The Melanesian Ocean Reserve will safeguard the ancestral waters and people of the southwestern Pacific, upholding its status as one of the world’s most biodiverse marine areas while securing its economic and cultural vitality for its Indigenous Peoples. A six-million-square-kilometre expanse of ocean and islands across the southwestern Pacific is to become the first multi-national ocean reserve on Earth to be led solely by Indigenous people, encompassing the national waters of the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Papua New Guinea. The Melanesian Ocean Reserve will safeguard the ancestral waters, homelands, and people of the region, upholding its status as one of the world’s most biodiverse marine areas while securing the economic and cultural vitality for hundreds of distinct Indigenous Peoples. An area as vast as the Amazon rainforest, the six-million-square-kilometres will connect with the protected waters of the Exclusive Economic Zone of New Caledonia. “For millennia, the Indigenous Peoples of Melanesia have been the wisest and most effective stewards of these sacred waters. That is why the governments of Melanesia are joining forces to create an unprecedented ocean reserve that honours our identities, livelihoods, and spiritual connections,” said Solomon Islands Prime Minister, Jeremiah Manele.