In 2014, the Council of Ministers (Decision No. 172/2014) decided to start implementation of, amongst other things, a Marine Spatial Plan for the nation. This planning includes aiming to achieve the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) Aichi Target 11 which states, in part, that at least 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas are conserved through
ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas. To progress the work, the Government established the Ocean Policy Sub-Committee to guide this process as well as to develop an Ocean Policy (launched in 2017). Now, as the Ocean Policy Implementation Sub-Committee, one of their tasks was to identify Vanuatu’s marine bioregions – to enable the government to identify “ecologically representative” Marine Protected Areas as part of their Marine Spatial Plan.
