Next week, global leaders, conservationists, investors, development partners, and ocean advocates will converge in Mombasa for the Our Ocean Conference 2026 to discuss the future of ocean conservation, sustainable fisheries, climate resilience, and the blue economy.
The conference presents an opportunity for Kenya to showcase its rich marine biodiversity and leadership in ocean governance. Yet as delegates gather to discuss protecting the ocean, a critical question remains: what happens when the communities that depend on the ocean are steadily losing access to it? Kenya's coastline has long been one of the country's greatest ecological and economic assets. Its mangroves, coral reefs, beaches, and marine ecosystems support tourism, fisheries, and thousands of livelihoods.
According to the Kenya Tourism Board, Kenya earned approximately KSh452 billion from international tourism in 2025, with the coast remaining one of the country's most important tourism destinations. However, beneath this success story lies a growing crisis facing coastal communities. Across the Kenyan coast, fisherfolk communities are increasingly raising concerns over the encroachment, irregular acquisition, and privatization of fish landing sites and public beach access areas by private investors and politically connected individuals.
These sites are not idle spaces. They are critical public utility areas that support fishing, fish handling, processing, trade, and transport. Without them, fishing communities lose their connection to the ocean and the livelihoods it sustains. Beach Management Units (BMUs), which are legally recognized under the Fisheries Management and Development Act, 2016, warn that many fish landing sites remain undocumented, untitled, and vulnerable to dispossession. In many coastal areas, communities report increasing competition for land arising from tourism infrastructure, private coastal developments, speculative land acquisition, and other commercial interests.
The challenge is further compounded by shrinking access to traditional fishing grounds and coastal resources. While initiatives such as mangrove restoration and blue carbon projects are important for climate resilience and ecosystem protection, communities argue that conservation efforts must be implemented in ways that protect both ecosystems and the rights of the people who depend on them. Conservation should not inadvertently exclude the very communities that have acted as custodians of these ecosystems for generations.
The risks are not theoretical. In February 2024, the Environment and Land Court in Malindi declared the irregular allocation of a public beach access corridor in Kilifi unconstitutional and ordered its restoration.
The court affirmed that beach access areas are public land held in trust for the benefit of residents and the wider public. The ruling highlighted growing tensions along the coast as communities increasingly fear losing access to traditional fishing spaces due to speculative development and rising land pressures. What is happening along Kenya's coastline is not merely a land issue. It is a livelihood, governance, and environmental justice issue. Once fish landing sites are lost, communities lose access to fish markets, income opportunities, food security, and cultural heritage linked to the sea. Women involved in fish processing and trade are often disproportionately affected, while young people face shrinking economic opportunities in an already fragile coastal economy.
These concerns speak directly to the themes that will dominate discussions at the Our Ocean Conference. Around the world, governments and development partners are increasingly recognizing that successful ocean conservation depends on the meaningful participation and inclusion of local communities. Yet along Kenya's coastline, many fisherfolk remain uncertain about the future of the very spaces that connect them to the ocean.
If Kenya is serious about advancing a sustainable and inclusive blue economy, then securing fish landing sites must become a national priority. There is an urgent need for the national and county governments to support the identification, adjudication, gazettement, and titling of fish landing sites as protected public utility and community-use spaces. Such measures would safeguard livelihoods, strengthen fisheries governance, reduce land-related conflicts, and protect public access to the ocean.
As the world gathers in Mombasa next week, Kenya has an opportunity to demonstrate that ocean conservation and community rights are not competing priorities but mutually reinforcing objectives. Protecting fish landing sites, public access corridors, and the tenure rights of coastal communities should be viewed as central pillars of ocean governance and blue economy development. Ultimately, there can be no sustainable ocean without secure coastal communities. The success of Kenya's blue economy should not be measured solely by tourism revenues, conservation commitments, or investment figures, but also by whether the communities that have sustained these ecosystems for generations can continue to access the ocean that sustains their livelihoods, culture, and identity.
As delegates deliberate the future of our oceans in Mombasa, they must remember that ocean justice begins at the shoreline.
Muturi Kamau is the National Coordinator of the Kenya Oil and Gas Working Group (KOGWG) and works on community land rights, natural resource governance, and coastal community advocacy in Kenya.
