Jeff Bezos pledged $10 billion to fight climate change in 2020; 6 years later, his Earth Fund is putting more than $25 million into Pacific ocean conservation |
The Pacific is becoming a major focus of Jeff Bezos’ environmental philanthropy, with the Bezos Earth Fund announcing more than $25 million in new grants for ocean conservation across five Pacific nations. The latest funding is intended to help governments protect large areas of marine territory while developing longer-term plans for managing their waters. According to Bezos Earth Fund, it also brings the fund’s total awards under a wider $100 million Pacific commitment to $63.3 million.Bloomberg reported Bezos pledged $10 billion through the fund in 2020, with the money intended to be distributed by the end of 2030.Reportedly, almost seven years into that period, around $2.4 billion has been granted so far, leaving billions still to be allocated in the years ahead.
Jeff Bezos expands Pacific ocean protection with $25 million in new grants
The latest grants cover work in the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Vanuatu. Together, the projects are designed to support protection and sustainable management across more than 625,000 square miles of ocean. The money forms the second round of the Earth Fund’s $100 million Pacific pledge, known as Unlocking Blue Pacific Prosperity. The initiative has a target of helping protect at least 30% of the region’s waters by 2030. The first $37.5 million round was announced in 2025, bringing the combined value of the two rounds to $63.3 million.Papua New Guinea is expected to use funding towards creating its first large offshore marine protected area, while Tonga is expanding protected areas. Support will also go towards the Cook Islands’ Marae Moana ocean park and habitat protection planning in Kiribati and Vanuatu.Marine protected areas can impose different levels of restriction. In the most tightly protected zones, activities such as fishing, mining and other forms of extraction can be prohibited altogether.
Lauren Sánchez Bezos leads Jeff Bezos’ latest Pacific conservation grants
Lauren Sánchez Bezos is leading the latest Pacific grant round. She has been vice chair of the Bezos Earth Fund since its early period and has become a more prominent figure in the couple’s philanthropic work since marrying Bezos in June 2025. She also announced the first round of Pacific grants last year. Around the same period, the fund awarded $30 million through its AI Grand Challenge, supporting environmental applications including technology intended to identify plant species and help decode the songs of endangered birds.The Pacific programme also extends beyond individual national waters. A grant to conservation organisation Rare is intended to help governments develop some of the first proposals for protecting biodiversity in international waters under the UN High Seas Treaty, which took effect in January.
Jeff Bezos backs Pacific ocean protection amid growing climate pressure
The new funding arrives as the South-West Pacific deals with increasing pressure from ocean warming and acidification. A July report from the World Meteorological Organization said those changes were affecting marine ecosystems and local economies.According to World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, executive secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific said, “Across Asia and the Pacific, heat is intensifying multi-hazard risks, intersecting with food systems, public health, infrastructure and oceans, and placing new pressures on health and livelihoods. Early warning and early action save lives when alerts are timely, messages are trusted and last-mile delivery reaches the vulnerable.”The region experienced its second-warmest year on record in 2025, according to WMO, with marine heatwaves disrupting ecosystems and fisheries. The wider impacts extend into food systems, infrastructure, public health and livelihoods.The Earth Fund says its previous grants are already producing changes in the region. Following the latest awards, it said 17 of the Pacific’s 22 countries are now working on protecting or sustainably managing their waters. French Polynesia, one of the earlier recipients, established what the fund described as the world’s largest network of fully protected marine areas earlier this year. The network covers almost 625,000 square miles, while Niue has protected 40% of its national waters.
Jeff Bezos’ $10 billion climate pledge still has $7.6 billion to deploy
The Pacific programme is only one part of an unusually busy period for the Bezos Earth Fund. Since April, the organisation has announced $34 million for more sustainable fabrics, $26 million for wildfire detection and prevention, and $100 million for projects aimed at turning vacant urban land into parks across eight US cities, as reported by Bezos Earth Fund and Fortune. Another $100 million has been committed through a partnership with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Re to support efforts involving some of the world’s most threatened species.Bezos Earth Fund reported that he originally committed $10 billion to climate and environmental causes through 2030. The fund has awarded about $2.4 billion so far, leaving approximately $7.6 billion still to be distributed. Reaching the original target by the end of 2030. The fund has said it remains committed to meeting that deadline. Bloomberg reported in May that grantmaking had risen to at least $400 million during 2026 after falling to $183 million in 2025. Kelly Levin, the organisation’s chief of science, data and systems change, said the fund takes time to understand an area before deciding how to direct its money.
Jeff Bezos compares the challenge of philanthropy with building Amazon
The amounts being discussed through the Earth Fund remain relatively small compared with Bezos’ personal fortune. Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index as per October 1 2026, valued him at about $273 billion, placing him third on its ranking at the time of the report. Bezos has previously spoken about the difficulty of philanthropy in an interview with CNN in 2022. He said, “The hard part is figuring out how to do it in a levered way.”“It’s not easy. Building Amazon was not easy. It took a lot of hard work, a bunch of very smart teammates, hard-working teammates, and I’m finding — and I think Lauren is finding the same thing — that charity, philanthropy, is very similar.”
