The Bezos Earth Fund, the philanthropic organization founded by Jeff Bezos to support efforts addressing climate change and protecting nature, is expanding its ocean conservation work across the Pacific. The fund is committing more than $25 million to support conservation efforts in the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and Vanuatu, covering more than 625,000 square miles of ocean. That area is larger than Alaska, with the funding also supporting efforts to develop marine protected area proposals for international waters under the UN High Seas Treaty. The new grants represent the second round of funding under the Earth Fund’s $100 million commitment to support the Pacific-led management of the region’s waters.
The money will support distinctly different conservation efforts across the five nations. In the Cook Islands, BirdLife International will help expand protections under the Marae Moana framework, a whole-of-ocean marine park covering more than 734,000 square miles. Live & Learn Environmental Education will help Kiribati identify priority marine habitats, strengthen monitoring and enforcement, and advance legal protection for important areas. In Papua New Guinea, the Wildlife Conservation Society will support work toward the country’s first large offshore marine protected area, while TierraMar will help Tonga establish new protected areas as the nation works toward protecting 30 percent of its ocean.
In Vanuatu, Live & Learn will support the implementation of the country’s completed national marine spatial plan, including new offshore conservation areas and community-led marine management. Another grant to Rare will bring Pacific governments together to develop some of the first marine protected area proposals under the UN High Seas Treaty, which entered into force in January 2026. The effort is intended to connect conservation within national waters with protection in international waters, where migratory species such as whales, sharks, sea turtles, and tuna move across national boundaries. Alongside creating protected areas, the funding will support monitoring, enforcement, community stewardship, and long-term financing so conservation measures can remain effective beyond their initial designation.
Lauren Sánchez Bezos, vice chair of the Bezos Earth Fund, drew on her own recent experience in the Pacific while announcing the new funding to explain why the effort matters. In July, she shared photographs and video from snorkeling and scuba diving in Fiji, where she encountered reefs filled with fish, sea turtles, and reef sharks. In an Instagram video announcing the new funding, she remembered that experience and connected what she saw beneath the water with the communities whose lives and livelihoods depend on the ocean. Her message centered on the idea that Pacific communities have protected these waters for generations, with the new funding intended to support the work they are already leading.
The latest grants bring the Bezos Earth Fund’s total commitments under the $100 million Pacific initiative to $63.3 million. The first round, announced in 2025, provided $37.5 million through seven grants, while earlier work has already helped advance conservation in places including French Polynesia and Niue. Earlier this year, French Polynesia established the world’s largest network of fully protected marine areas, safeguarding nearly 625,000 square miles of ocean, while 40% of Niue’s national waters are already protected.
With this second round, 17 of the Pacific’s 22 countries and territories are now working to protect and sustainably manage their waters, bringing national conservation efforts and the emerging protection of the high seas into a broader regional strategy.
