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At the World Conservation Congress, held in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2004, the IUCN Membership requested “a worldwide consultative process to agree a methodology to enable countries to identify Key Biodiversity Areas”.

On 22 July 2015, Tonga's Cabinet decided to initiate a project to develop a holistic spatial plan for Tonga's ocean (Cabinet Decision 716). It was decided that the relevant ministries would collaborate to implement the marine spatial plan.

The Ocean is a natural and dynamic bridge that connects continents to continents and oceanic islands to islands. It is also a bridge between the living and the dead and between people and the marine resources upon which they rely. It is the bridge of life.

Solomon Islands is composed of almost 1000 islands and has the second longest coastline and the second largest Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Pacific.

Coastal and marine ecosystems provide a variety of ecological functions 1 that directly and indirectly translate to economic services with value to humans

Fiji has committed to a national network of 30% marine managed/protected areas by 2020 at the Small Island Developing States meetings in Mauritius (2005, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and recommitted to this at the SIDS meeting in Samoa in 2014 (Ministry of Strategic Planning, National Development and Statistics).

In 2006, Kiribati established the Phoenix Island Protected Area, one of the Large Scale Marine Protected Areas in the world, which constitute around 11% of Kiribati's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

In 2015, the Government of the Solomon Islands through the Office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet hosted the inaugural National Ocean Summit.

In 2015, the National Committee on Maritime Boundary Delimitation, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and External Trade, established the Ocean Policy Sub-Committee

In 2015, the Tongan Cabinet embarked upon a National Marine Spatial Planning process, establishing a marine spatial planning technical working group comprising seven Ministries (the “Ocean 7”).