Essam Yassin Mohammed
On World Oceans Day, we are often invited to admire the ocean: its beauty, its vastness, its mystery. We speak of blue horizons, coral reefs, whales, waves and wonder.
All of that is true. But it is not enough.
The ocean is not simply a place we visit, photograph or romanticise in speeches. It is part of the machinery of life on Earth. It shapes the air we breathe, the climate we depend on, the food we eat, and the livelihoods of millions of families whose names rarely appear in global declarations.
The official theme for World Oceans Day 2026 is “Reimagine”. That is exactly what we must do. But reimagining the ocean must mean something harder than renewing our appreciation of its beauty. It must mean governing it honestly — for the planet, yes, but also for the people it feeds.
For too long, the ocean has been treated as either a victim or a resource. When we see it only as a victim, we focus on what must be saved. When we see it only as a resource, we focus on what can be extracted. Both views are incomplete.
The ocean is a relationship. It gives, absorbs, regulates, feeds, employs, connects and remembers. And like all relationships, it cannot survive neglect, abuse or one-sided expectations.
This is not poetry. It is policy.
The Future of Food Will be Written in Water
According to FAO’s latest State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture report, global fisheries and aquaculture production reached a record 223.2 million tonnes in 2022, comprising 185.4 million tonnes of aquatic animals and 37.8 million tonnes of algae. For the first time, aquaculture produced more aquatic animals than capture fisheries, accounting for 51 percent of global aquatic animal production.
That shift should make the world pause.
It tells us that the future of food will not be written only in fields, forests and farms on land. It will also be written in ponds, rivers, deltas, coastlines and seas — shaped by the small-scale fisher in Kenya, the fish farmer in Timor-Leste, the hatchery owner in Bangladesh, the woman processing fish in Nigeria, the seaweed farmer in the Pacific, and the young entrepreneur trying to build a dignified life in the blue economy.
And yet aquatic foods remain strangely invisible in global conversations about food security.
We talk about hunger, but not enough about fish. We talk about nutrition, but not enough about the small fish, shellfish and aquatic plants that carry essential micronutrients into the diets of millions. We talk about climate-smart agriculture, but not enough about climate-resilient aquatic food systems. We talk about jobs for young people, especially across Africa and Asia, but not enough about the ocean and inland waters as sources of enterprise, dignity and opportunity.
This invisibility has consequences.
When small-scale fisheries are ignored, coastal communities are left out of decisions that determine their survival. When aquaculture is ignored, countries miss opportunities to produce healthy food in ways that can reduce pressure on land and natural ecosystems when managed responsibly. When aquatic ecosystems are ignored, climate adaptation weakens — because mangroves, wetlands, reefs and coastal systems are not scenery. They are infrastructure.
Protection Alone is not Transformation
In just over a week, world leaders, scientists, investors and civil society will gather in Mombasa, Kenya, for the 11th Our Ocean Conference — the first ever held on African soil. That matters.
It matters because Africa’s ocean story is too often told through the language of crisis: overfishing, illegal fishing, coastal erosion, pollution, vulnerability and loss. These challenges are real. But they are not the whole story.
Africa is also a continent of ocean leadership, coastal knowledge, youthful enterprise, food system innovation and blue economy potential. From the Western Indian Ocean to West Africa, from small-scale fisheries to aquaculture, from mangrove restoration to digital monitoring, the continent has much to teach the world about what it means to live with the ocean, not merely extract from it.
The commitments that will be made in Mombasa on marine protection, biodiversity, finance and the blue economy are important. The 30x30 agenda and the High Seas Treaty represent real steps forward.
But protection alone is not transformation.
Conservation cannot succeed if it treats coastal communities as problems to be managed rather than partners to be trusted. A fisher who has inherited knowledge across generations is not an obstacle to ocean protection. A woman who dries, smokes, trades or processes fish is not peripheral to the blue economy. A young person building a living from aquaculture is not separate from climate adaptation.
These are the people through whom ocean solutions become real.
Five Breaks with Old Thinking
The future we need is not a choice between ocean protection and human development. It is a new settlement between the two.
