How Big Ocean works.
Big Ocean strengthens management at scale by connecting practitioners, building relationships that support peer exchange, and developing useful knowledge and tools with the people who will use them.
Browse resources
Relationships make exchange possible.
Large ocean places are managed across enormous distance and very different institutions. Trusted relationships make it possible for practitioners to ask candid questions, compare what is working, and call on one another when a problem arises.
Four ways the work moves.
Practice can travel into new governance contexts.
Big Ocean works with established management teams, people building new protected or conserved areas, Indigenous- and community-led ocean governance initiatives, cross-jurisdictional efforts, and emerging high-seas systems.
High-seas MPAs bring management at scale into a new operating environment, with distinctive questions of authority, law, remoteness, institutional coordination, and implementation. As these areas are created and their management systems take shape, Big Ocean can connect practitioners doing that work with people who have spent years managing enormous ocean places—so emerging practice can draw on what has already been learned, test what transfers, and adapt it to new conditions.
What are you working on?
If you manage or support a large ocean place, are working toward new protection or recognition, are building an Indigenous- or community-led ocean governance initiative, are connecting management across jurisdictions, or are shaping emerging high-seas systems, Big Ocean may have experience, relationships, or partners that can help.
Start with the work