Indonesia Eyes US$260 Million in Funding to Protect Marine Ecosystems
Indonesia has the opportunity to secure international funding of up to US$260 million through various cooperation schemes. The funds will be used to support coral reef conservation, marine ecosystem restoration, and the development of Ocean Centres.
This follows the announcement by Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Sakti Wahyu Trenggono of four new government commitments to strengthen sustainable ocean governance at both regional and global levels. The commitments were made during the 11th Our Ocean Conference (OOC) in Mombasa, Kenya.
“The four commitments we delivered today underscore Indonesia’s concrete steps in strengthening marine spatial planning, expanding and enhancing the effectiveness of conservation areas, and developing nature-based solutions such as blue carbon for climate change mitigation,” Minister Trenggono said in a written statement on Tuesday (23 June 2026).
The four commitments include strengthening marine spatial governance by integrating land and sea spatial planning into national and provincial spatial plans, drafting cross-regional zoning regulations, and incorporating national strategic blue carbon areas into national spatial planning.
The second commitment targets the designation of 700,000 hectares of new marine protected areas by 2026. “This demonstrates Indonesia’s seriousness in safeguarding marine biodiversity and ecosystems, as well as achieving the target of expanding marine protected areas to 30 percent of the nation’s total waters by 2045,” he stated.
Beyond expanding conservation areas, the third commitment involves evaluating the management effectiveness of 19.10 million hectares of existing marine protected areas. This aims to ensure that the benefits of conservation are optimally felt by both the environment and coastal communities.
Finally, Indonesia is committed to developing a blue carbon pilot project that can serve as a model for replication in other regions across the country in the future.
“We believe that ocean challenges are transboundary and require strong global collaboration. Indonesia is ready to deepen partnerships with friendly nations, international organisations, and all stakeholders to accelerate concrete action, moving from commitments to implementation, to keep the ocean healthy and productive for current and future generations,” Trenggono concluded.
Indonesia has a long track record at the OOC since 2016. The country was even trusted to host the 5th OOC in 2018, where it delivered 23 concrete commitments worth approximately US$500 million (around Rp7-8 trillion) for marine protection actions. Over nine years of active participation in the global OOC forum, Indonesia, through the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, has made 73 commitments to safeguard ocean health, which serve not only as a national agenda but also as Indonesia’s contribution to global solutions.
“Through these concrete and measurable commitments, Indonesia demonstrates that marine-based economic development can go hand in hand with ecosystem protection and the welfare of coastal communities, in line with the spirit of SDG 14 to ensure the ocean remains sustainable for future generations,” he concluded.