West African nations target Eastern Atlantic for early high seas protection

Six months after a landmark treaty to protect the high seas entered into force in January, a group of West African nations is calling for the Eastern Atlantic to be included in the first wave of marine protected areas established under the agreement.

The area known as the Convergence Zone of the Canary and Guinea Currents stretches from Cape Verde and Senegal in the north, to Nigeria and São Tomé and Príncipe in the south, forming a key migration corridor and nursery for hundreds of marine species.

At the 11th Our Ocean Conference in the Kenyan coastal resort of Mombasa this week, Senegalese Minister of the Environment and Ecological Transition Aliou Gori Diouf said this new marine protected area would contribute to a global goal to protect at least 30% of the planet’s ecosystems by 2030.

“West Africa is asserting its leadership by demonstrating that ocean protection and sustainable
development go hand in hand,” Diouf said in a statement.

To complement the push, the governments of The Gambia, Mauritania, Guinea Bissau and Senegal announced the creation of a joint regional marine protected area (MPA) “to preserve the resources essential to the livelihood” of their communities.

They added that the regional initiative will require global collaboration, as the countries face “massive challenges” from ocean heating as well as illegal fishing and marine pollution “leading to a reduction in biodiversity and lower economic opportunities for fishing-dependent communities”.

The High Seas Treaty – known formally as the agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) – entered into force this January just two years after its signing. So far, 90 countries have ratified it, and it is set to host its first conference of the parties (COP) in January 2027 in New York.

Warming threat

The ocean has absorbed 90% of the excess heat trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere, and is a massive carbon sink, trapping 30% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Yet despite covering nearly half of the planet’s surface, only 1% of the high seas are fully protected.

Unless this is stepped up, scientists warn that rapid ocean heating could threaten key species and ecosystems, as well as the communities that depend on them. One 2025 study estimated that fish levels have fallen by 7.2% for every tenth of a degree of global warming.

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Speaking at a plenary in Mombasa, Rebecca Hubbard, director of the advocacy group High Seas Alliance, said governments face the challenge of turning “this promise into real action in the water”.

“It is now urgent for governments to work together to propose the first set of high-seas marine protected areas. This is the only way we can achieve 30% protection of our ocean by 2030. We need the high seas,” said the conservation scientist.

Scientific body to review proposals

Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, France’s special envoy for last year’s UN ocean conference, told the Mombasa gathering that the oceans COP1 will be a “powerful symbol”, as it will be the first major conference opened by the yet-to-be-elected new UN secretary-general.

Other areas under consideration for the first generation of high-seas MPAs include the Salas y Gómez and Nazca ridges – an underwater mountain range rich stretching 3,000 km off the coast of Chile in the South Pacific, the “thermal dome” off the coast of Costa Rica in the Central Pacific, and the Walvis ridge near Namibia in the Southern Atlantic.

Chile and Costa Rica have also announced plans to propose these protected areas in the lead-up to the first High Seas Treaty summit. Before selecting the first conservation areas, governments at the BBNJ meeting must establish a scientific body to review the proposals.

Currently, the only MPA in the high seas is the South Orkney Islands in Antarctica, created in 2009 and managed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.