Nairobi Convention 1985: WIO marine environment framework

Background: UNEP Regional Seas Programme + the Eastern African region

The UNEP Regional Seas Programme (RSP) was launched in 1974 as the operational vehicle for delivering UNCLOS Article 197 obligations on regional cooperation for the protection of the marine environment, with the Mediterranean as its first regional case. By the early 1980s the Programme had identified the Eastern African region as a priority case alongside the parallel work in West and Central Africa. The Eastern African region in UNEP nomenclature comprises the Indian Ocean margin of Africa from the Horn of Africa in the north to the boundary with the South African Atlantic coast at Cape Agulhas in the south, together with the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) island states that lie offshore: the Comoros archipelago in the Mozambique Channel, Madagascar as the world’s fourth-largest island, Mauritius with its dependencies including Rodrigues, Reunion and Mayotte (the two French overseas departments and collectivities) and the Seychelles archipelago of granitic and coralline islands.

The Eastern African margin presented a distinctive set of pollution and ecosystem stressors. First, the regional oceanography is dominated by the East African Coastal Current, the Somali Current with its dramatic seasonal monsoon-driven reversal, the Agulhas Current sweeping warm Mozambique Channel waters southwards along the Mozambique-South Africa coast, and the cyclonic Mozambique Channel eddies that drive primary productivity along the channel margins. Second, the region hosts globally significant coral reef systems, mangrove forests (around 1.0 million hectares basin-wide) and seagrass meadows that anchor regional fisheries and coastal economies. Third, the region had emerged by the early 1980s as a focus of geopolitical attention: the 1977-1978 Ogaden War, the Cold War positioning in the Horn of Africa and the independence of Mozambique (1975) and Seychelles (1976) had reshaped the political map and created a need for an environmental cooperation framework that could include all coastal and island states regardless of political alignment.

UNEP responded by initiating an Action Plan for the Eastern African region in 1981 through a series of preparatory meetings convened in Nairobi, Mahe and Antananarivo. The negotiation phase produced two parallel documents: an Action Plan for the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Eastern African Region as the operational programme, and a binding framework Convention as the legal anchor. The dual structure mirrored the Mediterranean architecture (the 1975 Mediterranean Action Plan plus the 1976 Barcelona Convention), the West-and-Central African parallel (the 1981 Abidjan Convention) and the Caribbean (the 1981 Caribbean Action Plan plus the 1983 Cartagena Convention), with the Eastern African instrument completing the African regional-seas envelope on the Indian Ocean side.

1985 Nairobi signing + 1996 entry into force

The Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Eastern African Region convened in Nairobi from 17 to 21 June 1985. The Conference was hosted by the Government of Kenya under President Daniel arap Moi, and was supported by UNEP through its Nairobi headquarters under Executive Director Mostafa Tolba, who used the occasion to align the Eastern African work with the parallel Mediterranean, Caribbean and West-and-Central African programmes. The Conference adopted three instruments on the closing day, 21 June 1985: the Action Plan, the Convention and two Protocols on emergency pollution cooperation and on protected areas and wild flora and fauna.

The Convention required ratification by six states to enter into force under Article 25. The pace of ratification was slower than for the parallel Abidjan Convention: although Kenya, Seychelles and the Comoros deposited instruments early, the political turbulence of the late 1980s and early 1990s in Somalia (1991 collapse of the Siad Barre government), Mozambique (the protracted civil war until 1992) and Madagascar (recurring political crises) delayed several deposits. The sixth ratification, sufficient to trigger entry into force, was deposited only in 1996, leading to entry into force on 30 May 1996, almost eleven years after signature, one of the slowest entry-into-force trajectories among UNEP regional-seas instruments. The Emergency Pollution Cooperation Protocol and the Protected Areas Protocol entered into force on the same day.

The 1996 entry into force coincided with a turbulent decade for the region. The continued Somali state collapse, the 1994 Rwandan genocide and its East African aftermath, the post-civil-war reconstruction of Mozambique and the recurrent political instability in Madagascar drained both political attention and financial resources from environmental cooperation. The Convention machinery existed on paper from 1996 onwards but its operational delivery was thin: the first Conference of the Parties (COP) met in 1997, with subsequent COPs held at irregular intervals through the early 2000s. The pattern of episodic high-level commitment punctuated by long quiet intervals persisted into the 2010s, until the 2010 Mahe amendment reset the regime.

The 10 contracting parties (Somalia to South Africa + WIO islands)

As of 2026 the Nairobi Convention has 10 Contracting Parties, listed here in two groups corresponding to the continental and island sub-regions of the Eastern African region.

The continental Parties (north to south along the Indian Ocean African coast):

• Somalia (Horn of Africa, Indian Ocean coast from the Gulf of Aden boundary to the Kenya boundary).
• Kenya (continental coast from Kiunga to Vanga, plus the Lamu Archipelago).
• Tanzania (continental coast from Tanga to the Mozambique boundary, plus the Zanzibar archipelago of Unguja and Pemba and the Mafia Island).
• Mozambique (the longest continental coastline, from the Tanzania boundary at the Rovuma River to the South Africa boundary at Ponta do Ouro).
• South Africa (Indian Ocean coast east of Cape Agulhas, from the Mozambique boundary at Ponta do Ouro to the boundary with the Atlantic Abidjan Convention area).

The Western Indian Ocean island Parties:

• Comoros (the three independent islands: Grande Comore, Moheli and Anjouan).
• France (acting for Reunion and Mayotte, the two French overseas territories in the Mozambique Channel and southwest of Madagascar).
• Madagascar (the world’s fourth-largest island).
• Mauritius (the main island plus Rodrigues and the outer islands).
• Seychelles (the granitic Mahe group plus the coralline Aldabra and Farquhar groups).

The Convention text in 1985 contemplated a list of candidate states that has not changed materially: the operational figure as of 2026 is the 10 ratified parties above. The Parties divide into a continental sub-region (5 states), an independent WIO island sub-region (4 states: Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles) and the French overseas territories as a single Party.

The 10 Parties span an extraordinary range of state types: a failed-state-recovering coastal state (Somalia), three East African continental states with relatively long shipping and reef coasts (Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique), an industrially mature middle-income state with global shipping interests (South Africa), three small WIO island states with disproportionately large EEZs (Comoros, Mauritius, Seychelles), one mega-island state (Madagascar) and the French Republic as a global maritime power. The political and resource heterogeneity of the Parties is a recurring constraint on the regional work programme: a sewage-discharge or port-reception standard suitable for South African and French ports is not realistic for Somalia or the Comoros on a comparable timetable.

Geographical scope: ~12,000 km Indian Ocean coastline

The Convention area is defined in Article 2 of the 1985 text (and as expanded by the 2010 Mahe amendment) as the marine environment, coastal zones and related inland waters of the Indian Ocean from the boundary at the Horn of Africa to the boundary with the South African Atlantic coast at Cape Agulhas, plus the territorial seas and Exclusive Economic Zones of the Western Indian Ocean island states, with a seaward extent corresponding to the outer limit of the Exclusive Economic Zone under UNCLOS as ratified by each Party.

