Oceana Calls on Governments to Prioritize Coastal Communities at Our Ocean Conference 2026 in Mombasa

Ahead of the 11th Our Ocean Conference (OOC11) in Mombasa, Kenya (June 16–18, 2026), Oceana issued a formal call to action on June 3, 2026, urging attending governments to place the needs and livelihoods of small-scale fishing communities and Indigenous coastal peoples at the centre of ocean policy commitments. Oceana's statement, distributed via GlobeNewswire, stressed that ocean ecosystem health and the food security of hundreds of millions of coastal people are inextricably linked — and that conservation pledges which sideline local communities are likely to fail in implementation. The Star (Kenya) provided local coverage, including Oceana's announcement that actor and ocean advocate Kate Walsh would attend OOC11 as an Oceana spokesperson in Mombasa. OOC11 is the first Our Ocean Conference held on the African continent, and its Mombasa location adds substantive weight: Indian Ocean coral reefs, critical to the food security and coastal economies of East African nations, face existential threats from ocean warming and bleaching. Since its founding in 2014, the Our Ocean Conference series has generated over $169 billion in global ocean commitments. Oceana specifically called for binding pledges on: sustainable fisheries management, fisheries transparency through publicly accessible vessel monitoring data, reduction of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, and robust financing for MPA enforcement in developing nations. The pre-conference advocacy comes as analysts warn that current pledges fall billions of dollars per year short of the investment needed to achieve the 30x30 ocean protection target by 2030.