This World Oceans Day, we are celebrating a truth that global policy keeps ignoring: the people who have lived closest to the ocean for centuries are often the ones keeping it alive. But while governments keep signing deals to “save the ocean,”  the people actually doing the work are rarely in the conversation.

Greenpeace’s latest report documents what coastal communities already know, and what global policy keeps getting wrong: the path to a healthy ocean runs through the people protecting it. Here is what the people, and the data, are telling us.

1. Ocean protection has been happening for millennia

Expertise built over millennia of stewardship should be hard to ignore. And yet governments somehow keep managing to do so.

From the Kawésqar people in Chile, who have navigated and cared for the waters of Patagonia for more than 6,000 years, to the artisanal fishers of southern Thailand – Indigenous Peoples and local communities hold generations of knowledge about how marine ecosystems work, what keeps them healthy, and what puts them at risk.

In the Los Lagos region of Chile, the local community manages their maritorio (their interconnected sea-land territory) through traditional seed collection and sustainable mussel and seaweed farming. In this area, they haven’t just revitalised their cultural traditions; they have successfully triggered the recovery of vulnerable species and created a natural barrier against the polluting activities of industries close by.

This is not just heritage. This is expertise. The kind that no corporate manual, no government decree, and no international framework has ever come close to replicating. And yet it is the first thing to get ignored when decisions get made.

2. Where communities lead, the ocean thrives 

Research tells us that marine ecosystems tend to be healthier when local communities hold real decision-making power over their territories. Unlike industries focused on short-term profit, these communities understand a fundamental truth: protecting their livelihoods means keeping the ocean healthy and full of life for generations to come. 

In Kawawana, Senegal, a decade of community-led stewardship brought back more than 20 fish species, along with manatees and dolphins, to waters that had been pushed to the edge.

These are not isolated success stories. It is a pattern repeated around the world: when communities have secure rights and the power to act on them, nature recovers.

3. People and nature can thrive together

We are constantly told that in times of crisis – war, inflation, energy insecurity – nature must be sacrificed in the name of economic survival.

Coastal communities are proving the opposite. They are not only defending what exists, they are building something better.

In Chana, southern Thailand, this knowledge is applied through the “Talae Na Baan” (Homefront Sea) programme, where communities act as primary guardians of their local waters. Together with other communities they created “Fish Homes” – traditional artificial reefs constructed from natural materials like bamboo poles and coconut fronds – to restore marine biodiversity, and implemented common regulations for coastal management. The result? Fish populations increased – and the communities’ income rose by 20% within one year. This is what ocean protection looks like when local people have real power, real resources, and real decision-making authority.

4. Protecting ecosystems can feed millions

Coastal communities are not just protecting the ocean. They are protecting the world’s food supply.

Small-scale fisheries account for at least 40% of the global catch and cover 20% of the diet of 2.3 billion people worldwide. Not only that, the fish they catch is often proven to be more sustainable and with a lower carbon emissions per kilo. 

Yet industrial fleets are stripping those same waters bare, diverting fish that could feed people into animal feed for export markets. In Senegal alone, enough fish to feed 33 million people disappears into the fishmeal industry every year.  

5. Standing with coastal communities means standing with women.

Protecting coastal communities is, at its heart, also a matter of gender justice. Women make up around 40% of the global small-scale fisheries workforce, sustaining local food systems, economies, and ecosystems, yet their labour and leadership are still too often overlooked.

In Sri Lanka, women are at the heart of one of the world’s largest community-led mangrove restoration programmes. Through more than 1,500 local communities, women are leading mangrove propagation, reforestation, and coastal protection, linking ecosystem recovery directly to economic independence for their families and communities.

In Senegal, women fish processors in Kayar recently helped lead historic legal action against a fishmeal factory accused of polluting local air and drinking water, while diverting fish away from local communities and into animal feed for export.

If governments are serious about ocean protection, women’s leadership in coastal communities must be recognised. 

Global ocean targets must include community leadership

These are not local disputes. They are part of a global struggle over who gets to shape the future of the ocean.

Less than 10% of the world’s oceans are protected right now. Most of that protection exists only on paper. The global target world leaders have committed to is 30% by 2030, but protected areas only work if they are actually protected. Too often, conservation exists on paper while destructive activities continue in practice. 

Industrial destruction does not just damage nature. When a fishmeal factory moves in and hoovers up the fish that feed a coastal town, that town loses everything: its food, its income, its future. But when industrial fishing, aquaculture, port developments, shipwreck disasters or fossil fuel projects threaten marine ecosystems, coastal communities are often the first to push back. 

Community-led conservation, whether through Indigenous and traditional territories, traditional fishing grounds, or community managed marine areas is already delivering real protection in many parts of the world. 

If governments are serious about meeting global biodiversity targets, they need to support and recognise these efforts, not work around or against them.

Learn more in our new report!

Stand with coastal communities

Share your message of solidarity and join a global wave calling on a fair and sustainable ocean protection.