The combined coastline of the Eastern African region approaches approximately 12,000 km along the continental margin from Somalia through Mozambique. This is the conventional UNEP figure used in the Nairobi Convention State of the Coast reports and in the ASCLME Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis. The coastline is geomorphologically heterogeneous along its length:

• The Somali coast runs for around 3,300 km, the longest African coastline outside Madagascar, from the Gulf of Aden in the north (through Cape Guardafui / Ras Asir) to the Kenya boundary at Ras Kiamboni, predominantly arid sandy beach and coral-fringed reef coast with highly seasonal monsoon-driven productivity.
• The Kenyan coast runs for around 1,420 km, microtidal, fringing-reef-dominated, with the Lamu Archipelago and the Tana River delta in the north, and the deepwater port of Mombasa as the principal harbour.
• The Tanzanian coast runs for around 1,424 km on the mainland plus the Zanzibar Archipelago (Unguja and Pemba), a heavily indented coral-and-mangrove coast with extensive seagrass beds and the Rufiji River delta as the largest single estuarine system in East Africa.
• The Mozambican coast runs for around 2,500 km, the longest continental coastline in the Convention area, with the Quirimbas Archipelago in the north, the Mozambique Channel reef systems along the central coast, the Sofala Bank off the Zambezi delta and the Maputo Bay in the south.
• The South African Indian Ocean coast east of Cape Agulhas runs for around 2,800 km (the entire South African coast is around 3,900 km but only the eastern portion lies within the Nairobi Convention area), heavily wave-dominated and microtidal, with the iSimangaliso Wetland Park and the KwaZulu-Natal subtropical coast.
• The Comoros archipelago has a coastline of around 340 km across the four islands of Grande Comore, Moheli, Anjouan and (for France) Mayotte, all four of volcanic origin with fringing reefs.
• Madagascar has a coastline of around 4,830 km, the longest in the Convention area when measured at the same chart resolution as the continental coasts, with the Mozambique Channel coast in the west supporting the largest mangrove area in the region and the eastern coast facing the open Indian Ocean dominated by sandy beach and rocky shore.
• Mauritius plus Rodrigues plus the outer islands have a coastline of around 280 km, predominantly fringing-reef-protected coral coast with extensive lagoons.
• Seychelles has a coastline of around 490 km across the granitic Mahe group and the coralline Aldabra and Farquhar groups, with the Aldabra Atoll as the world’s second-largest raised coral atoll.
• Reunion has a coastline of around 207 km, basaltic volcanic with scattered fringing reef, and Mayotte has a coastline of around 185 km within a barrier-reef-enclosed lagoon.

The aggregate Convention area is not a closed sea like the Mediterranean or the Black Sea but a semi-open Indian Ocean margin with one major partially enclosed sub-basin: the Mozambique Channel, around 1,600 km long and 400 km wide, between the African mainland and Madagascar. The Mozambique Channel is the only candidate sub-basin within the Convention area for closed-sea pollution-budget approaches, and even there the channel is open at both ends to the broader Indian Ocean circulation. That openness means regional pollution control must focus on point sources and coastal-zone management rather than on basin-wide load reduction.

Secretariat: UN Environment Nairobi Regional Office

The Convention is administered by the Nairobi Convention Secretariat, hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme at its global headquarters compound in Gigiri, Nairobi, Kenya. The Secretariat is a unit within the UNEP Ecosystems Division and reports through the UNEP Regional Seas Programme coordination structure to the Executive Director of UNEP. The choice of Nairobi as the seat was a function of the city already hosting the UNEP global headquarters, which made co-location operationally efficient and politically uncontroversial: the Eastern African region is the only UNEP regional-seas region whose Secretariat is co-located with UNEP global headquarters.

The Secretariat’s mandate under Article 16 of the 1985 Convention (as expanded by the 2010 Mahe amendment) covers:

• Convening the Conference of the Parties (COP) at intervals of two to three years and managing intersessional work.
• Servicing the work programme adopted by the COP, including the work programmes of subsidiary bodies such as the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee and the Forum of Heads of National Focal Points.
• Liaising with UNEP global divisions (Marine and Freshwater Branch, Ecosystems Division, Law Division) and with partner agencies (UNESCO IOC, FAO, IMO, UNDP, World Bank, Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, WIOMSA).
• Mobilising donor funding under successive GEF cycles for the major regional projects (ASCLME, WIO-LaB, WIO-SAP, WIO-MPA Outlook), under EU Indian Ocean envelopes, and under bilateral support from Sida, NORAD, French AFD and the Indian government.
• Acting as the technical backbone for the Parties on regional reporting under MEAs (CBD, CMS, Ramsar, World Heritage, MARPOL Annex I-VI as relevant).

The Secretariat budget is small relative to the geographic scope of the Convention: the regular UNEP allocation funds two to three professional posts and a handful of administrative posts, and the substantive work programme is overwhelmingly funded by extra-budgetary contributions through the GEF projects, the EU envelopes and the bilateral donors.

1985 Convention + 2 original protocols

The 1985 Nairobi Convention text is structured as a typical UNEP regional-seas framework convention: a brief operative text of 30 articles setting out the obligations of the Parties in general terms (preventive measures against pollution from ships, dumping, land-based sources, exploration and exploitation of the seabed, atmospheric deposition, environmental impact assessment, scientific cooperation, emergency response, liability and compensation, dispute settlement) and providing for substantive obligations to be elaborated through subsequent Protocols.

The Convention was adopted together with two Protocols on the same day, 21 June 1985:

• The Protocol Concerning Cooperation in Combating Marine Pollution in Cases of Emergency in the Eastern African Region (the “Emergency Pollution Cooperation Protocol”).
• The Protocol Concerning Protected Areas and Wild Fauna and Flora in the Eastern African Region (the “Protected Areas Protocol”).

Both Protocols entered into force on the same day as the parent Convention, 30 May 1996, having been ratified by the same six states in parallel. Article 21 of the Convention provides that ratification of the Convention does not automatically bind a Party to a Protocol; a Party must separately ratify each Protocol. As of 2026 all current Parties have ratified the Emergency Pollution and the Protected Areas Protocols, with the LBSA Protocol (2010) ratified by the majority of Parties as of its 2017 entry into force.

The Convention sits within the broader UNEP RSP architecture. It is conceptually parallel to the Abidjan Convention 1981 for the Atlantic-African margin, the Barcelona Convention 1976/1995 for the Mediterranean and the Cartagena Convention 1983 for the Wider Caribbean. It does not reproduce the detailed regulatory machinery of the IMO instruments (the MARPOL Convention and its Annexes including the Annex I oil-pollution regime and the Reg 15 oil-discharge criteria, the Ballast Water Management Convention) but instead provides the regional cooperation backbone that supports their implementation. The Convention does not establish a regional PSSA by its own operation; PSSA designation requires a separate IMO submission under MEPC procedures, and no such submission has succeeded for any part of the Eastern African region as of 2026.

Emergency Pollution Cooperation Protocol (1985)

The Protocol Concerning Cooperation in Combating Marine Pollution in Cases of Emergency in the Eastern African Region was adopted alongside the parent Convention on 21 June 1985 and entered into force on 30 May 1996. The Protocol obliges the Parties to cooperate in:

• Maintaining and promoting contingency plans for combating pollution from oil and other harmful substances.
• Establishing and maintaining means of combating such pollution, including national stockpiles of dispersants, booms, skimmers and recovery vessels at the principal regional ports (Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, Maputo, Durban, Port Louis, Victoria-Mahe, Toamasina, Antsiranana).
• Sharing information and technical assistance in the event of emergencies, including notification of pollution incidents to neighbouring Parties and to the Secretariat.
• Coordinating regional response operations through designated National Operational Contact Points and through the Secretariat’s clearinghouse function.

