ON 8 Jun 26, the UN released its 3rd World Ocean Assessment: the sea levels are rising at 4.3 mm per year, more than double the pre-2015 rate; 52 million tonnes of plastic enter the ocean annually and only 27% of the ocean floor has ever been mapped. However, the report’s sharpest observation is institutional: ocean governance, across all sectors and jurisdictions, remains deeply fragmented. The ocean is managed as a set of separate sectoral interests when the pressures it faces are cumulative and interconnected. I attended a two-week Multilateral Seminar on Marine Sustainable Development in Xiamen, China, as part of Pakistan’s delegation under the China Aid Training framework with the Fujian Institute of Oceanography (FJIO). The lectures and field visits showed how China has spent the past three decades progressively bringing marine spatial planning, resource management, ecological protection and economic development into an integrated system, overcoming the fragmented approach identified in WOA III.

China’s marine functional zoning system integrates coastal restoration, recreation and commercialization within a single spatial framework, preventing these otherwise competing uses from conflicting. Operating across national, provincial and county levels for over 30 years and incorporated into the unified Real Property Rights certificate system since 2015, the system makes these allocations........

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