The voyaging canoe Hōkūleʻa under sail off the coast of Hawaiʻi.

One node in a wider community.

Big Ocean works within a wider community of practitioners whose daily actions help protect our planet's beloved ocean places.

Big Ocean focuses on enhancing and furthering best-practice marine management and governance at scale. Our deepest experience is in large-scale marine management within national waters. Considering that approximately 75% of the world's ocean under legal protection comes from a small number of very large places spread across the Pacific, Indian, Atlantic, and Southern Oceans, size matters. Big Ocean's perspective is that vast marine managed areas are not more important, but they are a vital tool, one that is being expanded by the high seas.

Big Ocean was shaped by managers around a vision rooted in peer learning, and that model has produced a shared research agenda for the field, the IUCN best-practice guidelines for large-scale marine managed areas, and a standing body of work on the human dimensions of management. Built on relationships, practical experience, generosity, and shared learning, we hold the same values we started with, even as the circle has grown.

Sunlight bursting through the water's surface beneath the hull of an outrigger canoe. — An outrigger canoe, seen from beneath the surface.

Big Ocean holds Indigenous knowledge and guardianship as starting conditions, rather than themes to invite in.

That knowledge is inseparable from the people, places, and responsibilities that carry it, and the ocean has long been cared for and governed well by those who belong to it. Large-scale management was, in fact, born in the Pacific: the Great Barrier Reef is the grandmother of them all, and the Pacific still holds the greatest number of these places. This is no coincidence. Oceania is filled with cultures rooted in the sea, and that is why the Indigenous foundation runs through our DNA, our values, and our approach. Effective management is never the work of government agencies and the managers they appoint alone. It depends on Indigenous peoples, local communities, knowledge holders, scientists, and partners whose relationships with these places sustain their enduring care.

The Big Ocean Way

A handful of values guide how Big Ocean works, from a single conversation to the whole field.

Relationship first. At this scale, trust is the infrastructure. Lasting relationships are how anything gets done.
Reciprocity. Learning flows in every direction. Everyone has something to share and something to learn.
Generosity. We share what we know freely, in service of the wider field.
Multiple ways of knowing. Scientific, Indigenous, local, and lived knowledge each have standing here.
Care. We tend the people, relationships, and institutions that make durable management possible, not only the places.
Humility and curiosity. We listen first, stay adaptable, and keep learning alongside the people we serve.
Hope, in action. We believe meaningful change is possible, and we act on it.
Catalytic. We invest where our expertise is most needed, and in efforts built on collective work and shared resources, rather than doing it all ourselves.

A turquoise lagoon and reef encircling a small island.

Our mission

To strengthen the global community of people committed to the care and guardianship of large ocean places by connecting experience, relationships, and practice.

Our vision

A thriving ocean, cared for at every scale and enduring in perpetuity — where people who hold an intergenerational responsibility and commitment to the world's largest ocean places lead, and the hard-won practice of managing them well reaches wherever it is needed.

Members of Big Ocean's board and operations team standing together on a lanai, a rainbow arching over the mountains behind them. — Big Ocean's board and operations team at the 2026 retreat.

Board of Advisors

A small group of committed practitioners with long-standing experience across the many dimensions of marine management at scale.

Jon C Day PSM · PhD

Marine management and planning advisor

Dr Jon Day is a founding member of Big Ocean's Board of Advisors and has been involved with Big Ocean since 2010. Jon serves as the primary advisor to Big Ocean on marine management and planning. His professional career included 28 years planning and managing the Great Barrier Reef, including seven years in field management (QPWS Area/Regional Manager) and 16 years as one of the Directors at GBRMPA. As a GBRMPA Director, Jon's responsibilities included biodiversity conservation, park planning, heritage (particularly World Heritage), Indigenous Partnerships, and developing methodologies for the first GBR Outlook Report. His role in the GBR rezoning (1998–2004) led to Jon being awarded an Australian Public Service Medal. Today Jon is an Adjunct Principal Research Fellow at James Cook University and publishes primarily on marine management, planning, world heritage and climate vulnerability.

