Between 3–12 September 2025, I joined my Greenpeace Australia Pacific (GPAP) colleagues Raeed Ali, Shiva Gounden, and Marketing consultant Lagi Toribau in Honiara for the 54th Pacific Islands Discussion board Leaders’ Assembly. Held underneath the theme “Iumi Tugeda: Act Now for an Built-in Blue Pacific Continent,” the discussion board marked a crucial second for regional unity notably on the contentious subject of Deep Sea Mining (DSM).
Arriving at a shared Discussion board Communiqué that acknowledged DSM as a regional precedence was no small feat. For NGOs like Greenpeace and others who’ve been on the frontlines of this debate for years, this was a hard-earned win. DSM, if allowed to proceed with out rigorous environmental safeguards and a legally binding mining code, might be the silent atomic bomb for Pacific ecosystems. But, the area nonetheless lacks a complete authorized framework and time will not be on our aspect.
Over the previous 12 months, NGOs have actively engaged in regional and world areas the place DSM has surfaced: from ocean and fisheries conferences to world negotiations like BBNJ, United Nations Oceans Convention and UNEA. Regardless of providing deep technical information, historic reminiscence, and community-driven perception, civil society voices are nonetheless typically sidelined notably in areas just like the Pacific Islands Discussion board. Even in Honiara, in the course of the two intense weeks of the Discussion board, NGOs needed to combat to be meaningfully included and heard.
The endorsement of a Excessive-Stage Talanoa on Deep-Sea Minerals is a step ahead. It indicators the Leaders’ intent to develop a regional method based mostly on suggestions from the Discussion board Officers Committee (FOC). Nevertheless, this course of raises issues. What sort of technical recommendation is being offered to Leaders? Who scrutinizes it? And the place are the impartial voices particularly these from civil society on this construction?
At current, eight Pacific nations—Palau, Tuvalu, Republic of Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Samoa and Papua New Guinea—help a moratorium or a precautionary pause on DSM. This displays rising warning, but some, like Nauru, proceed pushing aggressively at boards just like the UN Common Meeting for the Worldwide Seabed Authority (ISA) to speed up environmental laws so mining can proceed.
These diverging positions reveal the rising geopolitical and political pressures surrounding DSM. Extra worryingly, they present how fragile our regional consensus is. The Pacific can’t afford disunity on points as consequential as DSM the place religious, cultural, and ecological futures grasp within the stability.
If “Iumi Tugeda” is to imply something, then governments, NGOs, faith-based teams, and communities should work collectively; not simply in phrases, however in institutional design. PIFS should create a everlasting, equal house for NGOs inside DSM deliberations. No extra again benches. No extra afterthoughts.
The street forward will take a look at our leaders’ resolve. However the message from Honiara is evident: unity, accountability, and inclusion are non-negotiable if we’re to guard our Blue Pacific for generations to come back.
