Gabon has ended its 19-year fisheries partnership with the European Union, which allowed EU industrial vessels to target tuna in Gabonese waters in exchange for payment, arguing the agreement no longer serves the country’s economic interests.
The decision follows a June 2025 Council of Ministers meeting at which the government announced it would seek to renegotiate the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement (SFPA), before formally ending it on June 29, 2026.
In a statement last year, the Gabonese government said the massive exploitation of fishery resources wasn’t commensurate with the returns Gabon should receive in exchange.
In a speech in January, government spokesperson Charles Edgard Mombo, said the move to cancel the agreement “reflects Gabon’s firm commitment to strengthening its sovereignty over its fishery resources and promoting a renewed, balanced, sustainable, and mutually beneficial cooperation framework.”
The SPFA between the EU and Gabon was established in 2007 and implemented through three protocols lasting between three and six years. The latest protocol covering 2021–2026 allowed up to 27 EU purse seiners, commercial fishing boats that use large, vertical nets; six pole-and-line tuna vessels and four exploratory crustacean trawlers to fish in Gabonese waters.
An independent evaluation commissioned by the European Commission found the EU paid Gabon an average of €2.6 million ($3 million) annually between 2021 and 2024 in exchange for access to 32,000 tons of tuna. However, it also found that Gabon captured just 23% of the total economic value generated; nearly half accrued to other countries because EU vessels made little use of Gabonese ports or processing facilities.
An EU Commission spokesperson told Mongabay the bloc has been ready to negotiate a new agreement since October 2025. “We are working on a new generation of sustainable fisheries agreements, and a future agreement with Gabon could be an example of this,” she said.
The EU has ongoing SPFAs with seven African countries, including Mauritius and Mauritania, which are due to expire later this year. Eight SPFAs are currently dormant.
“SFPAs were designed as fisheries access agreements, not as economic development agreements,” Peter Hammarstedt, Chief Campaigns Officer at the international oceans nonprofit Sea Shepherd, told Mongabay by email. He said the design of the partnership favors European operators over domestic processors and fishing companies, which it doesn’t financially support.
Hammarstedt added that Gabon has invested in its domestic tuna industry to process more EU catches, but the EU found the port infrastructure “inadequate”. The EU Commission spokesperson did not respond to this comment.
“What African coastal and island states need is not simply access-fee revenue, but genuine investment in conservation, economic development that creates jobs, builds domestic industries, and enables them to capture a greater share of the value from their own waters,” Hammarstedt said.
The Gabonese Ministry of Fisheries and Maritime Economy did not respond to Mongabay’s request for comment by the time this article was published.
Banner Image: Artisanal fishers at Cocobeach, Gabon. Photo by Ralph Messi on Unsplash.
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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