Since 2022, BHP has supported Conservation International through a grant of approximately US$6.5 million over five years to implement its pioneering seascape approach in the Lau Region of Fiji. This approach builds local partnerships with Indigenous communities and implements interconnected programs that seek to protect, manage, restore and sustain biodiversity across places important to nature and people.  

The Seascape approach is a framework for countries, communities and the private sector to improve marine and coastal protections and support a resilient ocean economy through more sustainable use of resources, improved livelihoods and better ocean health. 

Through our financial support, BHP is supporting Conservation International to enable the traditional leaders of Lau to prioritise Indigenous-led marine protection for long-term conservation of marine resources, ecosystem services and cultural heritage. 

This initiative aims to ensure the Lau Seascape is zoned and sustainably co-managed at scale by Indigenous communities and government, delivering a global model for effective protection of nature, culture and sustainable development through improved market access to natural resources, tourism and sustainable financing in the ocean economy. 

In 2024, Conservation International facilitated a train the trainer program, with local representatives from 18 islands in the Lau Seascape on environmental DNA (eDNA) collection for biodiversity assessments to strengthen the existing coral reef monitoring program. Summaries of the results have been shared with Lau traditional leaders and communities and there is interest in sharing results more broadly, with this being the first large-scale, Indigenous-led citizen science eDNA program in the South Pacific. 

Conservation International’s seascape approach aims to build coalitions among government, the private sector and civil society to harmonise sustainable use and protection of oceans and coasts. The seascapes approach has been developed and piloted by Conservation International for more than 15 years.  

Since 2004, this approach has been applied by global non-profit partnerships in five seascapes across eight countries and has drawn on the practical experience of local partners. These seascapes include: the Eastern Tropical Pacific Seascape (Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador), the Abrolhos Seascape (Brazil), the Sulu-Sulawesi Seascape (Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines), the Bird’s Head Seascape (Indonesia) and the Lau Seascape (Fiji).  

This project also provides an opportunity for the lessons learned from application of the seascapes approach and Indigenous-led management to be shared to enable both organisations to consider how they could be applied in other contexts and geographies. 

The grant to Conservation International to support implementation of the seascape approach is aligned with BHP’s intention to contribute to the preservation of high value terrestrial and marine ecosystems.  

Read more on Conservation International’s website.