The tropical Pacific is the stuff dreams are made of—blue-green shallows, coral reefs teeming with fish, gorgeous beaches, and unique island cultures. This region is home to 15 million people spread across 22 island nations whose communities depend on the Pacific for food, well-being and livelihoods.

These Pacific nations are getting a financial boost to protect the ocean that sustains them.

This week, the Bezos Earth Fund announced six grants totaling $25 million to help conserve 625,000 square miles of ocean, an area larger than Alaska. The money will support marine protected areas in the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Vanuatu. It will also help Pacific nations work together to create some of the world’s first international marine protected areas in the high seas.

“This summer I spent time in the Pacific, and the water was everything you’d imagine. But what I keep coming back to is the people,” Lauren Sánchez Bezos, vice chair of the Bezos Earth Fund, said in a press release announcing the new grants. “Out there, the ocean isn’t just a beautiful view. It’s the road, the pantry, the backyard.”

$100 Million Total Committed to Pacific Prosperity

This is the second wave of grants distributed toward Bezos Earth Fund’s pledge of $100 million to support Pacific-led ocean conservation , which was announced in December 2023. One-third of the Earth Fund money, $37.5 million, was distributed last September to groups working across 12 Pacific Island nations. In total, the Bezos Earth Fund has given $63.3 million in 17 countries thus far.

All of these grants advance the goals of Unlocking Blue Pacific Prosperity , an initiative of the inter-governmental Pacific Community that’s endorsed by 22 countries and territories. These island nations have committed to sustainably managing 100 percent of their waters and protecting at least 30 percent of their oceans by 2030.

If achieved, this would protect 9 million square kilometers of ocean—a swath of the planet roughly comparable to the size of China or the United States.

“This is probably the world’s largest collectively managed climate and biodiversity asset,” Coral Pasisi, Director of Climate Change and Sustainability for the Pacific Community, told me in a phone interview from her home island, Niue.

“Our Pacific countries are protecting these incredible ocean assets that have global environmental benefits," said Pasisi, "but it’s pretty hard as small countries to effectively manage that large ocean space, especially when we’re trying to deal with climate impacts on our food security and economies.”

The Bezos Earth Fund is helping countries like Niue build innovative conservation financing mechanisms, like the Niue Ocean Wide Trust .

Sustainable Conservation Models For The Pacific Ocean

The Earth Fund grants are “meeting countries where they are at and helping them do what they want with ocean protection and conservation,” Rocky Sanchez Tirona, managing director of regional programs for the international nonprofit Rare , told me in a phone interview from her office in the Philippines.

For some Pacific island nations, the priority is to design and legally implement new marine protected areas . Others want support for enforcement in existing marine conservation areas, or for improving monitoring and management of marine resources. Many countries are also using grants to create durable, long-term financing mechanisms for marine protected areas.

An example of a sustainable finance model comes from Palau, Sanchez Tirona said. Palau established a marine conservation trust fund more than two decades ago to support its marine protected areas. Tourism dollars contribute to the fund, and an endowment generates additional revenue. A board determines how the money is allocated.

“That’s the gold standard that people are looking at to see if it would work in their country,” Sanchez Tirona said.

The hope is that these grants also help Pacific countries learn from one another and collaborate more on long-term marine protection.

For example, earlier this year leaders convened at the inaugural Melanesian Ocean Summit , where Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Vanuatu proposed the Melanesian Ocean Corridor of Reserves. Separately, several countries are working on a framework for an Indigenous-led, multinational Melanesian Ocean Reserve that will protect more than 6 million square kilometers of ocean and islands.

New Pathway For Protecting The High Seas

Rare received an Earth Fund grant this week to help Pacific nations protect connected corridors in the high seas—the vast regions of deep ocean that lie outside of national jurisdictions.

The UN High Seas Treaty, formally called the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction agreement, entered into force in January 2026. The treaty creates a new framework for establishing marine protected areas in international waters. The grant from the Earth Fund will support governments as they discuss ways to create and manage these transboundary areas.

“It’s all new. It really is about figuring out what is the right way to go about it,” said Sanchez Tirona. “The hope is that at least one proposal can be taken to BBNJ for ratification.”

For Pacific nations, a new conservation tool to safeguard and manage key parts of the high seas will help species they depend upon—like tuna or humpback whales—whose ranges extend far into international waters.

Other grants given by the Bezos Earth Fund during its second wave of Pacific funding include:

Cook Islands - A grant to BirdLife International will support Marae Moana, a marine park covering more than 734,000 square miles of ocean, including improvements to how these waters are watched and managed to safeguard charismatic animals like giant manta rays and endangered oceanic whitetip sharks.

Kiribati - A grant to Live & Learn Environmental Education will support Kiribati’s planning process to identify and legally protect priority ocean areas, strengthen existing protected areas, and improve monitoring and enforcement. It will also help build long-term financing to sustain these marine protections.

Papua New Guinea - A grant to the Wildlife Conservation Society will go toward designing and implementing the country’s first large-scale offshore marine protected area in the Coral Triangle, one of the most biodiverse marine habitats on the planet.

Tonga - A grant to TierraMar will help the Tongan government protect 30 percent of its ocean by establishing new protected areas, and creating the long-term funding needed to ensure they work for the humpback whales and other migratory species that travel across Tongan waters.

Vanuatu - A grant to Live & Learn Environmental Education will help the country implement planned marine protected areas, including a legal process for designating offshore conservation areas and expanding community-led marine management approaches.

The Bezos Earth Fund’s investments in the region are catalyzing other donors to support Pacific Island nations’ ocean protection efforts. This lays a foundation to “keep this global common good intact”, Pasisi said.

“It’s such a concentrated amount of funding in such a short time, so it really demonstrates that we have to scale up our efforts and not do these piecemeal projects that don’t have much impact,” Sanchez Tirona says. “A lot of it is about that invitation to collaborate and partner and do things differently than before.”