BY KINGSLEY E. HOPE
At first light along Ghana’s Cape Three Points coastline in the Western Region, fishermen push wooden canoes into waters that have sustained generations of coastal families. But those waters may soon be declared off-limits. Onshore, women fish processors wait with empty baskets and cold-smoking ovens, their anxiety sharpened by catches that have grown smaller and less reliable — a daily struggle over food security, household debt and livelihoods.
Their survival depends on policymakers who pledged sweeping reforms under Ghana’s Marine Fisheries Management Plan (MFMP) 2022–2026, designed to reverse the ecological and socio-economic decline of the country’s marine fisheries. As its five-year implementation period draws to a close, a troubling question hangs over the coastline: how much of its promise has actually reached the sea?
At Akwidaa, Francis Dadzie, a fisherman with more than two decades of experience, throws a worn net onto the sand with visible frustration. He says crews now spend more than GH¢800 on fuel every time they launch their canoes, only to return with empty nets or tiny juvenile fish that should have been left to mature. He says industrial trawlers light up the ocean horizon at night, taking large quantities of fish while small-scale fishermen return home empty-handed to face hungry families.
In Lower Dixcove, Victoria Bolor spent more than 20 years buying, smoking and selling fish. Today, she sits by the roadside selling roasted plantains. She says she has given up buying fish from the beach because there is simply no catch coming in as there used to be, and that the trade she knew for most of her life has effectively disappeared.
PROMISES ON PAPER
The Marine Fisheries Management Plan contained several major interventions intended to rebuild depleted fish stocks: annual closed fishing seasons for all fleets, a national network of Marine Protected Areas, enforcement of minimum net mesh sizes, a total ban on monofilament nets, stronger action against Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, and the comprehensive registration and capacity capping of the artisanal canoe fleet. Of five potential sanctuary sites initially identified, only the Greater Cape Three Points Marine Protected Area has been formally established.
Mame Esi Bordah Quayson, Director of the Fisheries Commission, noted during a recent Environmental Journalism Network workshop that implementation has been guided by a Technical Advisory Committee, with earlier support from the United States Agency for International Development.
The protected zone covers roughly 700 square kilometres and 60 kilometres of coastline, encompassing 21 communities, including Akwidaa, Achonwa, Upper Dixcove, Lower Dixcove and Akatakye ane Cape Three Points. Yet it accounts for only about two per cent of Ghana’s territorial waters, well short of international biodiversity protection benchmarks. Communities, moreover, say they remain uncertain about the boundaries, restrictions and alternative livelihoods associated with the protected area. Mr Kofi Cosmos, Deputy Chief Fisherman at Akwidaa, says community support will depend on clarity and practical assistance. Fishers, he argues, cannot simply be expected to respect restrictions on traditional fishing grounds without knowing how their families will survive when those grounds are closed.
PROTECTION WITHOUT THE TOOLS
Nicholas Adre Mensah, a member of the local Marine Protected Area monitoring team, says surveillance units lack basic equipment, including patrol craft and fuel, and that without the means to patrol the waters, enforcing boundaries becomes extremely difficult.
Kofi Agbogah, Executive Director of the non-governmental organisation Hen Mpoano, says drawing boundaries on a map is only the first step. True ecological recovery, he argues, depends on sustained offshore monitoring, consistent enforcement, voluntary community compliance and viable alternative livelihoods for affected households.
THE CLOSED-SEASON QUESTION
Annual closed fishing seasons have become part of Ghana’s fisheries management calendar, but their conservation impact remains contested. One structural challenge is the exemption of large sections of the artisanal sector during certain closures, leaving more than 14,000 canoes actively fishing while vulnerable stocks are supposed to be recovering. The consequences show in the decline of small pelagic fish, an important source of affordable protein for low-income households: Fisheries Scientific and Survey Division data shows annual sardinella catches have fallen from peaks above 100,000 metric tons in the 1990s to less than 15,000 metric tons in recent years.
Kwesi Egyir, a canoe owner at Lower Discove, points to illegal light-attraction fishing and the continued use of fine-mesh nets as practices destroying local livelihoods. His colleague, Kweku Ansah, says closing the sea for one month changes little if destructive fishing practices continue unchecked.
LAWS WITHOUT ENFORCEMENT
Ghana has regulations prohibiting monofilament nets and prescribing minimum mesh sizes to allow juvenile fish to escape and mature. Yet illegal gear remains widely used at major landing centres, including Tema and Sekondi — the problem is not the absence of laws, but the persistent difficulty of enforcing them at the beach and on the water.
