Dr Evans Kwasi Arizi, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences at the University of Cape Coast, has called for stronger collaboration and increased funding to ensure the effective management of Ghana’s newly established Marine Protected Area (MPA).

Dr Arizi cautioned that without proper management and sustained support, the country risked turning the MPA into a “paper park,” stressing the need for greater commitment to ensure its success.

Dr Arizi, who also serves as Chair of the Technical Advisory Committee on Marine Protected Areas in Ghana, made the remarks during a National Workshop on Marine Protected Areas and Data Collection for Marine Spatial Planning held at Aburi in the Eastern Region.

According to him, Ghana had successfully established its first-ever Marine Protected Area, but the real challenge now lay in ensuring effective implementation, monitoring and long-term sustainability.

“Ghana has succeeded in establishing its first-ever MPA, but it needs to be well managed because you do not want it to be a paper park,” he stated.

He explained that managing marine protected areas within the West African sub-region remained both difficult and expensive, making collaboration among government institutions, development partners, researchers and other stakeholders critical.

“In our part of the world, managing an MPA is herculean, and it is also expensive. This is where collaboration becomes very important,” he said.

Dr Arizi commended organisers of the workshop, describing it as a step in the right direction towards strengthening the management framework for the country’s marine protected area system.

He noted that the workshop provided stakeholders the opportunity to make additional technical inputs into an existing roadmap developed by the Technical Advisory Group on Marine Protected Areas.

According to him, participants reviewed and refined aspects of the roadmap and assigned estimated budgets to key activities required for the management and monitoring of the MPA.

“We even went to the extent of quantifying some of the activities and allocating estimated budgets to the various activities,” he explained.

Dr Arizi expressed optimism that the costing of activities would help attract support from funding organisations and development partners interested in marine conservation and fisheries sustainability.

He stressed that MPAs remained an important fisheries management tool capable of supporting the recovery and sustainability of Ghana’s fish stocks when combined with other fisheries management measures.

“We cannot allow this MPA to fail because it is an important management measure that can help sustain our fish stocks,” he stated.

He added that deliberations at the three-day workshop were expected to produce practical recommendations and strengthen efforts aimed at ensuring the success of Ghana’s Marine Protected Area initiative.