The world's oceans are facing an existential threat in the form of climate change and global warming. Now, a new project is seeing multiple nations coming together to try to protect the ocean and the aquatic life present in them.

The Great Blue Wall Initiative is a regionally important initiative that seeks to create a network of marine conservation across the Western Indian Ocean.

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What is the project?

The Great Blue Wall Initiative is an international movement that seeks to protect and restore the Indian Ocean. Ten countries are coming together to commit towards a larger global pledge to protecting 30 percent of the world's oceans. These countries are planning to create a connected network of marine conversation areas that protect some of the most threatened aquatic areas in the world.

Comoros, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania and France, as its overseas territory La Réunion is in the Indian Ocean, are part of the initiative. It has also been backed by other organisations like the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the United Nations, along with endorsements from the US, France, Ireland, the UK, Sweden and Portugal during the launch.

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The initiative will protect not just ecologically-important marine areas like coral reefs but also environmentally-critical areas like marshlands, mangroves, seagrass meadows and underwater ecosystems.

The initiative took inspiration from the Great Green Wall Project that seeks to reforest a length of 8,000 km across Africa and to prevent further desertification and deterioration of the sub-Saharan region.

The initiative was formally launched during the COP26 summit in Glasglow by Seychelles, though it was announced a month prior during the IUCN World Congress. The group has been promised aid from Ireland already, which has committed to supporting the programme with a one-time 400,000 euro grant.

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“The Great Blue Wall initiative is a unique approach for the region, Africa and the world subsequently. It promises to play an instrumental role in helping to achieve a nature-people positive world; a planet in balance. This is a unique opportunity to move forward at an unprecedented speed. I pledge my full support for this visionary initiative,” said James Michel, former President of Seychelles

What Great Blue Wall hopes to achieve

The Great Blue Wall hopes to see its member states build interconnected marine reserves. While the plans are in the early stages of being finalised, the first of these parks is already underway.

The Tanga Pemba seascape will run between the Tanzanian mainland and the Zanzibar coast and will be located in the marine boundaries of both Tanzania and Kenya. The park will also be located in the vicinity of two other marine parks, the Pemba Channel Conservation Area and the Tanga Coelacanth Marine Park.

The park will hope to protect an ecological area that is also providing food and work to the locals.

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(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)