On 14 April 2026, Ghana's Vice President Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang announced the country's first-ever marine protected area: 703 square kilometres of ocean at Greater Cape Three Points, on Ghana's southernmost tip. It's the result of more than 15 years of conservation advocacy finally becoming policy.
15+ years of advocacy, one 703-square-kilometre marine protected area — Ghana's first ever.
The site matters less for its size than for what it protects. Greater Cape Three Points is a key spawning and nursery ground for the small pelagic fish — the sardinella and anchovies that swim near the surface — that Ghana's coastal fishing communities have relied on for generations, and that have been steadily depleted by decades of overfishing. The protected area is split into a core zone, where no fishing is permitted at all, and surrounding multiple-use zones where regulated fishing and other activity can continue.
Built On Years of Groundwork
It doesn't arrive alone. Ghana has been building toward this for years: seasonal fisheries closures, a three-year moratorium introduced in 2023 on new canoes entering the artisanal fishery, a trawl gear directive, and a full reclassification and registration of the country's fishing vessels. The new MPA is designed to work alongside those measures, not replace them — giving fish stocks a place to actually recover rather than just fishing them more carefully everywhere else.
It's a small patch of ocean by global standards. But it's the first of its kind for Ghana, and a template other West African nations are already watching.
Image credit: Palm-lined tropical coastline, Ghana