Reflections on The Melanesian Oceans Summit 2026: Towards Estuary Governance
- Collaborators
- 3 hours ago
- 9 min read
By Evengelyn Kove, Watna Mori and Gregory Roaveneo
From competing frameworks to the governance systems we are already building
"The Melanesian Oceans Summit (2026), hosted by Papua New Guinea under the theme “Protecting our Ocean, Sustaining our Future,” arrives at a moment when ocean governance in Melanesia within the Pacific Ocean, which makes up nearly one-third of the Earth's surface—is accelerating under multiple pressures.". Global biodiversity targets, conservation finance mechanisms, critical minerals race, blue carbon, militarization, philanthropic influences and regional policy frameworks are converging rapidly, producing a sense of urgency around how the ocean should be governed.
But beneath this urgency lies a deeper and more uncomfortable reality:
“We are building regional ocean governance faster than we are building agreement on what governance actually is and who gets to do the governing”
Throughout Melanesia, we have been governing our native seas¹ for tens of thousands of years and we are currently governing the Pacific ocean through multiple systems of authority that coexist, overlap, and sometimes conflict without a shared structure to hold them together.
Current debates around regional governance frameworks, namely the ²Melanesian Ocean Reserve (MOR), announced by the Solomon Islands in 2024, and the Melanesian Ocean Corridor of reserves (MOCOR), announced by PNG at the Melanesian Oceans Summit matter, not because they are competing policies, but because they reveal something more fundamental about whom authority is given to and how authority is being organized in our shared ocean space.
The deeper tension: different ways of seeing the ocean
At the center of this rush towards regional oceans governance frameworks is not only a policy disagreement, but a deeper ontological divide in how the ocean itself is understood across Melanesia.
On one hand, the ocean is increasingly framed through global and State systems as a resource space. It becomes something to be managed, mapped, conserved, and optimized through enforcement mechanisms, scientific frameworks, and international targets such as 30x30. In this framing, governance is primarily a technical and administrative system for the transaction of ocean resources, primarily between the State and corporates, for monetary revenue.
On the other hand, across many sovereign Melanesian communities that have practiced ocean governance for tens of thousands of years – the ocean remains a relational space. It is not separate from people, kinship, land, or spirituality. It is governed through kastom systems of responsibility, where authority is grounded in ancestral tenure, sacred geography, and intergenerational obligation.
These are not simply different approaches to policy. They are different understandings of what the ocean is, and therefore what governance itself must be.
The Summit moment: competing frameworks, unresolved authority
The Melanesian Ocean Reserve (MOR) and the Melanesian Ocean Corridor (MOCOR) reflect this tension in different ways. ³MOR foregrounds Indigenous-led stewardship and kastom governance as central to ocean protection (although the how of it is not quite clear). MOCOR, on the other hand, emphasizes enforcement systems, science-policy integration, and structured community transition processes (no mention of kastom governance so far).
Both are presented as pathways toward sustainability. Yet, on the face of it, they differ in a critical way: how authority is structured and where decision-making power ultimately sits.
This tension became visible at the Melanesian Oceans Summit when Solomon Islands chose not to sign the MOCOR framework, raising concerns that ocean governance must be grounded in Indigenous authority systems, constitutional processes, and meaningful consultation with customary custodians. In our view, however, this concern extends beyond MOCOR alone. Both the MOR and MOCOR initiatives raise important questions about how regional ocean governance frameworks are being developed across Melanesia. There has been limited public discussion and consultation across coastal communities regarding either framework, despite both drawing legitimacy from concepts of Indigenous stewardship. This raises fundamental questions: Which Indigenous peoples are being referenced? What stewardship systems are being recognized? And how are customary authorities participating in defining the governance arrangements being proposed? Governance cannot be built without clarity on who has authority to define governance in the first place.
The missing piece: we are already in an estuary
To understand what is happening, we need to shift the lens entirely. What we are witnessing is the emergence of an estuary. An estuary is a space where freshwater and saltwater meet. They do not become one, but they also do not remain separate. They interact, reshape each other, and form a dynamic relational space in between.
In the same way, Melanesian ocean governance is already shaped by multiple sovereignties that coexist in the same space. Kastom governance systems continue to regulate marine spaces through ancestral law and obligation. State systems operate through legal frameworks drawing from international laws and frameworks such as UNCLOS. Global systems introduce targets, funding structures, and conservation agendas that influence how oceans are valued and managed.
The challenge is not the presence of these systems. The estuary is already taking form, not from the top down, but through multiple sites of practice across the region. The challenge is to design the relational architecture that defines how they interact. Without that structure, governance becomes fragmented, governance clashes, authority becomes unclear and, as we have seen in land governance, our Melanesian peoples are dispossessed of their sacred relationship and responsibility to the ocean.
The real story: solutions are already emerging
Across Melanesia, governance of our native seas is not waiting for resolutions at regional summits. It is already being constructed through Indigenous, institutional, and hybrid systems that are quietly reshaping how authority is lived and exercised.
In Solomon Islands, work through ⁴the Solomon Islands National University is naming Indigenous knowledge not as cultural heritage but as governance knowledge. This shift is significant because it creates institutional space where kastom systems, scientific approaches, and policy frameworks can begin to sit together without one being read within or into the other. It is a move from knowledge extraction to knowledge governance.
In Vanuatu, ⁵ocean stewardship initiatives are building networked systems that connect chiefs, communities, and practitioners in ways that embed kastom authority directly into environmental decision-making. This is not participation in external frameworks. It is distributed governance grounded in Indigenous authority systems that already exist.