The Protocol is the regional analogue of the OPRC Convention 1990 and the OPRC-HNS Protocol 2000, the IMO global instruments on oil and hazardous-and-noxious-substance pollution preparedness and response. The Nairobi Emergency Protocol was negotiated in 1984-1985, before the OPRC Convention was concluded in 1990, and its drafting reflects the pre-OPRC state of art. The Protocol does not regulate ship operations or vessel-source discharges (those are the province of MARPOL); it establishes the regional cooperation framework for response after a discharge has occurred or is threatened.

In operation the Emergency Protocol has been activated infrequently. The most consequential potential activation was the MV Wakashio grounding off Mauritius on 25 July 2020, when the Japanese-flagged Newcastlemax bulk carrier ran aground on the Pointe d’Esny reef and discharged around 1,000 tonnes of low-sulphur fuel oil into the lagoon, contaminating the Blue Bay Marine Park and the Pointe d’Esny Ramsar wetland. The response was led by the Mauritian Government with bilateral support from France, Japan and India and technical input from ITOPF and IMO; the Nairobi Convention Secretariat played a coordinating and reporting role rather than a direct response role, reflecting the limited operational capacity of the regional regime.

Protected Areas + Wild Flora/Fauna Protocol (1985)

The Protocol Concerning Protected Areas and Wild Fauna and Flora in the Eastern African Region was adopted alongside the parent Convention on 21 June 1985 and entered into force on 30 May 1996. The Protocol obliges the Parties to:

• Establish and manage Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in their respective coastal and marine zones for the conservation of representative ecosystems, threatened species and habitats of cultural or scientific value.
• Protect listed species of wild fauna and flora through national legislation and through cooperation with neighbouring Parties on transboundary species (sea turtles, marine mammals, sharks).
• Cooperate in the management of transboundary protected areas including those that straddle EEZ boundaries (notably between Mozambique and South Africa at the Maputo Bay-Maputaland transboundary park).
• Maintain annexes of protected species with three categories (Annex I endangered, Annex II vulnerable, Annex III subject to regulated exploitation).

The Protocol’s implementation rests primarily on national MPA networks. As of 2026 the Eastern African region hosts a substantial MPA estate, including the Watamu Marine National Park (Kenya, 1968, one of Africa’s earliest MPAs), the Kisite-Mpunguti Marine Park (Kenya), the Mafia Island Marine Park (Tanzania), the Mnazi Bay-Ruvuma Estuary Marine Park (Tanzania), the Quirimbas National Park (Mozambique), the Bazaruto Archipelago National Park (Mozambique), the iSimangaliso Wetland Park (South Africa, UNESCO World Heritage), the Aldabra Atoll Special Reserve (Seychelles, UNESCO World Heritage), the Cousin Island Special Reserve (Seychelles), the Blue Bay Marine Park (Mauritius), the Moheli Marine Park (Comoros), and the Masoala National Park marine extension (Madagascar).

Despite the MPA estate, the regional MPA coverage as a percentage of EEZ remains below the 30 percent target set by the CBD Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) 30x30 goal. The 2010 Mahe amendment of the parent Convention strengthened the Secretariat’s mandate to support the MPA work programme, including the WIO-MPA Outlook publication series jointly produced with WIOMSA.

Protocols and amendment status: reference table

Note: the Amended Convention and the LBSA Protocol were both adopted at the Sixth Conference of the Parties in Mahe, Seychelles in April 2010. The LBSA Protocol entered into force on 27 December 2017 after ratification by the sixth Party. The amended Convention text is the operative version of the parent instrument across the Parties as of 2026; the Nairobi Convention Secretariat publishes and applies the amended 2010 text. A claim circulating in some secondary literature that the amended Convention formally entered into force in 2022 is not confirmed by the Nairobi Convention Secretariat’s published depositary records as of the date of this article; readers should consult the official Secretariat portal for the current formal entry-into-force status.

2010 Mahe Amended Convention

The Amended Nairobi Convention was adopted at the Sixth Conference of the Parties held at Mahe, Seychelles on 1 April 2010. The amendment was a thorough revision of the 1985 text, prompted by:

• The need to align the Convention with modern UNEP regional-seas drafting practice, particularly the language used in the 1995 Barcelona Convention amendments and the post-1990s OSPAR architecture.
• The need to incorporate modern environmental principles (the precautionary principle, polluter-pays principle, ecosystem approach, integrated coastal zone management).
• The need to expand the scope to cover land-based sources and activities explicitly, in preparation for the parallel adoption of the LBSA Protocol.
• The need to give the Secretariat a clearer mandate on financial mechanisms, capacity building and reporting.

The Mahe amendment retained the original Convention number and structure but rewrote the operative articles. Article 1 was redefined to extend the Convention area explicitly to include EEZs of all Parties (clarifying earlier ambiguity for the WIO island states); Article 4 added the precautionary and polluter-pays principles; Article 6 introduced an explicit obligation on each Party to develop and implement integrated coastal zone management; Article 8 expanded the obligations on land-based sources of pollution; Article 11 strengthened the EIA and SEA obligations.

The formal entry into force of the amended text required ratification by Contracting Parties under the standard UNEP convention procedure. In practice the Parties apply the amended text as the operative instrument through their COP decisions and national implementation, and the Nairobi Convention Secretariat publishes and administers the amended 2010 text. The practical effect is that the 2010 amendments govern the work programme across all 10 Parties as of 2026, regardless of the precise formal entry-into-force date recorded in the depositary.

Land-Based Sources Protocol (2010, in force 2017)

The Protocol for the Protection of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Western Indian Ocean from Land-Based Sources and Activities (the “LBSA Protocol”) was adopted at the Sixth Conference of the Parties held at Mahe, Seychelles, with the formal Protocol text dated 31 March 2010. The Protocol was negotiated under the parent Convention Article 7 mandate on land-based pollution sources, and its development was driven by the findings of the WIO-LaB project (2004-2010) which had established the dominant role of land-based sources in regional pollution loads.

The LBSA Protocol entered into force on 27 December 2017, following ratification by the sixth Party. As of 2026 the Protocol is the third Protocol in force under the Nairobi Convention regime, alongside the 1985 Emergency Pollution and Protected Areas Protocols. The total in-force protocol count is therefore three (Emergency 1985 + Protected Areas 1985 + LBSA 2017).

The LBSA Protocol’s substantive provisions cover:

• Pollution from urban wastewater (sewage), with obligations to develop and implement national wastewater management plans, technology-based effluent standards and ambient water-quality objectives.
• Pollution from agricultural runoff, with obligations on nutrient management (nitrogen and phosphorus loadings) and on pesticide management.
• Pollution from industrial sources, with obligations on Best Available Techniques (BAT) and Best Environmental Practice (BEP) for the major industrial sectors active in the region.
• Pollution from coastal modifications and physical alterations, including dredging, land reclamation and coastal infrastructure.
• Pollution from ports and harbours, with obligations on port reception facilities (linking to MARPOL Annex I-V port-reception requirements) and on stormwater management.
• Pollution from atmospheric deposition of land-based origin, including from coastal industrial emissions and from regional biomass burning.

