The Western Pacific is home to the world's highest levels of coastal marine biodiversity and endemism. The region is home to a greater diversity of corals, fish, invertebrates, mangroves, and seagrasses than in any other part of the world. The majority of people living in the island nations of the Western Pacific are concentrated in coastal zones and are, therefore, highly reliant on these coastal marine resources and the complex ecosystems that regulate local harvests, livelihoods, and environmental conditions.

Industrial and population growth, the spread of aquaculture systems, financially strapped and often inconsistent governing systems, overfishing by commercial fleets and subsistence fishermen, destructive fishing techniques, rising sea temperatures, upland farming, and irresponsible tourism have all contributed to growing pressure on the coastal zones of the Western Pacific nations, especially since the early 1990s.

Goal
In 1998, after analyzing what is at stake in the Western Pacific, the Packard Foundation established a grantmaking initiative dedicated to the long-term conservation and responsible stewardship of critical coastal habitats and resources in the region. The subprogram is committed to helping people improve the knowledge, skills, and institutions needed to ensure that these biologically diverse ecosystems are conserved and contribute to sustainable livelihoods and the health of those reliant upon them.

What We Fund
The subprogram supports three interrelated grant portfolios: Skills Exchange, Site-Based Implementation, and Public Education and Media.

Skills Exchange: The subprogram invests in helping people acquire the individual and technical skills they need to be effective. Priority is given to improving skills related to monitoring, enforcement, marine protected area (MPA) management and financing, communications, and, in limited cases, the development of compatible enterprises. Acknowledging that institutional development is also very important in the region and to our grant recipients, Western Pacific program staff collaborate closely with the Foundation's Organizational Effectiveness program to make complementary grants to key organizations.

Site-Based Implementation: The subprogram follows two complementary tracks supporting conservation at specific sites. The first track supports work at sites noted, first and foremost, for their biological diversity, particularly large-scale national and provincial parks. The second supports work focused on sites that tend to be smaller and where the social and sustainable management benefits of establishing an MPA are at least as important as the biodiversity value. Priority is given to MPAs as a tool for site-based conservation, and we use a very broad definition of MPAs that is not limited to areas officially recognized or gazetted by national or provincial governments as strict reserves. Ultimately, we seek to catalyze the creation of national and regional networks of MPAs supported by financial and social institutions that can ensure their long-term management. We also support organizations trying to ensure that land-based threats to these MPA networks are addressed.

Public Education and Media: The subprogram invests in efforts to communicate messages about better coastal conservation and sustainable management. Over the past several years, coastal conservation has gained considerable momentum in the Western Pacific. It is an opportune time to enable more frequent, better quality, and sharper-focused communications activities that can improve knowledge, attitudes, and most importantly, behavior. This will include a greater investment in public education campaigns, the development of marine conservation-focused curricula in schools, and media training for our grant recipients and their partners.

What We Do Not Fund
We do not fund conservation-related science that does not play a pivotal role in promoting marine and coastal sustainability in the Western Pacific. We also have little flexibility in our grants budget to begin funding new multi-year initiatives. As a result, much of our funding is focused on continued support, where there is merit, for the dozens of initiatives that we have supported over the past eight years.

Geographic Focus
We support local, national, and international organizations working in eastern Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau.