2022. But where protection is in place, much of it is on paper only, with little enforcement or punishment for infringement. This has created an opportunity for illegal fishing, especially by foreign fleets, causing the decline of fish stocks, damage to ecosystems and suffering for local communities. These communities also continue to face other threats, such as coastal erosion and the expansion of offshore oil exploration.
For years, the only African country widely considered to be taking a leadership role in ocean diplomacy was South Africa. It has a major ocean science programme, research vessels and an advanced navy.
There are now signs of a renewed enthusiasm for marine protection in other countries. As well as being a part of the high seas proposal, Ghana announced its first national MPA in June 2025.
Nigeria, Senegal, Cabo Verde and Liberia are also focusing more on marine protection as well as leading the region on the high seas issue, according to ocean policy watchers. There are high hopes for initiatives to increase MPAs in national waters, boost transparency in fisheries and strengthen regional ocean governance.
President Boakai of Liberia has championed regional cooperation on the ocean since taking power in early 2024. In December that year, the country hosted the 15th Ministerial Conference of the Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea. Liberia called for stronger collaboration among member states to address illegal fishing, marine pollution and climate change.
Ghana’s fisheries and aquaculture minister, Emelia Arthur, has been pushing for stronger governance mechanisms within Ecowas since her appointment in January 2025.
Their leadership is being supported by international NGO groupings pushing ocean protection, such as the Blue Nature Alliance, the Bloomberg Ocean Initiative and the High Seas Alliance. These types of collaborative efforts are providing scientific modelling, diplomatic strategy and legal analysis.
But many countries struggle to conduct basic ocean monitoring at home, and have only limited ability to project power and assert sovereignty at sea. High seas protection risks being too ambitious to become a reality if this remains the case.
Lamin Jassey, a marine activist in The Gambia, says many West African MPAs already suffer from underfunding, weak governance, limited monitoring and poor local consultation, including in The Gambia and Sierra Leone: “Well designed MPAs can only succeed in balancing conservation and community rights if governance is inclusive, financing is sustainable and monitoring is strong.”
The challenges ahead
Enforcing marine protection requires satellite and vessel tracking systems, locally informed expertise, and patrolling. These require funding. Hundreds of millions of dollars are needed in long term funding for Africa to implement both high seas and domestic conservation, and reach the internationally agreed 30×30 target.
Ifesinachi Okafor-Yarwood, an expert on African maritime governance at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, says the high seas treaty is a step forward for conservation. But she also believes the treaty is not enough to undo centuries of uneven access and capacity, which have hamstrung the ability of African nations to exploit and protect the ocean.
Provisions on benefit-sharing and capacity-building in the treaty are important, says Okafor-Yarwood. But their impact will depend on how they are operationalised and who sits at the table, she adds. African states and communities need to meaningfully influence rules on access to marine genetic resources, area-based management tools and environmental impact assessments.
“Many African institutions lack stable funding, ships, deep-sea equipment and data infrastructures, even as their regions are central to global shipping, fisheries, and emerging industries like seabed mining,” Okafor-Yarwood tells Dialogue Earth. “If the [High Seas] Treaty is serious about equity, it must translate into long-term investment in African-led science, training, infrastructure and data governance.”
She says African research scientists are often not fully supported, with funding largely project-based and frequently coming from outside the continent. She believes they need to become agenda-setters in high seas research, and not just local partners.
Properly protecting the high seas is a chance to change the story, but only if protection is implemented effectively, Okafor-Yarwood adds.
“Weak implementation would entrench inequities in access to marine genetic resources, undermine efforts to curb [illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing] and biodiversity loss, and marginalise African knowledge and institutions in global decision-making. In short, it would reproduce ocean injustice on a larger scale.”
The global ocean agenda may still be largely written in Geneva, Brussels or New York before being in implemented in Africa. But it is also increasingly being discussed in Monrovia, Accra and Dakar.
“The proposal will create employment: the locals will be employed to manage the MPA,” says Egbuwalo. She warns that governments pushing this MPA under the high seas treaty are “fighting for the survival of their people, their livelihoods”.
The proposal then is the start of something, not the end. In time, it may redefine Africa from a victim of marine exploitation to a continent shaping the future of the ocean.
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