The LBSA Protocol is modelled on the LBS Protocol of the Cartagena Convention (1999) and on the Barcelona LBS Protocol (1980, amended 1996), both of which were further evolved than the original 1985 Nairobi instruments and provided a template that the Mahe COP cycle drew on.

Hydrography: East African Coastal, Somali, Agulhas, Mozambique Channel

The Eastern African region is one of the most oceanographically dynamic regional seas in the world. The dominant current systems are:

• The East African Coastal Current (EACC), a year-round northward-flowing warm-water current along the coast of Tanzania and Kenya, fed by the South Equatorial Current bifurcation off the northern tip of Madagascar. The EACC carries warm, oligotrophic water and supports the fringing-reef ecosystems of the Tanzania-Kenya coast.
• The Somali Current, the textbook example of monsoon-reversal in regional oceanography. During the Southwest Monsoon (boreal summer, May to September) the Somali Current flows northwards along the Somali coast at speeds reaching 3 m/s, drives strong upwelling along the Somali shelf and exports filaments of cool nutrient-rich water into the Arabian Sea. During the Northeast Monsoon (boreal winter, November to March) the Somali Current reverses and flows southwards, weakening or eliminating the upwelling. The seasonal upwelling supports the seasonal Somali sardine and small-pelagic fishery.
• The Agulhas Current, the warm western-boundary current of the South Indian Ocean subtropical gyre, flowing southwards along the Mozambique-South Africa coast with speeds reaching 2.5 m/s on the inshore edge of the current core. The Agulhas Current carries warm Mozambique Channel water southwards and is one of the strongest western-boundary currents in the world.
• The Mozambique Channel eddies, large cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies that form at the northern entrance of the Mozambique Channel, drift southwards along the channel axis and ultimately feed the Agulhas Current. The eddies drive primary productivity along the channel margins and support seasonal pelagic-fish aggregations.

The combined hydrographic complexity of the basin is one reason why closed-sea pollution-budget approaches are not directly applicable: the basin is open at the north (Arabian Sea), the south (Agulhas Retroflection into the Atlantic) and the east (open Indian Ocean), with vigorous through-flow exchange. Regional pollution control must focus on point sources and coastal-zone management rather than on basin-wide load reduction, which in turn explains the structural emphasis of the 2017 LBSA Protocol on land-based sources.

Major rivers: Tana, Rufiji, Zambezi

The principal rivers discharging into the Eastern African region are:

• The Tana River (Kenya), the largest single river in Kenya, draining the eastern slopes of Mount Kenya and the Aberdares and discharging into the Indian Ocean at Kipini, north of Lamu. The Tana drainage basin is around 100,000 km² and the mean discharge is around 150 m³/s, modulated by a string of upstream hydroelectric reservoirs.
• The Rufiji River (Tanzania), the largest river in Tanzania, draining the Southern Highlands and discharging into the Indian Ocean through the Rufiji delta south of Dar es Salaam. The Rufiji drainage basin is around 177,000 km² and the mean discharge is around 1,200 m³/s. The Rufiji delta is the largest single estuarine and mangrove system in East Africa.
• The Zambezi River (rising in Zambia, traversing Angola-Zimbabwe-Zambia and discharging through Mozambique), the fourth-largest river in Africa by length and the largest by discharge entering the Indian Ocean. The Zambezi drainage basin is around 1.39 million km² and the long-term mean discharge at the lower Mozambican gauging stations (Tete, Caia) is approximately 4,300 m³/s, integrating contributions from the Kafue, Luangwa, Shire and other tributaries. The Zambezi discharge is regulated by the Kariba Dam (Zambia-Zimbabwe) and the Cahora Bassa Dam (Mozambique), both major hydroelectric facilities, which have altered the natural hydrograph and reduced the sediment delivery to the Sofala Bank delta downstream.

Other rivers in the Convention area include the Pangani and Wami (Tanzania), the Sabi and Limpopo (Mozambique), the Tugela (South Africa), and the Betsiboka, Mahajamba, Tsiribihina and Mangoky (Madagascar). Madagascar’s rivers are particularly important regionally because the catchment-scale deforestation on the central highlands has driven extreme sediment loads, with the Betsiboka delta near Mahajanga producing the famous “blood-red plumes” visible from satellite during the rainy season.

Coral reefs + ~1.0 million ha mangroves + seagrass beds

The Eastern African region hosts globally significant shallow-water habitats:

• Coral reefs fringe nearly the entire continental and island coastline within the Convention area, with the major systems including the Kenya-northern Tanzania fringing-reef belt (Kiunga to Kilwa), the Pemba and Zanzibar reef complexes, the Mafia Island channel reefs, the Quirimbas reefs (northern Mozambique), the Bazaruto-Sofala reefs (central Mozambique), the iSimangaliso reefs (KwaZulu-Natal), the Mozambique Channel midwater reefs off Madagascar’s west coast, the Comoros fringing reefs, the Mauritius and Rodrigues lagoonal reefs and the Seychelles inner-island and Aldabra-group reefs. The total reef area is around 11,000 km² (UNEP-WCMC 2018 figures).
• Mangrove forests cover approximately 1.0 million hectares across the Convention area (Global Mangrove Watch, 2020 inventory). The largest single mangrove area is in Mozambique (around 396,000 ha, including the Zambezi and Sofala Bank deltas and the Quirimbas), followed by Madagascar (around 244,000 ha, predominantly along the western Mozambique-Channel coast at the Mahavavy, Betsiboka, Mahajamba and Tsiribihina deltas), Tanzania (around 158,000 ha including the Rufiji delta), Kenya (around 53,000 ha including the Lamu and Tana delta systems), Somalia (around 50,000 ha along the Juba and Shebelle estuaries), and the smaller WIO islands.
• Seagrass meadows are extensive along the continental and island coasts, dominated by Zostera capensis in the cooler southern waters and by Thalassodendron ciliatum, Cymodocea rotundata, Halodule uninervis and Halophila ovalis through the warmer central and northern waters. Seagrass beds are particularly extensive in the Bazaruto Archipelago (Mozambique), the southern Madagascar coast and the Mauritian and Seychellois lagoons, and they are the primary feeding habitat for the regional dugong populations.