Send your message

Sara Bettinelli is an Engagement Manager with Greenpeace International. 

An AI cake, an Arctic sponge, and a celebrity SLAPP. Here are some of our favourite images from Greenpeace work around the world this week.

Taiwan – As US semiconductor giant NVIDIA kicks off its GTC AI conference in Taipei, Greenpeace East Asia activists confronted CEO Jensen Huang face-to-face, demanding that the AI chip leader and its billionaire founder take responsibility for the soaring energy demands and carbon emissions across its supply chain, especially in the East Asian manufacturing hub Taiwan where most of its hardware is produced.

Bulgaria – Greenpeace activists from Bulgaria, Hungary, Croatia, and Romania, deployed a massive “TOXIC” banner beneath the chimneys of the Bobov Dol Thermal Coal Power Plant. The direct action demands an immediate, permanent restriction on the facility’s operations and calls out the Bulgarian government’s irresponsible refusal to halt a chronic, rule-breaking offender.

USA – Ocean advocates and Pacific community leaders unite in Washington D.C. at Upwell: A Wave of Ocean Justice to demand the U.S. government stop its plans for deep sea mining in the Pacific. Surrounded by ocean allies from across the movement, they stand in solidarity with Pacific Island communities facing the world’s first proposed lease sale for deep sea minerals — slated for American Samoa. A delegation of Pacific community leaders from American Samoa, Hawaiʻi, CNMI, and Guam traveled to Washington D.C., where Greenpeace facilitated meetings with members of Congress and the media to help amplify their voices.

The Arctic – Images of underwater inhabitants of the Deep Arctic, captured during the current expedition. Pictured from left to right:

• Dumbo Octopus (Grimpoteuthis), in front of the underwater structures at Loki’s Castle hydrothermal vent field in the Norwegian Sea.
• The stalked deep-sea sponge Stylocordyla borealis, sampled from the Schulz Bank seamount along the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge.
• Purple Seastar discovered at the “Unnamed” seamount.

U.K. – Award-winning actor Javier Bardem and Children’s and Family Emmy Award-nominated actress Yasmin Finney star in a new film, SLAPP Suit, that dramatises the threat of — and resistance to — abusive SLAPP lawsuits, released this week by Greenpeace International.

Billionaire bullies and corporate polluters use Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) to bury activists, journalists, whistleblowers, and non-profit organisations in legal fees, drain their time and resources, and ultimately make the cost of dissent too high. US-based fossil fuel pipeline company Energy Transfer has been waging back-to-back abusive SLAPP lawsuits against Greenpeace in the US and Greenpeace International for nearly a decade in a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Watch the full video on YouTube

Spain – Thirty Greenpeace Spain activists unfurled a huge banner on the Barqueta Bridge in Seville bearing the slogan “Aznalcóllar: Not Again” to protest against the plan to reopen a coal mine.

USA – Activists hold a banner near the US. Capitol Building in Washington DC demanding protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The federal government plans to open the Coastal Plain of the refuge for oil & gas drilling in a lease sale June 5, 2026.

Greenpeace has been a pioneer of photo activism for more than 50 years, and remains committed to bearing witness and exposing environmental injustice through the images we capture.

To see more Greenpeace photos and videos, visit our Media Library.

On 15 May, while most people were resting indoors, the Sunder Nagri community of North-East Delhi, India, stepped out into the heat to map their own neighbourhood. Women, youth, young girls, and school-going children gathered around the nearest local school, covering their faces with scarves, carrying pocket fans, base maps of the community, and the enthusiasm to identify heat hotspots and natural cooling spaces within their area.

The community heat mapping exercise was not just about measuring temperature. It was about understanding how people experience heat in their everyday lives and questioning why some neighbourhoods continue to remain more vulnerable to extreme heat than others.

Community heat mapping is a participatory process where residents walk through their neighbourhoods and identify:

• areas that feel extremely hot
• spaces with shade and natural cooling
• accessibility water
• places where people can sit and rest
• locations where heat makes movement and work difficult

Unlike technical heat maps created only through satellite data, community heat mapping helps capture people’s lived experiences of heat and understand what measures or interventions have been taken by the government or the community to cope with rising temperatures. It also documents how heat is unevenly felt across different streets, markets, public spaces, bus stops, work areas, and homes.

At 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the community began the walk by observing and marking trees, shaded areas, sitting spaces, and places where they felt unbearable, manageable, or relatively normal levels of heat. But the exercise was not limited to documenting spaces on a base map. It also became a space for conversations, discussions about why there are so few shaded public spaces where people can pause, sit, and find some relief from the heat.

As the group walked through the neighbourhood, they captured photographs and used thermal devices to record temperatures across markets, shaded spaces, parks, and streets. Although the walking route was hardly 500 metres long, it took almost 30 minutes to complete because residents carefully stopped to observe, discuss, and document different physical features, resources, and experiences along the route.

