Where We Work

The Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project supports the creation and expansion of marine protected areas (MPAs) that qualify as highly or fully protected, meaning extractive activities such as fishing, drilling, and mining are restricted. The project also seeks to establish connections between MPAs to conserve areas and corridors that marine life relies on for breeding and migration, and to help communities strengthen connections to the ecosystems they depend on. Currently, the project’s work focuses primarily on four regions: the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Southern Ocean and sub-Antarctic islands, and the Western Pacific Ocean.

From 2006 to 2016, The Pew Charitable Trusts and its partners contributed to the designation or expansion of the U.S. marine national monuments of Papahānaumokuākea in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, the Pacific Remote Islands, and the Mariana Trench; Australia’s Coral Sea Marine National Park; Palau National Marine Sanctuary; and the Southern Ocean’s Ross Sea Marine Protected Area.

Since 2017, the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project’s work has contributed to the designation or expansion of Ecuador’s Hermandad Marine Reserve; Mexico’s Revillagigedo Archipelago National Park; National Nature Reserve of the French Southern Territories; the Natural Park of the Coral Sea in New Caledonia; Rapa Nui Multiple Use Marine Coastal Protected Area in Chile; Australia’s Christmas Island Marine Park and Cocos (Keeling) Islands Marine Park; and, in the waters of U.K. overseas territories, the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands Marine Protected Area, Ascension Island Marine Protected Area, and Tristan da Cunha Marine Protection Zone.