Endemic species: dugong, coelacanth, sea turtles, humpback whale

The Eastern African region hosts several globally significant marine species, several of which are listed on the IUCN Red List and on the Annex I (endangered) list of the 1985 Protected Areas Protocol:

• The dugong (Dugong dugon), classified as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List globally and as Critically Endangered in the WIO sub-population. The largest remaining viable WIO dugong population is in the Bazaruto Archipelago (Mozambique), with smaller scattered populations in the Quirimbas, the Kenya-Tanzania border at the Kiunga-Mafia stretch, the Comoros and the Mayotte lagoon. Total WIO dugong numbers are estimated at 200-300 individuals as of the 2020s.
• The coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae), the lobe-finned fish first scientifically rediscovered off East London (South Africa) in 1938 by Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer. Coelacanth populations are concentrated in the Comoros archipelago (the type locality), with confirmed populations off northern Mozambique, southeastern Tanzania and the South African KwaZulu-Natal coast. The Comoros population is the largest and most studied; the species is classified as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List.
• Sea turtles: five of the world’s seven species nest or feed in the WIO. The green turtle (Chelonia mydas) is the most widely distributed, with major rookeries on the Aldabra Atoll (the largest in the WIO), Europa (Iles Eparses, France), the Mozambique-Tanzania border at Vamizi-Quirimbas, and the Tongaland-iSimangaliso coast (South Africa). The hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) nests on most island groups and is Critically Endangered. The loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) has its principal regional rookery at Maputaland (South Africa). The olive ridley and leatherback also occur but at low density.
• The humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) of the C1 stock breeds and calves in the warm waters of the Mozambique Channel and the Madagascan coast between July and November each year, having migrated from the Antarctic feeding grounds. The Sainte Marie Channel off eastern Madagascar is a globally significant calving ground; the central Mozambique Channel is a globally significant breeding ground.

The Eastern African region is also notable for whale sharks (Tofo Beach, Mozambique), manta rays (Mozambique and Mafia Island), populations of dwarf sperm whales, sperm whales and pilot whales in the Mozambique Channel, and the major seabird colonies on the Aldabra Atoll, Cosmoledo Atoll and Astove (Seychelles outer islands).

ASCLME GEF Large Marine Ecosystem project

The Agulhas and Somali Current Large Marine Ecosystems (ASCLME) Programme was the major Global Environment Facility (GEF) project for the Eastern African region during 2008-2014. ASCLME was the LME-scale science and management programme covering the two major LMEs in the region: the Somali Current LME (north of Madagascar) and the Agulhas Current LME (south of Madagascar including the Mozambique Channel). The programme was implemented by UNDP with the South African Department of Environmental Affairs as the lead executing agency, and a project office in Grahamstown (Makhanda), South Africa.

ASCLME produced the Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA) for the WIO region, completed in 2012, which provided the systematic regional assessment of the major transboundary issues (overfishing, habitat degradation, pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss) and their root causes. The TDA fed into the Strategic Action Programme (SAP) for the WIO, adopted by the Nairobi Convention COP in 2014, which set the regional priorities for the period 2015-2025.

ASCLME funded research cruises on the South African research vessels FRS Algoa and SA Agulhas II, which mapped the deep-water hydrography and biology of the Mozambique Channel and the Madagascar Plateau and produced the first systematic regional fisheries-independent biomass estimates for the region. ASCLME also supported capacity building at the regional research institutes (KMFRI Kenya, IMS Tanzania, IIP Mozambique, IHSM Madagascar, the Seychelles Fishing Authority, Mauritius Oceanography Institute) and at the WIOMSA secretariat.

The successor programme is the WIO-SAP Project (“Implementation of the SAP for the Protection of the Western Indian Ocean from Land-Based Sources and Activities”), which began in 2017 with GEF financing and runs through the 2020s, focused on operationalising the LBSA Protocol obligations.

WIO-LaB land-based activities project

The Western Indian Ocean Land-based Activities (WIO-LaB) Project ran from 2004 to 2010 as the GEF-financed precursor to ASCLME, focused on the land-based-sources side of the regional pollution problem. WIO-LaB was implemented by UNEP through the Nairobi Convention Secretariat and was financed by GEF International Waters with co-financing from the Norwegian government (Sida and NORAD).

WIO-LaB produced the WIO-LaB Synthesis Report (UNEP 2009), which provided the first basin-wide regional assessment of land-based pollution sources, including:

• Sewage discharges from the major coastal cities (Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, Maputo, Toamasina, Antananarivo, Antsiranana, Port Louis, Victoria), with quantitative estimates of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), nitrogen and phosphorus loads.
• Agricultural runoff from the major catchments (Tana, Rufiji, Zambezi, Limpopo), with quantitative estimates of nutrient and pesticide loads.
• Industrial discharges from the principal industrial nodes (Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, Maputo, Beira, Durban-Richards Bay, Port Louis), with sectoral inventories for textile, food processing, sugar refining, cement, fertiliser and oil refining.
• Solid-waste leakage to the marine environment, including the early estimates of the regional plastic pollution load.

WIO-LaB also produced National Action Plans (NAPs) for each of the participating Parties, which fed into the negotiation of the LBSA Protocol adopted in 2010 and entered into force in 2017. The WIO-LaB body of work is the canonical scientific basis for the LBSA Protocol regulatory architecture.

WIOMSA scientific implementation support

The Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA) is the regional scientific association supporting marine and coastal science research and policy in the WIO region. WIOMSA was established in 1993 as a non-profit professional association, headquartered in Zanzibar (Stone Town), Tanzania, with a regional membership of marine scientists, policy practitioners, students and institutions across the 10 Convention Parties and beyond.

WIOMSA’s principal activities include:

• The biennial WIOMSA Symposium, the largest regional scientific conference in the Indian Ocean African region, attracting around 600-800 participants per cycle.
• The MASMA Programme (Marine Science for Management), a competitive research-grant programme funded primarily by Sida, supporting regional research projects on marine and coastal science.
• The WIO Journal of Marine Science, the principal regional peer-reviewed journal in the field.
• Capacity building through training courses, summer schools and student exchanges.
• Policy support to the Nairobi Convention Secretariat, including the technical inputs into the Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis, the Strategic Action Programme and the WIO-MPA Outlook reports.

WIOMSA holds Memoranda of Understanding with the Nairobi Convention Secretariat, with UNEP and with several of the regional GEF projects, formalising its role as the scientific implementation partner of the regional regime. WIOMSA is the WIO equivalent of bodies such as CIESM (Mediterranean Science Commission) for the Barcelona Convention area, PICES (North Pacific Marine Science Organization) for the North Pacific, and ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) for the North Atlantic.

Oil + gas exploration: Mozambique-Tanzania Coral South FLNG

The Rovuma Basin offshore northern Mozambique and the parallel Tanzanian deepwater gas plays off the Tanzanian coast were confirmed in the 2010-2014 exploration cycle as one of the world’s largest new gas provinces, with estimated technically recoverable resources on the order of 150 trillion cubic feet of natural gas across the combined Mozambique-Tanzania ultradeep area. The principal operators are Eni (Italian oil major), TotalEnergies (French major), ExxonMobil (US major), Shell (UK-Netherlands major), and the regional partners ENH (Mozambique national oil company) and TPDC (Tanzania).

The Coral South Floating LNG (FLNG) project, operated by Eni offshore Mozambique in Block 4 of the Rovuma Basin, is the flagship project. The Coral Sul FLNG vessel (built at Samsung Heavy Industries in South Korea) achieved first cargo in November 2022 and is producing approximately 3.4 million tonnes per annum of LNG from the Coral South gas field. Subsequent projects include the Mozambique LNG Onshore project led by TotalEnergies (Areas 1 and 4 with onshore liquefaction at Afungi, Cabo Delgado), the Rovuma LNG project led by ExxonMobil-Eni, and the Tanzania LNG project planned for the Lindi region.

