September-October 2025: Pacific Island Ocean Conference
The Pacific Community (SPC) through the Pacific Community Centre for Ocean Science (PCCOS), the Office of the Pacific Ocean Commissioner (OPOC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment (SPREP) convened Pacific Ocean stakeholders at the Pacific Islands Ocean Conference in Honiara (Solomon Islands) from 29th September to 3rd October, 2025. The conference was founded on the strengths and outcomes from the first Pacific Islands Conference on Ocean Science and Management (PICOSOM, September 2023) and the first Pacific Regional Ocean Policy and Governance Dialogue (August, 2023). Through the conference, shared commitment to optimise member country and partner dialogue engagement and the strengthening of science-policy interface toward sustainable ocean management was highlighted and special focus on traditional knowledge. The regional conference is part of the implantation of the Ocean Decade in the Blue Pacific.
The Sea of Connections – Valuing Reef Passages in the South Pacific (SOCPacific2R) project was invited to be part of the Science, Stewardship and Solutions: Advancing Ocean Decade Action for Sustainable Future. At this session, Dr. Salanieta Kitolelei, the SOCPacific2R Postdoctoral Researcher, presented on the background and also the work associated with reef passages through this project. She also emphasised the need for collective collaboration between stakeholders in both land and seascapes which are connected through water which flows from land and to the reef passages and out to the open water. She concluded with the need for in-depth understanding of the socio-ecological coral reef systems which make up a complex, interconnected and dynamic space for living and non-living, dwelling and transiting entities which interact with one another.
