This article was originally published on 30 June 2025. It was updated on 1 July 2025 to reflect Côte d’Ivoire’s official communiqué announcing the 2025 fisheries closed season (repos biologique) for its artisanal, semi-industrial, and industrial fisheries subsectors. The update clarifies that Côte d’Ivoire has three distinct fisheries subsectors and that the closure periods for its semi-industrial and industrial subsectors align with those of Ghana: 1 July to 31 August 2025. An update dashboard has also been added.
For the first time, the Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC) region, thanks to the decision of the Government of Togo, will experience fisheries sector closed seasons in four of its member states from July to August 2025.
The Government of Togo, through its Ministry for Fisheries Resources, Animal and Transhumance Regulation (MRHART), announced its plan to implement a closed season for both its artisanal and industrial fisheries sectors via a communique dated 20 June 2025 from Togo’s Minister of State, General (2) Damehame YARK.
Togo’s artisanal fisheries sector will be closed to fishing activities from 1 July to 31 July 2025. The industrial fisheries sector will be closed from 1 July to 31 August 2025.
On 1 July 2025, Cote d’Ivoire announced that it will be implementing a closed season for its artisanal subsector 1 to 31 July 2025, and both its semi-industrial and industrial fisheries subsectors, from 1 July to 31 August 2025. This aligns with Ghana’s fisheries closed season for its semi-industrial and industrial fisheries subsectors. Ghana will not implement a fishery closed season for its artisanal fisheries subsector this year.
FCWC Secretary-General Dr. Gaston Djihinto welcomed the news, stating, “We thank the Government and the fisheries Ministry of Togo for committing to implement a fishery closed season this year. This announcement is well received as a reaffirmation of Togo’s commitment to regional cooperation in fisheries, and an endorsement of the engagement efforts of the FCWC conducted under the West Africa Task Force (WATF) and the Improved Fisheries Governance in Ghana and the Wider Subregion project (IFG project). We look forward to having Liberia and Nigeria join the implementations by Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Liberia soon, so we can together implement the region’s premier subregional fisheries closed season.”
For context, the FCWC region has experienced the implementation of fisheries closed seasons since November 2016, when Ghana began implementing two-month closures for its industrial trawl fisheries sector. In 2019, Ghana expanded the closure to include a one-month closure for its artisanal and semi-industrial sectors. After a COVID-19 interruption in 2020, Ghana resumed implementation in 2021, implementing closures for one month (July) for artisanal and semi-industrial fisheries, and 2 months (July-August) for industrial trawl fisheries. In 2022, FCWC launched the IFG project, which included activities to support engagements with countries to advocate for the implementation of national fisheries closed seasons. In 2023, Côte d’Ivoire began implementation with a one-month artisanal and two-month industrial fisheries closure for the same July-August period, establishing the first transboundary bilateral fisheries closed season. Also in 2023, Benin implemented a beach seine fisheries closure for a period that overlapped July and August 2023. In 2024, Benin expanded its closure to the entire artisanal fisheries subsector, in tandem with Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.