The implications for the Nairobi Convention regime are substantial:

• The shipping density along the Mozambique-Tanzania coast is increasing rapidly, with LNG carriers loading at the Coral Sul FLNG offshore and at the planned Afungi terminal, and support vessels servicing the offshore developments.
• The environmental impact assessments for the projects have been conducted under national legislation (Mozambican EIA, Tanzanian EIA) with reference to the IFC Performance Standards, but the regional cumulative impact is unaddressed by any single national process.
• The Cabo Delgado insurgency since 2017 imposed a security overlay on the Mozambique LNG project, with the Afungi onshore facility partially evacuated in 2021 and the project on force-majeure status for an extended period before the security situation began to stabilise from 2024 onwards.
• The emergency response capacity for an offshore blowout or LNG-carrier incident in the Rovuma Basin is limited, and the Nairobi Convention Emergency Pollution Cooperation Protocol is structurally inadequate for an incident of the scale of the 2010 Macondo blowout.

Tourism pressure: Seychelles, Mauritius, Zanzibar

Tourism is one of the largest economic sectors in several of the WIO Parties and a major driver of coastal-zone pressures. The principal destinations are:

• Seychelles, with around 350,000 international tourist arrivals per year (pre-COVID baseline), tourism contributing around 25 percent of GDP. The principal pressures are reef degradation around the inner islands (Mahe, Praslin, La Digue), wastewater discharges from resort hotels, anchor damage to the inshore coral and the demand for live-aboard charter operations.
• Mauritius, with around 1.4 million international tourist arrivals per year (pre-COVID baseline), tourism contributing around 24 percent of GDP. The principal pressures are coastal land conversion for resorts (the entire west and north coasts are heavily developed), lagoon eutrophication, sand mining for beach reclamation and disturbance of nesting sea turtles.
• Zanzibar (Tanzania), with around 500,000 international tourist arrivals per year (pre-COVID baseline), tourism contributing around 30 percent of the Zanzibari GDP. The principal pressures are uncontrolled coastal-zone development on the east-coast strip, freshwater abstraction from the limited groundwater lens, sewage discharge to the lagoonal reefs and the disturbance of fishing communities by resort exclusion.
• Madagascar, with smaller but rapidly growing arrivals (around 250,000 per year pre-COVID), the principal pressures concentrated at Nosy Be (the principal resort island), Anakao, Ifaty and the Sainte Marie whale-watching area.
• Mayotte and Reunion (France), with combined arrivals of around 600,000 per year, with the pressures concentrated at the Mayotte lagoon and the Reunion west coast.

The cumulative regional tourism load is around 3 million coastal tourist arrivals per year as of the 2020s, and the regional industry has set ambitious growth targets for 2030 (Seychelles targeting 600,000, Mauritius targeting 2 million, Zanzibar targeting 800,000) which will substantially increase the pressures unless carrying-capacity management is strengthened. The Nairobi Convention LBSA Protocol provides the regulatory umbrella for the wastewater and coastal-modification pressures, but the operational implementation is uneven across the region.

Coastal erosion: Maputo, Dar es Salaam, Mombasa

Coastal erosion is a chronic and accelerating pressure on the Eastern African region, driven by a combination of upstream sediment-supply reductions, sea-level rise, intensifying tropical cyclone activity (particularly in the Mozambique Channel) and the cumulative impact of coastal infrastructure on littoral sediment transport. The principal hot-spots are:

• Maputo (Mozambique), where the Costa do Sol-Macaneta beachfront has retreated by over 100 metres over the last 50 years, with accelerating losses in the 2010s and 2020s; the Maputo Bay reclamation projects have aggravated the downdrift erosion.
• Beira (Mozambique), where Cyclone Idai (March 2019) caused major coastal-storm-surge damage and the post-2019 reconstruction has not fully restored the protective infrastructure.
• Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), where the Kunduchi-Bahari Beach erosion is among the most rapid in East Africa, with several beachfront hotels having lost their beach frontage and several having collapsed in the 2000s and 2010s.
• Mombasa (Kenya), where the Bamburi-Nyali stretch experiences chronic erosion, and the Likoni channel south of the city experiences localised erosion driven by ferry and dredging activity.
• Toamasina (Madagascar), where the principal port and the residential zones north of the port experience cyclone-driven erosion episodes.
• The urbanised western coast of Mauritius (Flic en Flac, Tamarin) and the St-Denis coast on Reunion, with anthropogenic pressures dominating.

The Nairobi Convention regime addresses coastal erosion through the integrated coastal zone management obligations of the 2010 Mahe amendment to the parent Convention and through the related provisions of the LBSA Protocol on coastal modifications. Regional coastal-erosion adaptation projects are funded primarily through the Adaptation Fund, the Green Climate Fund and bilateral support from France (through AFD) and the EU.

Somalia piracy + IUU fishing impacts

The Somali piracy crisis of 2008-2012 had a major and lasting impact on regional shipping and fisheries patterns. At its peak in 2010-2011, Somali pirates conducted operations across an area extending from the Gulf of Aden through the Western Indian Ocean as far south as the Mozambique Channel and as far east as the central Indian Ocean, with up to 50 vessels and 800 hostages held at any one time. The international counter-piracy response (Combined Task Force 151, EU NAVFOR Operation Atalanta, NATO Operation Ocean Shield, individual national deployments by China, India, Iran, Japan, Russia and others) reduced the incident rate sharply from 2013 onwards, and active piracy has been at very low levels since 2017, although a small uptick was reported in 2024-2025.

The lasting impacts on the region include:

• Re-routing of major shipping to the east and south of the original Indian Ocean routes, with the High-Risk Area (HRA) designations extending well beyond the Somali coast and shifting transit patterns through the Mozambique Channel.
• Best Management Practices (BMP-5) by the shipping industry, including embarked private armed security, pre-transit hardening of vessels and adherence to UKMTO and MSCHOA reporting.
• Insurance market response, with War Risk premiums elevated for the HRA and with K&R (kidnap-and-ransom) coverage becoming standard for transits.
• Disruption of regional fisheries and oceanographic research, with several research cruises cancelled or curtailed and with the Somali artisanal and small-pelagic fisheries severely disrupted by the security situation onshore.

The IUU (Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated) fishing problem in the WIO is distinct from but related to the piracy problem. The principal IUU fleets operating in the region are the distant-water fleets from East Asia (China, Korea, Taiwan), Spain, Russia and Iran, targeting tuna, swordfish, skipjack and the deep-water shrimp resources. The estimated regional IUU losses are on the order of USD 200-400 million per year for Somalia alone (FAO estimates) and more for the basin as a whole. The Nairobi Convention regime does not directly address fisheries (which is the province of the IOTC and the SWIOFC) but the LBSA Protocol and the 2010 Mahe amendments address the marine pollution and ecosystem-impact dimensions of unregulated fishing operations including ghost-net pollution.