Areas of expertise: marine management, planning, world heritage

ʻAulani Wilhelm

Ocean policy, governance, and Indigenous guardianship advisor

ʻAulani Wilhelm co-founded Big Ocean in 2010 and is a founding member of Big Ocean's Board of Advisors with expertise in ocean policy, governance, LSMPA management, and Indigenous guardianship. ʻAulani has played a pivotal role in shaping the field of large-scale ocean management, while leading the establishment of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument and World Heritage Site in Hawaiʻi. She is currently the CEO of Nia Tero, whose mission is to support Indigenous Peoples' guardianship of ancestral lands and waters. Prior to joining Nia Tero, she served as the Assistant Director for Ocean Conservation, Climate and Equity at the U.S. White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Senior Vice President for Oceans at Conservation International where she co-founded the Blue Nature Alliance and the Coral Reefs of the High Seas Coalition.

Areas of expertise: ocean policy and governance, Indigenous guardianship, traditional knowledge

Alan Friedlander PhD

Science of large-scale MPAs advisor

Dr. Alan Friedlander is a founding member of Big Ocean's Board of Advisors who has been part of Big Ocean since 2011. Dr. Friedlander serves as Big Ocean's advisor on the science of large-scale marine protected and managed areas. Dr. Friedlander has conducted scientific research in more established and proposed large-scale marine protected areas than anyone else in the world. His seminal work on predator-dominated marine ecosystems was highly influential in the establishment of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument and World Heritage Site. He has led over 50 scientific expeditions to some of the last vital ocean places on Earth, resulting in the protection of more than 7 million km². Dr. Friedlander recently retired as the Chief Scientist for the National Geographic Pristine Seas program and is currently an Affiliate Researcher at the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology.

Areas of expertise: marine ecology, fisheries, and conservation

Carlos Gaymer Garcia PhD

High seas advisor

Dr. Carlos Gaymer is a founding member of Big Ocean's Board of Advisors who has been part of Big Ocean since 2011. Dr. Gaymer serves as Big Ocean's High Seas Advisor, linking technical, scientific, management, and policy expertise to the design and implementation of the first generation of high seas protected areas. He is also the Director of ESMOI at Universidad Católica del Norte in Chile. His work to provide the scientific underpinning and management planning for Chile's network of LSMPAs has helped the nation reach its 30×30 goal in 2018. Dr. Gaymer also serves as the scientific lead of the Coral Reefs of the High Seas Coalition and the scientific advisor on BBNJ for the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Chile.

Areas of expertise: marine conservation, marine protected areas, marine community ecology

Naiʻa Lewis

Board Chair · Interim Executive Director

Naiʻa Lewis is Board Chair of Big Ocean and serves as its interim Executive Director, guiding the network into its next era. Her roots in large-scale ocean management run deep: she spent nearly a decade with Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, contributing from 2005 and serving on its management team from 2007 to 2016, during the years it grew into one of the world's largest marine protected areas. She helped start Big Ocean in 2010, designed its original logo, and has grown with the network ever since, from member coordinator to director. Naiʻa is lead author of the IUCN best-practice guidelines on the design and management of large-scale marine managed areas. A multi-media artist and journalist by training, she has built a career in stakeholder engagement, content development, and strategic communications, work she now carries forward as founder and CEO of Salted Logic, an Indigenous-led creative studio in Honolulu that helps communities tell their own stories.

Areas of expertise: large-scale marine management, human dimensions of conservation, Indigenous knowledge and guardianship, strategic communications

Operations team

The team responsible for the day-to-day work of the organization.

Naiʻa Lewis

Interim Executive Director

Naiʻa has worked in large-scale ocean protection since 2005, including nearly a decade on the management team of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, and has been part of Big Ocean since its founding. She now guides the network's day-to-day work and its transition into the next era. Reach her at naia@bigoceanmanagers.org.

Jonah Pasion

Programs and Operations Coordinator

Jonah coordinates Big Ocean's programs and operations, keeping the work moving between gatherings. He has supported the network in a range of capacities for close to five years. Reach him at jonah@bigoceanmanagers.org.