One of the young girls participating in the exercise raised an important concern. While doing the online mapping through an app, their mobile devices had started overheating and stopped functioning. She also mentioned that they were already feeling exhausted and too tired to continue walking for long.

The observation itself reflected the intensity of the heatwave. The participants had started the walk with excitement and curiosity, smiling and actively engaging with the process. But by the end of the walk, many were visibly frustrated, irritated, and drained by the heat.

However, the mapping exercise did not end there.

The entire community later assembled at “Happy Garden” – A garden maintained by women from the community. For many women, it remains one of the few accessible public spaces within the neighbourhood where they can comfortably sit and safely relax.

Inside the garden, residents collectively drew a large map of the community on a piece of cloth. They marked observations from the walk and colour-coded different spaces based on how they experienced them:

• blue for cooling spaces
• orange and red for heat hotspots
• and green for tree cover and shaded areas

As the mapping continued, one of the strongest themes that emerged from the discussion was the lack of cool resting spaces and poor access to drinking water.

Residents pointed out that markets had almost no tree cover. Most vendors depended on tarpaulin sheets for shade, but instead of cooling the space, these sheets trapped heat underneath. When one of the community members checked the temperature through a thermal camera, the market area showed a temperature of nearly 51 degrees Celsius.
While collectively making the cloth map, residents discussed similarities across different neighbourhoods and reflected on who suffers the most during extreme heat. Conversations slowly moved towards larger questions around Delhi’s Heat Action Plan and its implementation on the ground.

One of the women pointed out that many announcements made by the government often remain limited to paper and fail to translate into actual relief for communities facing extreme temperatures every day. Another woman said, “They never asked what we wanted for our communities.” Residents emphasized the importance of community consultation when designing and implementing such heat action plans so that policies reflect the realities of people’s experience on the ground.

The discussion ended with larger questions around accountability and responsibility:
Who is responsible for creating heat-resilient neighbourhoods?
Who ensures access to shaded public spaces, water, cooling infrastructure, and safe resting spaces?
And most importantly, who gets to rest during intense heatwave crises?

These questions around accountability do not stop at the neighbourhood level. They also raise a larger question: Who should pay for the damages caused by climate change and environmental. Sunder Nagri is only one example where rising temperature, lack of cooling infrastructure, and damaged urban environments are directly affecting people’s daily lives, forcing communities to constantly adapt and survive conditions that are increasingly becoming unbearable. And, similar situations are unfolding across many neighbourhoods, cities, and countries. 

These environmental destruction is not accidental but damage caused by large industries, fossil fuel extraction, and profit-led development models despite knowing the long-term environmental consequences of their actions. The principle of “Polluter Pays” must be central to climate justice. Rich corporations and oil industries that have historically polluted the environment and profited from ecological destruction should be held accountable and made to pay for climate adaptation, public infrastructure, and the damages caused to communities globally.

As heatwaves continue to intensify across cities globally, community-led heat mapping exercises like this show that heat is not only a climate issue, it is also deeply connected to inequality, public infrastructure, health crises, mobility, and the right to rest with dignity.

Vaishali Upadhyay is the community campaign coordinator at Greenpeace India, based in New Delhi, India.

For the first time, Greenpeace has led a unique deep sea expedition to the Arctic. Together with a team of expert scientists we explored the life and wonders of the Arctic deep sea – one of Earth’s least known wildernesses, and we were astonished by what we found!

Our many hours of divestreams from the Arctic seabed have reached hundreds of thousands of viewers. Together with the scientists we have had school classes calling in to the research ship asking questions to the scientists about the deep sea, and we have filmed over 100 hours of high-resolution video of these extraordinary ecosystems that will now be shared with the world.

The scientists onboard have had a particular focus on vulnerable and undescribed species in the area – and they will analyse all material and samples in detail after the expedition, but they already think that they have discovered several potential new species to science.

And even if we are of course super excited about new species, there is no doubt that the scientists also got very excited when they came across our expedition “mascot” – the dumbo octopus in real life

Having seen all the life and beauty of these ecosystems, that reminds us a lot of underwater biodiversity-rich meadows or coral reefs, makes it even more insane to start deep-sea mining in these ecosystems, which would be totally destroyed if the industry gets its way.

But the mining industry has not yet started to tear up the seabed, and we therefore have the unusual and real opportunity to stop an environmental disaster before it happens. We have stopped them before, and in Norway all exploration is halted until at least the end of 2029.

Meanwhile, Greenpeace will use the scientific evidence and new findings from the expedition to shine a light on these extraordinary ecosystems and call on leaders and policymakers to establish Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and long-term protection of the Arctic deep sea.

It’s high time they listen to the science, and protect the deep sea!

Deep Arctic Expedition

Join Greenpeace and world-leading scientists as we explore the fascinating deep sea in the Arctic.

Take action

Daniel Bengtsson is the Communications Lead on the Deep Arctic Expedition with Greenpeace Nordic.