Climate vulnerability: sea-level rise, coral bleaching

The Eastern African region is one of the most climate-vulnerable regional seas in the world. The principal climate stressors are:

• Sea-level rise, with the regional rate around the global mean of 3.5-4.0 mm per year over the satellite-altimetry era (1993-present), accelerating in the 2010s and 2020s. The low-lying vulnerable areas in the WIO include the Comoros, the outer islands of the Seychelles (especially the coralline atolls of the Aldabra group, Farquhar group and Coetivy), the Mascarene Plateau atolls (including Saya de Malha and Nazareth banks), the Maputo-Inhaca low-lying coast and the Tana River delta.
• Coral bleaching, with the basin having experienced severe bleaching events in 1998 (the global Indian Ocean event, with up to 80 percent reef mortality in parts of Kenya, Tanzania and Seychelles), 2010, 2016 (the third global bleaching event), 2019, and the most severe local events in 2024 and 2025 driven by the strong 2023-2024 El Nino. The cumulative reef impact is approaching the threshold of irreversible structural collapse for several of the affected systems.
• Tropical cyclone intensification, with the Mozambique Channel cyclones showing increased intensity (Cyclones Idai 2019, Kenneth 2019, Eloise 2021, Gombe 2022, Freddy 2023), and the southwestern Indian Ocean cyclone basin showing the early signs of increased frequency.
• Ocean warming and stratification, with the basin SST having risen by around 1.0-1.5 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial baseline, driving impacts on the regional pelagic-fish stocks and on the seasonal upwelling regimes.
• Ocean acidification, with the Indian Ocean basin showing the standard global trend (around 0.02 pH units per decade) which is starting to impact the reef calcification budgets.

The Nairobi Convention does not have a free-standing climate Protocol; the climate-adaptation work is integrated into the LBSA Protocol, the 2010 Mahe amendments and the regional GEF and Adaptation Fund projects.

Aldabra Atoll UNESCO World Heritage (1982)

The Aldabra Atoll in the outer islands of the Seychelles was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List on 4 November 1982 as a Natural Heritage Site under criteria (vii), (ix) and (x). The Atoll is one of the world’s largest raised coral atolls, around 34 km long by 14.5 km wide, with a central lagoon partly drained at low tide and a fringing reef along the outer rim. The Atoll is uninhabited save for the small Seychelles Islands Foundation research station at Picard, and is managed as a Special Reserve under Seychelles legislation.

Aldabra hosts:

• The world’s largest population of Aldabra giant tortoises (Aldabrachelys gigantea), around 100,000 individuals.
• One of the largest green turtle nesting populations in the WIO.
• Major seabird colonies (boobies, frigatebirds, terns, white-throated rail).
• Globally notable coral and reef fish biodiversity.
• One of the few remaining largely intact lagoon-and-reef systems in the WIO, with minimal human disturbance.

The site is the regional flagship for the Nairobi Convention Protected Areas Protocol implementation, and the Seychelles Islands Foundation works closely with the WIOMSA scientific community on the long-term monitoring programmes.

Lamu Archipelago UNESCO World Heritage (2001)

The Lamu Old Town and Archipelago on the northern Kenyan coast was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List on 13 December 2001 as a Cultural Heritage Site under criteria (ii), (iv) and (vi). The Archipelago comprises the principal island of Lamu, the small coralline islands of Manda, Pate, Kiwayu and Siyu, and the surrounding mangrove and seagrass complex extending into the Tana River delta and the Kiunga Marine National Reserve.

The site combines:

• A Swahili coastal urban culture of more than 700 years’ continuous occupation, with the oldest standing structures dating from the 14th century.
• A mangrove and dhow-building maritime tradition that anchors the regional intangible cultural heritage.
• A major Marine Protected Area complex (the Kiunga Marine National Reserve) with fringing-reef and mangrove resources.

The site has been under pressure since the 2010s from the planned development of the LAPSSET corridor (Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport corridor) which includes the construction of the new deepwater Lamu Port (32 berths planned, three operational since 2021) on the mainland adjacent to the Archipelago. The cumulative pressures on the World Heritage values are under continuing review by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee.

African Union AIM 2050 alignment

The African Union (AU) 2050 Africa’s Integrated Maritime Strategy (AIM 2050), adopted by the AU Assembly at Addis Ababa on 27 January 2014 as Decision Assembly/AU/Dec.496(XXII), is the continental-scale strategic framework for the Africa Blue Economy. AIM 2050 is the political umbrella under which the African regional-seas conventions are coordinated at the continental level, and it sets the strategic priorities for the period to 2050.

Specific to the Eastern African region, AIM 2050 prioritises:

• Combined Exclusive Maritime Zone of Africa (CEMZA) as a continental envelope spanning all African EEZs, including the Eastern African EEZ.
• Maritime safety and security (including counter-piracy, counter-IUU and counter-trafficking).
• Marine environmental protection and the implementation of the Abidjan and Nairobi Conventions.
• Sustainable use of marine living resources (fisheries, aquaculture).
• Maritime transport and ports development.
• Marine tourism and cruise development.
• Marine spatial planning and integrated coastal zone management.

The AU AIM 2050 framework was supplemented by the Lome Charter (the AU Charter on Maritime Security and Safety and Development in Africa, adopted at Lome on 15 October 2016) which provides the binding legal underpinning for the maritime-security elements of AIM 2050. The Lome Charter has been signed by most Eastern African states but is not yet in force as of 2026.

Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) coordination

The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) is the regional fisheries management organisation (RFMO) with competence over the tuna and tuna-like species in the Indian Ocean north of 45 degrees S. The IOTC was established by the FAO in 1993 and entered into force in 1996, headquartered at Victoria, Mahe, Seychelles. As of 2026 the IOTC has 30 Members including all of the Nairobi Convention Parties (Comoros, France, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Somalia, South Africa and Tanzania) plus the major distant-water fishing nations (China, EU, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, India, Iran, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Russia and others).

The IOTC’s mandate is the management of tuna and tuna-like species (yellowfin, bigeye, skipjack, albacore, swordfish, billfishes) and the IOTC adopts binding Conservation and Management Measures (CMMs) for these species. The IOTC does not have competence over:

• The non-tuna pelagic fisheries (sharks, rays, dolphinfish), which are partially covered through bycatch CMMs but which are not the focus of the regime.
• The deep-water fisheries (deepwater shrimp, deepwater snapper, orange roughy), which are covered for the southwestern Indian Ocean by the Southern Indian Ocean Fisheries Agreement (SIOFA, 2012, in force 2012).
• The coastal small-scale fisheries, which remain national competence.

The Nairobi Convention does not duplicate the IOTC mandate; it provides the marine environmental cooperation framework that complements the fisheries-management mandate. The two regimes coordinate through a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Nairobi Convention Secretariat and the IOTC Secretariat, with regular coordination on bycatch and ecosystem-based fisheries management issues.

Comparison to Abidjan Convention 1981 (parallel African Atlantic)

The Abidjan Convention 1981 is the West-and-Central-African Atlantic counterpart of the Nairobi Convention 1985, both being UNEP regional-seas conventions on the African continent. The two regimes are structurally parallel but differ in several material respects:

The Nairobi regime is, despite covering fewer Parties and a slightly shorter coastline, the more substantively developed of the two African regimes by the 2026 baseline, primarily because of the LBSA Protocol entering into force in 2017 and because of the WIOMSA-supported scientific community providing a more cohesive technical backbone than is available on the Atlantic side. South Africa is the only Party to both conventions, with its territorial sea split between the two Convention areas at Cape Agulhas.

