The next few months will see a flurry of climate diplomacy involving the Pacific Islands. Later this week, regional leaders are heading to Palau for the Pacific Islands Forum, with this year’s meeting expected to put ocean protection at the forefront. In early October, the world will travel to Fiji and Tuvalu for the pre-COP meeting; in November, Australia will preside over COP31 in Antalya, Turkiye.

Between now and then, Australia has a rare opportunity: to use its COP31 presidency and the new High Seas Treaty to help create connected protection across the Pacific and the high seas.

The idea behind this connection are the Blue Corridors, the migratory pathways used by whales, sharks and other marine species as they travel thousands of kilometers across multiple jurisdictions. To better protect these dynamic habitats, governments must connect networks of marine protected areas across borders and the high seas, while reducing the growing risks species face along their journey.

Consider the humpback whale. This month, humpbacks breeding off Queensland migrate toward Antarctic feeding grounds, while those in Tonga travel through the Cook Islands, Niue, and New Zealand to the same destination. To the whale, Australia, the Pacific Islands, and Antarctica are a single living system. 

Marine life depends on connectivity; protecting isolated marine parks is not enough. We must protect the pathways species travel.  

For years, this was impossible without an international law to protect waters beyond national jurisdiction. That changed in January, when the High Seas Treaty entered into force, enabling governments to protect the two-thirds of the ocean beyond any single nation’s control. Now, COP31 presents an opportunity to put oceans at the heart of the climate agenda, recognizing that the climate and ocean crises are inseparable.  

Science, law, and political leadership have aligned. Thirty years of migration tracking, complementing thousands of years of Indigenous knowledge, have revealed these ocean pathways, and governments now have the tools to protect them. Pacific nations are leading ocean conservation, consistently translating ambition into policy, diplomacy, and action.  

In May, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Vanuatu signed the Melanesian Ocean Corridor of Reserves, the first Pacific-led declaration linking national waters into a shared corridor of protection. Tonga has announced a National Ocean Policy with a vision for 30 percent protection and is signaling a further step: protecting the Pacific Blue Corridor that humpbacks travel, from Tongan breeding waters south through Cook Islands, Niue, and New Zealand toward Antarctic feeding grounds.  

This is the leadership nature demands, grounded in the millennia-old Pacific knowledge that the ocean is a pathway, not a barrier. The Blue Corridors concept shows how solutions can be locally led, informed by science and Indigenous knowledge, regionally connected, and globally scalable through the High Seas Treaty. Ancestral knowledge is reinforced by science and formalized in law, forming an essential foundation of ocean governance. 

What Pacific nations seek from Australia at COP31 is not endorsement, but enduring partnership, as demonstrated at the negotiating table in Antalya and in the decisions Australia makes before delegates arrive. 

Australia has framed COP31 as the Pacific COP, delivered in partnership with the region. Its role is to translate Pacific leadership into concrete outcomes through three key actions.

First, off Australia’s coast, the Lord Howe Rise is a submerged Tasman Sea plateau and biodiversity hotspot, straddling domestic waters and high seas. It’s home to many migratory species and ancient corals. Commitments to strengthen protections are a welcome first step toward securing its future. 

Second, Australia must strengthen protection in its own waters. The government has committed to expanding highly protected marine sanctuaries from 24 percent to 30 percent by 2030. Fulfilling this means firstly increasing protection in the Coral Sea, and around Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands, followed by further protections around the country guided by science.  

Third, marine sanctuaries alone cannot safeguard a rapidly warming ocean. Australia cannot credibly lead global climate negotiations while approving fossil fuel projects that accelerate ocean tipping points Pacific communities have warned about for years. Nearly 100 civil society organizations have already called on Australia and Turkiye to lead by example and “advance the just, orderly, and equitable transition away from fossil fuels.”  

The urgency is real. CSRIO modeling suggests that one of conservation’s great successes, the recovery of humpback whale populations, could be significantly reversed by 2050 as climate change disrupts Antarctic ecosystems. Decades of research have mapped the whales’ migration corridors, but a warming ocean is already reshaping the conditions that sustain these movements. 

A humpback breeding off Queensland follows the ocean, guided by forces older than any border. Her migration is based on instinct, but the future of her path will be shaped by human decisions. Protecting Blue Corridors means addressing the drivers of ocean decline, safeguarding critical habitats, and reducing threats along the journey of migratory species. 

The science is settled, the legal framework exists, and Pacific leadership is delivering. The decisions Australia takes before COP31, and the ambition it brings, will help determine whether Blue Corridors become this decade’s defining ocean achievement, or another opportunity that governments let slip.