Niue is a raised coral island in the South Pacific, home to fewer than two thousand people, with an ocean territory of 327,000 square kilometres, about twelve hundred times the size of its land. Looking after that much sea usually depends on the next grant, and the next, and Niue wanted something steadier. So the island created Ocean Conservation Commitments. Anyone, a person, a company, a government or a philanthropist, can sponsor one square kilometre of Niue's ocean for 250 New Zealand dollars a year for twenty years, and every commitment builds a permanent fund held by the Niue Ocean Wide Trust. About forty thousand have been sponsored so far by more than eight hundred backers, towards an endowment of thirty two million dollars. "We did not want protection to remain a promise dependent on the next grant," says Coral Pasisi, the trust's vice chair, who designed the idea with Brendon Pasisi and Dr Josie Tamate.

Talava Arch and its reef at sunset, Niue.
Talava Arch and its reef at sunset, Niue. Photograph: Talava Arch and its reef at sunset, Niue by Pseudopanax, via Wikimedia Commons under Public domain.

All of Niue's ocean is now managed as the Niue Nukutuluea Multipurpose Marine Park, and forty per cent of it, Moana Mahu, is closed to fishing. Already, the sea has noticed. Surveys in 2023 found sixty per cent more fish by weight than in 2016, forty five per cent more top predators and ten per cent more coral. On land, each of Niue's fourteen villages has its own plan for its reef and coast and a committee funded for twenty years, and about half of the island's senior high school students have been trained in ocean safety. In September the trust was named a finalist for the 2026 Earthshot Prize in the Revive Our Oceans category, with the winners announced in Mumbai on 17 November. It is a lovely thought to carry around: somewhere in the Pacific there is a square kilometre of blue water that a stranger has promised to look after until 2046.

An Earth to Sea News story. Figures from the Earthshot Prize finalist profile (2026) and PINA (30 June 2026). Photographs: as credited in captions.