The inaugural Melanesian Ocean Summit in Port Moresby produced ocean protection commitments of global significance. Translating them into lasting outcomes will require the international community, including Australia, to fulfil its own obligations on conservation finance.

From 11–14 May, I attended the inaugural Melanesian Ocean Summit in Port Moresby. Hosted by Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Marape, the summit brought together heads of government from across Melanesia and the wider Pacific, alongside ministers, regional organisations, development partners and more than 500 delegates.

The summit's centrepiece was the Melanesian Ocean Corridor of Reserves (MOCOR) Declaration, signed by three Melanesian heads of government. The Declaration lays the foundations for a proposed network of marine protected areas spanning five Pacific territories and more than six million square kilometres of ocean.

Papua New Guinea also announced the proposed Western Manus Marine Protected Area, covering over 200,000 km² of the Bismarck Sea within the Coral Triangle, the recognised global centre of marine biodiversity. Scientists describe the area as a marine highway: a network of ridges, canyons and seamounts connecting reef systems to the deep ocean. It is the largest proposed MPA in PNG's history, conceived as an investment in both ecological protection and the food security and livelihoods of coastal communities.

For Pacific leaders, these commitments are inseparable from questions of cultural identity and sovereignty. "Together, we stand as custodians of the Pacific Ocean — united for our people, our environment, and our future," said Prime Minister Marape. Vanuatu Prime Minister Napat was equally direct: "Colonisation drew lines through our ocean. The Melanesian Corridor is how we erase them."

In the Pacific, ocean health is not a distant environmental concern. Healthy marine ecosystems underpin food security for millions of people, sustain fisheries that drive national economies, and buffer coastal communities against the storms and sea-level rise that climate change is intensifying. Protecting the ocean and protecting people are not separate agendas.

Translating these commitments into lasting outcomes will require more than declarations. It demands sustained investment in management, enforcement, science and genuine partnership with coastal communities. Across much of the Pacific, the distance between a protected area on paper and effective conservation on the water is, above all, a funding gap.

Welcoming Pacific leaders' commitments at the summit, Peter Thomson, the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Ocean, put it plainly:

"Time for the world to get serious about financing the preservation of the planet's greatest natural asset — the Ocean."

Progress on international conservation finance has not kept pace with Pacific ambition. Under the 2022 Global Biodiversity Framework, 195 governments, including Australia, committed to protecting 30 percent of the world's oceans by 2030 and to mobilising at least US$30 billion per year in international biodiversity finance. Pacific Leaders have also endorsed Unlocking Blue Pacific Prosperity, a Pacific-led initiative calling for increased, diversified investment in ocean protection and fisheries management for the benefit of Pacific peoples.

Recent analysis by Campaign for Nature found that international funding for protected and conserved areas in developing countries remains around US$4 billion per year short of the level needed to meet the Framework's own targets. Funding per square kilometre for marine protected areas has been essentially flat since 2014, and the Pacific has been chronically under-resourced.

Direct, long-term investment in the management of protected and conserved areas across the Pacific, co-financed by the Australian Government and philanthropic partners, would address a gap that existing mechanisms have not been designed to fill. It would also strengthen the capacity of Pacific governments to detect and deter illegal fishing and advance shared maritime security goals.

Campaign for Nature is working with partners and policymakers to secure Australian Government and philanthropic investment in protected areas, in line with the regional ocean protection priorities Pacific Leaders have endorsed. The 2026 Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting and COP31 present a time-bound opportunity for Australia to honour its nature finance commitments and back the globally significant ocean protection commitments Pacific Leaders have made.

Pepe Clarke attended the Melanesian Ocean Summit on behalf of the Campaign for Nature, an international coalition dedicated to mobilising the political and financial support needed to protect 30 per cent of the planet's land and waters by 2030. Our report, A Living Legacy, presents Campaign for Nature's proposal for long-term public and philanthropic investment in protected areas in the Pacific and South East Asia.