Equitable ocean governance must balance climate action, economic growth, and community rights through inclusive and coordinated policies
Image Source: Pexels
This piece is part of the series 'Governing the Oceans: Rethinking Access and Equity'
Global ocean governance is increasingly strained by the imbalance between the people who benefit from marine resources and the people who have to bear the costs. For example, industrial fishing fleets, often heavily subsidised, account for over 80 percent of global marine catch, while small-scale fisheries, which employ around 90 percent of the world’s fishers, receive a fraction of financial support and are more vulnerable to stock depletion and climate impacts. Climate change, maritime security, technological disruption, and the growth of the blue economy are all changing ocean spaces faster than governments can adapt. To fix this, there is a need to move beyond state-centred methods to more inclusive decision-making, ensuring that all have equal access to finance and technology, while holding people more accountable for their social and environmental impact.
Ocean governance remains fragmented across institutions, sectors, and jurisdictions, even though ocean challenges are increasingly interconnected. International shipping emissions, for instance, are regulated by the International Maritime Organization, while their climate impacts fall under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This has contributed to shipping accounting for nearly 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions without integrated mitigation targets being fully implemented across regimes. A more coherent system is required to link climate policy, trade, shipping, fisheries, biodiversity, and coastal development. This means improving coordination between global bodies, regional organisations, ports, private actors, and coastal communities. Effective governance must also ensure that decarbonisation and resilience goals do not impose unequal burdens on developing economies.
International shipping emissions, for instance, are regulated by the International Maritime Organization, while their climate impacts fall under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Maritime corridors are not just trade routes; they are strategic, economic, and environmental lifelines. Roughly one-quarter of global traded goods pass through the Strait of Malacca, which is highly vulnerable to congestion, piracy, and climate-related disruptions such as sea-level rise and extreme weather, highlighting how a single chokepoint can create cascading global risks. As new ports, harbours, and connectivity projects are built, governments need to ensure that infrastructure development makes communities more resilient rather than more reliant, or vulnerable to, geopolitical threats. To ensure that corridors are safe and resilient to climate change, we need to invest in port capacity, inland connectivity, digital systems, and the management of chokepoint risks, especially in the Global South.
The ocean is important for climate action, but we need to be careful about how we manage ocean-based solutions. Blue carbon, mangroves, marine protected areas (MPAs), marine carbon removal, and ocean-based Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage (CCUS) all have potential, but they also raise concerns about credibility, ecological risk, ownership, and the sharing of benefits. Climate finance must also benefit the coastal communities in developing countries. A fair approach would include strong local participation, open markets, and scientific protections.
Blue carbon, mangroves, marine protected areas (MPAs), marine carbon removal, and ocean-based Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage (CCUS) all have potential, but they also raise concerns about credibility, ecological risk, ownership, and the sharing of benefits.
The Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982, on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) provides an opportunity to scale up these ocean-based solutions for the shared ocean. However, it remains uncertain whether the Agreement provides fair and equitable solutions to address future challenges at the ocean-climate interface, particularly with respect to the needs and interests of small island developing states and least developed coastal states, which are at the forefront of these challenges.
Equity in ocean governance cannot be limited to mere symbolic consultation. It refers to collective and coordinated influence over rules, finance, technology, and enforcement. Small Island Developing States, coastal communities, emerging economies, Indigenous Peoples, and other stakeholders should be considered central to setting the agenda. For example, the Parties to the Nauru Agreement enable Pacific Island countries to collectively manage tuna fisheries, giving them greater control over licensing, revenue-sharing, and sustainability measures. Similarly, locally managed marine areas supported by initiatives such as the Locally Managed Marine Area Network empower coastal communities to co-design and enforce resource management rules based on traditional knowledge and local priorities. Such co-designing processes remain indispensable. Their experience is important for making ocean policies that are useful, fair and equitable.
The BBNJ Agreement addresses this by establishing a comprehensive framework for managing human activities to support marine conservation and sustainable use.
The BBNJ Agreement broadens ocean governance by recognising indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs) as key stakeholders in the development of area-based management tools (ABMTs), including MPAs, although it does not clearly define these groups. Previously, ABMTs in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) were limited to regional bodies. The BBNJ Agreement addresses this by establishing a comprehensive framework for managing human activities to support marine conservation and sustainable use. While ABMTs significantly affect IPLCs, especially those reliant on marine areas for livelihoods or cultural practices, they remain primarily state-led. Proposals must involve stakeholder consultation and be based on scientific evidence, and where available, traditional knowledge.
MPAs are central to the Agreement’s objectives and are defined as designated areas for long-term biodiversity conservation, sometimes allowing sustainable use. Similar approaches, such as locally managed marine areas, may also qualify as ABMTs. Although IPLCs are widely recognised for their contribution to sustainable ocean management, including ecosystem-based practices and stewardship, their participation in global governance remains limited. Concerns about inclusiveness and representation also emerged during the BBNJ negotiations and need to continue to be addressed in the implementation.
A responsible blue economy must create jobs, promote circularity, add value to local communities, and protect the environment for the long term.
For the blue economy to last, it must protect both ecosystems and jobs. Better regulation, clearer accountability, and a fairer distribution of gains for offshore energy, shipping, fishing, seabed activities, and marine innovation need to be in place. Large ocean industries should not push out small businesses and coastal communities. A responsible blue economy must create jobs, promote circularity, add value to local communities, and protect the environment for the long term.
Access to data, science, and technology is critical to power-sharing in ocean governance. Many developing countries lack adequate research infrastructure, digital tools, or technical skills to make decisions about the ocean. To close this gap, we need to work together with open data, invest in research institutions in the Global South, build capacity among people with new skills, and morally use AI and automation. In this context, knowledge equity has become a central dimension of ocean equity.
Ronán Long is the Director of the WMU-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute at the World Maritime University in Malmö, Sweden.
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Professor Ronán Long is the Director of the WMU-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute at the World Maritime University in Malmö, Sweden. He leads an interdisciplinary research ...
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