In New Ireland,⁶PNG, biocultural governance practices demonstrate that conservation is not only a policy intervention but a lived system of obligation. Practices such as Vala and sacred geographic systems show that ecological care is embedded in ritual, memory, and relational ethics. Governance here is not abstract—it is lived in place.
In other Papua New Guinean examples, like Kikori⁷, the ⁸Binandere systems, and The Healthy Ocean Network-related initiatives⁹, governance is being rebuilt starting from native seas/kastom governance/Indigenous stewardship upward. Clan boundaries, ecological knowledge, and intergenerational stewardship systems are being mapped and strengthened as governance structures in their own right, not as inputs into external planning systems.
At the same time, local-government ward-level governance frameworks are attempting to connect kastom systems with State national planning structures. This is a critical space of possibility, but also a point of risk if kastom authority is reduced to consultation rather than recognized as a primary governance system.
In Papua New Guinea, this challenge is particularly visible at the ward and Local Level Government (LLG) levels, where the interface between kastom authority and State governance is most immediate. Under the Organic Law on Provincial Governments and Local-level Governments, LLGs possess legal powers to develop by-laws relating to environmental protection, natural resource management, and community governance. In principle, this creates an important opportunity for customary stewardship systems to be formally recognized and embedded within local governance arrangements.
Yet in practice, many LLGs face significant constraints. Technical expertise, legal drafting capacity, financial resources, and enforcement mechanisms are often limited. As a result, kastom governance is frequently acknowledged through consultation processes while remaining absent from the legal and institutional frameworks that ultimately shape decision-making. If hybrid governance is to move beyond rhetoric, investment is needed to strengthen local governance institutions so they can formally recognize and support customary stewardship systems through by-laws, planning processes, and resource management frameworks. Otherwise, kastom risks remaining an advisory voice rather than a recognized governance authority.
Across all of these examples, something consistent is emerging. Governance is not only being reformed. It is being reassembled from multiple directions at once.
The call: design the estuary, don’t overwrite it
What becomes clear from all of this is that as Nation-States and as a region, we are not starting from a governance vacuum. We are already inside a multi-layered system where kastom, State, and global governance structures are interacting whether or not we formally acknowledge it.
The real question is no longer whether these systems will coexist. They already do. The question is whether we will design the relational space between them in a way that holds their integrity and their sovereignties as equals.
This requires a shift in how our States approach ocean governance. Kastom systems must be recognized not as cultural inputs into policy, but as governance systems in their own right with equal sovereignty and primary governance rights over their native seas. Decision-making must be clearly structured across kastom, State, and shared domains rather than left ambiguous under broad terms like participation or community engagement. Community-led efforts to revitalize kastom governance must be supported financially (without strings). This support must also extend to the ward and Local Level Government institutions that increasingly operate as the practical interface between customary authority and State governance. Without adequate legal, technical, and financial support, the governance architecture required to sustain hybrid arrangements will remain underdeveloped. Existing Indigenous-led governance solutions across Melanesia must be strengthened as core infrastructure for building State and regional ocean governance, not treated just as parallel or pilot initiatives.
Closing reflection
The Melanesian Oceans Summit is not the beginning of ocean governance in Melanesia. It is a moment where existing governance systems are converging under immense pressure.
The real work is not for our Melanesian States to invent governance from scratch. It is to recognise what is already being built across our communities, institutions, and territories, and for all of us to collectively bring them together into a regional framework that holds our multiple sovereignties and the authority that comes with them.
Because the estuary is not a future idea.
It is already here.
And the question before us is:
Will we design it together, or will it be designed by a few of us?
END.
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About the Collaborators:
Evengelyn Kove
Evengelyn Bauri Kove is a storyteller, environmental advocate, and community development consultant from the Pu’re Tatoro-unji clan of the Binandere tribe of Oro Province in Papua New Guinea. Her traditional name Bauri, named after the cuscus, symbolizes adaptability, resilience, and a deep connection to nature. She is the founder and Director of Resilient Peers Limited, a social enterprise that draws on Indigenous knowledge to foster sustainability, leadership, and healing across to Papua New Guinea emerging leaders and communities. Her work weaves ancestral wisdom with present-day purpose to support grounded, community-led change.
Watna Mori
Watna Mori is a champion of the continuation of Indigenous ways of being and the development of pluralistic legal systems that give equal or higher recognition to Indigenous knowledge systems and customary laws or kastom. Watna has worked with the Papua New Guinea Constitutional and Law Reform Commission and has experience working in different human rights fields, including at the intersection of human rights, Indigenous rights and environmental law in pursuit of climate justice. As part of Blue Ocean Law, Watna was counsel for Vanuatu and the Melanesian Spearhead Group in the International Court of Justice’s recent advisory proceedings on state obligations towards protection of the climate system. Watna is a 2025 Atlantic Fellow for Social Equity and is currently setting up the Centre for Melanesian Law & Governance to protect the intrinsic relationships between Melanesian people and their places by using kastom to re-imagine the imposed western legal systems across our region.
Gregory Roaveneo
Gregory Roaveneo is a development practitioner and public policy specialist with more than 20 years of experience in Papua New Guinea’s public sector. He currently serves as Director of General Strategic Policy and Governance at the Department of Provincial and Local Level Government Affairs. His career has spanned leadership and policy roles across the Department of Petroleum and Energy, the Department of Mineral Policy and Geohazards Management, the Department of Defence, and the New Ireland Provincial Administration, with a focus on governance, institutional development, and public sector reform.