Global ocean protection is no simple equation

The global ambition to protect 30% of the world’s land and ocean by 2030 – known simply as “30x30 (Opens in new window)” – has helped galvanise governments, conservation organisations (Opens in new window), and international institutions (Opens in new window) around a common goal: reverse biodiversity loss and safeguard the ecosystems upon which life depends.

Global targets matter. They create focus, urgency, and accountability. Without ambitious goals, environmental action can easily drift.

Targets also have limitations. A percentage can tell us how much ocean is protected, for example. It cannot tell us whether protection is effective, legitimate, equitable, or enduring. Nor can it tell us whether conservation is strengthening relationships between people and the ocean or simply redrawing lines on a map.

French Polynesia’s recent marine protection announcements (Opens in new window) offer one example of this emerging approach. For much of modern conservation history, protection has often been understood through separation (Opens in new window). Areas of ecological significance are identified and human activities restricted or removed – action that can in some circumstances be appropriate and necessary. While establishing one of the world’s largest marine protected areas, the model in French Polynesia moves beyond a simple binary of extraction versus exclusion. The framework also recognises traditional artisanal fishing practices within designated zones, rather than treating all human activity as incompatible with conservation. Its significance lies not only in its scale, but in its effort to embed protection within existing relationships of guardianship.

History offers clear lessons. Conservation initiatives have not always strengthened relationships between communities and ecosystems, but instead implied that protection begins when people are excluded. The ocean becomes something to observe, research, or photograph, but not necessarily something with which people actively live, sustain, and nourish in relationship.

In some regions, Indigenous peoples found themselves excluded from traditional practices through conservation measures designed without their participation. Debates surrounding Indigenous whaling (Opens in new window) rights in the Arctic illustrate how biodiversity protection and cultural continuity can come into tension when governance frameworks fail to recognise longstanding relationships of guardianship. These experiences are a reminder that conservation outcomes are shaped not only by what is protected, but by how protection is governed.

Much of modern environmental governance is framed around rights, ownership, management, and access. Yet many coastal and island societies understand their relationship with the ocean through a different lens. For many small island states and coastal communities (Opens in new window), the ocean cannot be reduced to a resource, a protected area, or an economic asset. It is a source of identity, responsibility, livelihood and belonging. Relationships are maintained (Opens in new window) through customary governance systems, guardianship practices (Opens in new window), and intergenerational obligations that long predate contemporary conservation frameworks.

From this perspective, conservation does not begin with protection. Guardianship already exists. It is part of the relationships (Opens in new window) through which people understand who they are, where they belong, and what is required of them. The question is how governance systems can recognise, strengthen, and support these relationships.

Although cultural traditions differ profoundly, many begin from a shared recognition that relationships generate responsibilities. Responsibility is not merely a choice, or policy objective, but a duty (Opens in new window) that arises from belonging.

The challenges facing the ocean are complex and interconnected: biodiversity loss, climate change, ocean acidification, pollution, offshore energy development, blue finance, shipping and competing claims over ocean space and the reshaping of marine environments at scales not seen before. Protected areas remain essential tools, but they operate within broader systems of governance that will increasingly determine how societies balance ecological integrity, economic development and social legitimacy.

The ocean resists many assumptions inherited from terrestrial governance systems. Currents cross jurisdictions, species migrate across exclusive economic zones, and pollution ignores political boundaries. The ocean is not easily divided into isolated units of management.

In this context, guardianship may offer a useful frame. While stewardship is often understood as the responsible management of resources, guardianship points towards a deeper ethical relationship. Guardianship places greater emphasis on responsibility, and protection. A guardian does not simply manage an asset or the marine estate; a guardian acts on behalf of, and in defence of, that which is entrusted to their care.Guardianship begins not with ownership or control, but with responsibility. It recognises that people are not separate from the systems they seek to conserve but remain embedded (Opens in new window) within them.

None of this diminishes the importance of 30x30. Expanding marine protection remains essential if biodiversity loss is to be halted and ocean ecosystems restored. But conservation targets alone cannot determine what successful protection looks like. Success may ultimately be measured not only by the percentage of ocean enclosed within protected boundaries, but by an ability to cultivate forms of responsibility, legitimacy, and guardianship that endure across generations.