That settlement requires five breaks with old thinking.
First, We must stop treating aquatic foods as a footnote in food policy. In much of the world, fish is not a luxury. It is one of the most accessible sources of animal-source food and essential micronutrients. It is also culture, income and identity. A food security strategy that ignores fish is not fit for the world we live in.
Second, we must stop confusing ocean protection with ocean exclusion. Marine protection matters. Biodiversity matters. But conservation that pushes coastal communities to the margins will not endure. The people who fish, farm, process and trade aquatic foods must be treated not as pressure on the ocean, but as partners in its recovery.
In Timor-Leste, women such as Xandriña da Conceição and Rosita Gomes remind us what this means. Xandriña’s fishing helps her family eat, earn and plan for the future. Rosita has built a seaweed business that supports food, housing and education in her family. Their stories are not marginal to the ocean economy. They are the ocean economy.
Third, we must stop allowing innovation to get stranded before it reaches people. Excellent science matters. Publications, pilots and promising technologies are essential. But in development, they are not the final destination. Science fulfils its purpose when better genetics, fish health systems, digital tools, improved feeds and post-harvest innovations change what happens in hatcheries, farms, landing sites, markets and households.
Again, Timor-Leste shows what is possible when evidence, partnership and long-term delivery come together. Through the Partnership for Aquaculture Development in Timor-Leste, long-term investment has helped move aquaculture from small pilots to a national model. Farmers and value chain actors are now producing more fish, building local markets and increasing access to nutritious food.
Fourth, we must stop building the blue economy from the top down. Ports, shipping, offshore energy and finance all matter. But if the blue economy does not create dignity, income and opportunity for women, young people and coastal communities, it risks becoming just another extractive economy painted blue.
In Kenya and the Western Indian Ocean, digital tools such as Peskas offer a glimpse of a different future: one in which small-scale fishers can make their journeys visible, use their own data, improve safety at sea and contribute to better management. That kind of innovation does not replace local knowledge. It strengthens it.
Fifth, we must stop funding ocean ambition with leftover money. The ocean is central to food security, climate resilience, biodiversity and livelihoods, yet ocean action is still too often financed as an environmental afterthought. If we want aquatic foods, coastal resilience, small-scale fisheries, responsible aquaculture and blue economy enterprises to scale, they need serious investment: public finance, concessional capital, private sector participation, philanthropy and locally rooted financial mechanisms.
The point is not simply to fund more projects. It is to build pathways that allow good ideas to travel — from regional platforms that help countries produce more of their own aquatic foods, to venture approaches that can move proven innovations from research into responsible scale.
Promises made at global conferences must be matched by budgets, instruments and delivery models. Otherwise, the ocean will remain overpraised and underfunded.
Learning to Think like Water
This is the deeper meaning of reimagining the ocean.
It is not only about drawing new lines on maps or making new pledges at conferences. It is about admitting that the boundaries we created between land and sea, food and nature, climate and livelihoods, science and delivery, are no longer fit for purpose.
The ocean has always known this. Rivers flow into seas. Fish move across borders. Storms do not respect ministries. Markets connect villages to cities and continents. Ecology is not organised according to our institutions.
So our institutions must learn to think more like water: connected, adaptive, responsive and alive.
The question today is not whether the ocean matters. That case has been made many times over. The question is whether we are ready to act as if it matters — in our budgets, our policies, our investments and our political declarations.
If we are serious about ending hunger, we must be serious about aquatic foods.
If we are serious about climate resilience, we must be serious about the people on its frontlines.
If we are serious about equity, we must recognise the women and men whose labour feeds millions but remains undervalued.
And if we are serious about the ocean, we must stop treating it as background.
The ocean is not a postcard. It is a pantry, a workplace, a climate shield, a memory, a culture, a home and a promise.
And promises must be kept.
Cover photo: A fish processor on Mafia Island, Tanzania, offloading small pelagic fish from a fishing vessel onto the shore, preparing them for processing. Photo by Festo Lumwe.