Comparison to Jeddah Convention 1982 PERSGA (Red Sea)

The Regional Convention for the Conservation of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Environment (the Jeddah Convention) was adopted at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on 14 February 1982 and entered into force on 20 August 1985. The Convention is administered by the Regional Organization for the Conservation of the Environment of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden (PERSGA) based in Jeddah. The Convention has 7 Parties: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Yemen and (from 2009) Jordan.

The Jeddah Convention area runs from the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb in the south to the Sinai-Gulf of Aqaba-Gulf of Suez complex in the north, covering the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The Nairobi Convention area runs immediately to the south, sharing a notional boundary with PERSGA somewhere across the Bab el-Mandeb-Cape Guardafui line, with the practical division being the Gulf-of-Aden/Indian-Ocean transition off Somalia.

The Jeddah and Nairobi regimes are structurally similar (both UNEP-affiliated regional-seas conventions) but the Jeddah/PERSGA regime operates through a different institutional model: PERSGA is a free-standing regional organisation with its own legal personality, separate from UNEP, whereas the Nairobi Secretariat is a UNEP unit. The two regimes coordinate on the cross-border issues (Somali piracy, IUU fishing in the Horn of Africa, oil-spill response in the Gulf of Aden) but do not have a formal joint-Party arrangement; Somalia is a Party only to the Nairobi Convention as of 2026 although the political geography would justify dual party status.

Nairobi Convention 1985 vs Nairobi WRC 2007: a critical distinction

Two instruments carry “Nairobi” in their title and are routinely confused in regulatory contexts. The Nairobi Convention 1985 is this UNEP regional-seas treaty for the Eastern African / Western Indian Ocean region. The Nairobi International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks 2007 (WRC) is an entirely separate IMO instrument adopted at a diplomatic conference in Nairobi in May 2007. The WRC creates an international regime for wreck-removal liability, mandatory insurance and coastal-state intervention rights for ships that are hazards to navigation or the marine environment; it entered into force on 14 April 2015. See the Nairobi WRC 2007 article for the full treatment.

The two instruments share only the city name of their adoption venue. They have different depositary bodies (UNEP vs IMO), different parties (a regional Eastern African set vs a global shipping-flag-state membership), different subject matter (marine environmental protection vs wreck removal), and no institutional link. A flag-state party to the WRC may or may not also be a party to the Nairobi Convention 1985, and vice versa; the obligations under each are completely independent.

2030 outlook: marine spatial planning, blue economy, plastic

Looking ahead to 2030, the principal strategic agenda for the Nairobi Convention regime is concentrated in three areas:

• Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) as the operational tool for integrated management. Several Parties have launched MSP processes (Seychelles MSP plan adopted 2020; Mauritius MSP under development; Kenya and Tanzania MSP at the pilot stage; Mozambique MSP under development; Madagascar MSP at the conceptual stage). The Nairobi Convention Secretariat is supporting the harmonisation of regional MSP through a regional MSP guidelines document under preparation in the WIO-SAP framework.
• Blue Economy development, with the WIO Blue Economy declared a regional priority by the AU AIM 2050 framework and operationalised through the Seychelles Blue Economy Strategy (adopted 2018), the Mauritius Ocean Economy Strategy (since 2013), the Kenya Blue Economy Strategy (since 2018) and parallel national strategies in Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar and the Comoros. The Blue Economy framework integrates fisheries, tourism, shipping, offshore energy and seabed-resources sectors and is the principal economic narrative for the regional regime in the 2030 horizon.
• Plastic Pollution, with the Nairobi Convention having adopted a regional Plastic Action Plan in 2022, with the implementation underway across the Parties. The regional plastic load is dominated by mismanaged plastic from the major coastal cities (Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, Maputo, Toamasina, Antananarivo) and by abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) from the artisanal and industrial fleets. The regional plastic-pollution work feeds into the global negotiations on the UN Plastics Treaty under UNEP, on which all Nairobi Convention Parties are engaged.

The 2030 outlook also includes the implementation of the 30x30 GBF biodiversity targets (30 percent MPA coverage of EEZ by 2030), the BBNJ Treaty (the 2023 UN Agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction, signed by most Nairobi Convention Parties as of 2026) and the integration of climate-adaptation funding through the Adaptation Fund and the Green Climate Fund into the Nairobi Convention work programme.

Limitations

The Nairobi Convention 1985 has several practical and structural constraints that any practitioner applying the regime should understand:

No MARPOL Special Area or IMO PSSA. The Convention does not create a MARPOL Special Area or an IMO PSSA by its own operation. The Eastern African region and Western Indian Ocean have no MARPOL Special Area designations and no IMO PSSAs as of 2026, despite the ecological case for such designations in the Mozambique Channel reefs, the Aldabra-Cosmoledo-Astove group and the Mozambique-Tanzania mangrove coast. PSSA designation requires a separate IMO MEPC submission; no such submission has succeeded.

Compliance is promotional, not enforcement-based. The Convention and its Protocols do not establish a compliance committee or a mandatory reporting and review mechanism comparable to the OSPAR Compliance Committee or the HELCOM PRESSURE compliance track. The LBSA Protocol’s compliance regime is largely promotional; it functions primarily as the legal anchor for the WIO-SAP GEF project.

Capacity asymmetry. The 10 Parties range from South Africa (a middle-income state with full MARPOL Annex I-VI transposition) to Somalia (a recovering-from-conflict state with very limited maritime administration capacity) to the Comoros (a small-island state with partial MARPOL transposition). Standards applicable to the most capable Parties are not realistic for the least capable on the same timetable.

Convention area excludes warships. The Convention does not apply to warships and government vessels in non-commercial service, although Article 4(3) of the 1985 text (and Article 6 of the 2010 Mahe amended text) commits Parties to ensure that such vessels act consistently with the Convention so far as is reasonable and practicable.

The Atlantic coast of South Africa is outside scope. The Nairobi Convention area extends only to Cape Agulhas; the Atlantic coast of South Africa west of that point is covered by the Abidjan Convention 1981.

Entry-into-force dates for the 2010 amended text. The amended Convention adopted at Mahe in April 2010 required ratification by Contracting Parties for formal entry into force. The Nairobi Convention Secretariat publishes and administers the amended 2010 text as the operative instrument; however, the precise formal entry-into-force date for the amended parent Convention has been reported inconsistently in secondary literature. Practitioners should consult the UNEP depositary records directly for the current formal status.

See also

• Nairobi WRC 2007 (Wreck Removal Convention)
• MARPOL Convention
• Abidjan Convention 1981
• Helsinki Convention 1992
• Bucharest Convention 1992
• Barcelona Convention 1976/1995
• OSPAR Convention 1992
• Cartagena Convention 1983
• PSSA overview
• Ballast Water Management Convention
• MARPOL Annex I oil pollution prevention
• MARPOL Annex I Reg 15 oil discharge criteria
• IMO 2020 sulphur cap
• Marine and environmental calculators

Related calculators

• IMO Nairobi WRC - Wreck Removal Convention
• Nairobi - Wreck Removal Insurance
• HNS Convention 2010 - Hazardous Cargo Liability
• Bunker Convention 2001 - Liability Scope
• BWM Convention - Discharge Locations
• IMO MEPC.260(68) - Ballast Water Management Convention G8 type approval
• IMO MLC 2006 - Maritime Labour Convention
• IMO LL - Load Lines Convention