More than 12,000 motorised wooden canoes operate from 279 landing sites across 187 communities, harvesting roughly 70 per cent of Ghana’s marine catch. The industrial fleet, by contrast, is about 45 licensed trawlers operating mainly from Tema and Takoradi. To protect small-scale fishers, recent regulatory changes expanded the Exclusive Zone for Artisanal Fishers from six to 12 nautical miles offshore.
Yet Cosmos and other fishermen along Cape Three Points say industrial trawlers continue to enter these protected coastal waters, often under cover of darkness — raising questions over whether state agencies are tracking incursions through satellite-based Vessel Monitoring Systems, how many have resulted in sanctions, and whether penalties are strong enough to deter repeat violations.
THE COST OF A DEPLETED SEA
Official figures from the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development (MOFAD) and the Ghana Statistical Service show that the fisheries sector contributes one to 1.5 per cent directly to Ghana’s GDP, rising to roughly 4.5 per cent with the wider value chain included, generating more than US$1 billion annually and supporting approximately three million direct and indirect livelihoods.
Research in Frontiers in Marine Science estimates IUU fishing costs West Africa US$1.95 billion to US$2.3 billion annually in lost revenues and resource rents, while the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development cites studies showing unrecorded or illicit harvests account for 37 to 60 per cent of total catches in West African waters.
At Achonwa, Auntie Efua Attaa, a fishmonger, puts it starkly: ten processors, she says, can be forced to compete for just two small basins of fish, with some returning home without enough income to cover their costs. The statistics are measured in tonnes and dollars, but on the beach, the loss is measured in empty baskets, unpaid debts and families struggling to survive.
INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE
Ghana’s struggle with illegal fishing has also attracted international trade pressure. In 2021, the European Union issued Ghana a second yellow card over deficiencies in controlling illegal fishing, having previously received — and lifted — a yellow card between 2013 and 2015. Failure to address enforcement weaknesses risks a red card that could shut Ghanaian seafood exports out of European markets. Receiving two yellow cards within such a short period, Agbogah said, points to deeper failures in fisheries governance. Although the Ministry has introduced institutional reforms, progress toward lifting the warning has not been adequately communicated to the public. Ghana’s fish production peaked at 628,617 tonnes in 2021 before falling sharply — pre-independence Ghana, with fewer than six million people, harvested abundant fish with a much smaller fleet, while today’s population of more than 30 million depends on an over-capitalised fleet of about 12,000 canoes exploiting shrinking resources, even as financing for offshore patrols remains constrained by shifting donor support.
THE SCORECARD
Measured against its original ambitions, Ghana’s Marine Fisheries Management Plan presents a mixed and troubling scorecard. There has been progress in policy development, fleet registration and closed fishing seasons. But major gaps remain: the Marine Protected Area network is incomplete, illegal fishing remains widespread, fine-mesh nets continue to be used, and industrial incursions into artisanal fishing areas persist.
“A management plan cannot be judged by drafted commitments or workshops, but by whether fish stocks recover and families can sustain themselves,” Cosmos says in Twi.
Scientists estimate strict enforcement could restore small pelagic stocks within five to 10 years, strengthening food security. But restoration needs more than another policy document — enforcement that reaches the water, monitoring systems that work, penalties that deter illegal operators, and communities that see conservation as a pathway to survival rather than a threat to their livelihoods.
Professor F. K. E. Nunoo of the University of Ghana in response to a questionnaire says community co-management cannot mean transferring responsibilities without giving communities the resources, legal authority and information to perform them effectively.
THE FINAL VERDICT
Back at Akwidaa, Francis Dadzie mends his nets in the midday heat. In Dixcove, Kwesi Egyir and Kweku Ansah look out over an increasingly empty sea. At Achonwa, women sit beside cold-smoking trays, waiting for fish that may never arrive. And in Lower Dixcove, Victoria Bolor turns plantains over charcoal, having left behind the fish-processing trade that sustained her for more than two decades. Their struggles offer the clearest verdict on Ghana’s marine fisheries strategy. The plan may have set out an ambitious framework for restoring the country’s oceans, but it ultimately has to be measured not by the quality of its language, but by what happens to fish stocks and the people whose lives depend on them.
If implementation fails to enforce the rules on the water, Ghana risks losing more than its fish. It risks losing the coastal communities, livelihoods and food systems that have anchored generations along its shores. The window to act is rapidly closing. This article was produced with support from EJN.
