Key Takeaways 🐙

The state of the ocean remains critical, with concerns over pollution, overfishing, and governance gaps.
Indigenous and local communities play a crucial role in ocean conservation but need more inclusion in policy-making.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (30x30) aims to protect 30% of oceans by 2030, but less than 10% is currently safeguarded.
Marine protection efforts must balance conservation with community livelihoods, ensuring governance structures fully reflect cultural values.
Large-scale marine protection initiatives (e.g., Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument) prove that expansive and inclusive conservation is feasible.
Recognising Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs) as a legitimate framework could help preserve biodiversity while respecting and upholding customary practices.
Pacific Island leadership in conservation efforts is gaining global recognition, with unique and highly successful approaches such as rahui (temporary bans), LMMAs (Locally Managed Marine Areas), and other traditional conservation models.
Challenges include industrial fishing, deep-sea mining, the geopolitical context and climate change impacts, whilst strengthening sustainable financing to regenerate the ocean.
With the Young Pacific Leader(YPL) presence, youth voices were strong, recognising that younger generations are not just the future but the present.

“Mō mātou ā mō kā uri, kei te haere. ”

— For us and for those yet to come.

Influential Quotes 💬

Moetai Brotherson, President of French Polynesia ~“The ocean is not what divides us, peoples from the Pacific. It is what our ancestors used to travel and meet.”
“We might be tempted to be discouraged about climate change, the environment, or the ocean. Who am I but a droplet in the ocean? But if we stay in that mindset, we won’t succeed.”
“I would like to tell the young people here, when you refuse to be a droplet, that you become the ocean!”

Aulani Wilhelm (CEO, Nia Tero) ~“It’s not about what we’re protecting the ocean from. It’s about what we’re protecting it for.”
“Getting to 30% isn’t a conservation problem, it’s a humanity problem.”
Angelo Villagomez (Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress ~ “Conservation equals people.”
YPL Future Panel Reflection ~“Resilience is more than riding the storms. It is using the ripples of change to become an unstoppable tidal wave of resilience.”

Government of French Polynesia (President Moetai Brotherson)
US State Department (Alexia Branch)
Haut Commissariat de la République en Polynésie Française (Xavier Marotel)
Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy (Johnny Briggs)
SPREP (Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme) (Easter Chu Shing, Juney Ward)
Rāhui Center (Tamatoa Bambridge, Marguerite Taiarui)
Nia Tero (Aulani Wilhelm)
IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) (Leituala Kuniselani Toelupe Tago, Rahul Chand, Olivier Chassot)
Center for American Progress (Angelo Villagomez)
Pacific LMMA Network (Alifereti Tawake)
Marshall Islands PAN (Protected Areas Network) (Brian Jeffrey Zebedy)
Ngāti Kuri (Sheridan Waitai)
Cook Islands National Environment Service (Jessie Nicholson)
Young Pacific Leaders (Sabrina Suluai-Mahuka, Sheila Babauta, Gabriel Mara, Mananui Ramsden)
And many more…