72 vessels, 17,336 fishing hours: The monitoring gap at Ghana’s first Marine Protected Area
Five months after Ghana declared its first protected ocean zone, there are no marked boundaries, operational patrols or government funding – and fishermen say they do not know where the protected area begins or ends. Ghana’s first marine protected area is missing from one of the world’s leading open-access systems for monitoring fishing activity at sea. The 703.86 sq km Greater Cape Three Points Marine Protected Area, declared by Ghana on 14 April 2026, does not currently appear as a separately operationalised boundary on Global Fishing Watch, a platform used to visualise and analyse vessel activity. That means activity cannot be isolated specifically within the protected area using the platform. The absence does not establish that fishing vessels have entered the protected area. Rather, it reflects a more fundamental problem: five months after Ghana declared the MPA, the zone has not yet been fully operationalised on the ground or in the digital systems that can help authorities and researchers monitor activity within it.