Pacific Atolls Reveal Pristine Marine Baselines for Global Conservation Science

Nesting turtles, vibrant coral reefs teeming with fish, and enigmatic deep-sea communities: researchers have documented a remarkable array of life in one of Earth’s last largely undisturbed marine environments.

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Two isolated coral atolls in the Pacific Ocean are undergoing intensive study to inform conservation strategies at both local and global scales.

Designated as the Marshall Islands’ first national marine sanctuaries in 2025, Bikar and Bokak encompass a 48,000-square-kilometre area where scientists are establishing a comprehensive ecological baseline spanning atmosphere, land, and sea.

The significance of these findings extends well beyond the remote atolls, situated roughly 116 and 385 kilometres from the nearest inhabited land, respectively.

“They rank among the finest ecological reference systems available to understand what has been lost elsewhere and to yield fundamental insights essential for effective conservation and restoration,” explains marine ecologist Dr. Alan Friedlander of the University of Hawai’i.

Dr. Friedlander served as chief scientist on a collaborative expedition to Bikar and Bokak with Pristine Seas, a global conservation and exploration initiative founded by National Geographic Explorer Enric Sala to safeguard critical ocean regions.

The team discovered “some of the most intact ecosystems remaining in the region—and perhaps the world.”

Global Lessons from Remote Ecosystems

Extensive monitoring conducted in 2023 underpinned the creation of the protected area.

Researchers operated within the Marshall Islands’ national framework for community-led conservation, which aims to protect natural resources “while ensuring island life thrives for generations to come,” notes Friedlander, who led a recent study on the atolls’ ecosystems.

“Bikar and Bokak are not merely treasures for the Marshall Islands but for the entire planet—a gift from the community of Utirik Atoll, which has traditionally and vigilantly safeguarded these fragile ecosystems for decades,” he states.

Long before formal national protection, the atolls benefited from community-led stewardship. High chiefs established mo or taboo zones where human activity is restricted, allowing nature to recover and replenish—a practice now embedded in the national framework.

This approach has yielded an ecosystem offering an unparalleled window into how life functions with minimal human influence.

“The Marshall Islands government deserves recognition for its foresight in protecting these global biodiversity hotspots, where human presence is distant and habitats brim with life,” says Friedlander. “As human pressures increasingly threaten biodiversity, areas free from intense impacts serve as vital refugia.”

Large marine protected areas such as these constitute globally significant benchmarks for understanding the structure of tropical ocean ecosystems and their potential trajectories in an era defined by human activity, the researchers emphasize.

Thriving Life Amid Global Decline

Bikar and Bokak present a rare counterpoint to prevailing global trends. Monitored wildlife populations have declined by an average of 73 percent globally since 1970, according to WWF’s 2026 Living Planet Report, with marine populations down 59 percent.

Bleaching-level heat stress affected 84 percent of the world’s coral reefs between January 2023 and May 2025, and only approximately 3.5 percent of the ocean is considered fully or highly protected.

Employing scuba surveys, underwater video, deep-sea cameras, and a submersible, Pristine Seas scientists explored Pacific ecosystems that, by contrast, remain relatively pristine.

Across both atolls, researchers documented 15 breeding or likely breeding seabird species and more than 260 reef fish species, alongside open-water predators including sharks, jacks, and wahoo. Camera systems and the submersible also revealed “surprisingly diverse and poorly known deep-sea communities,” with two recorded fish species potentially new to science.

Nesting green sea turtles were also observed at Bikar.

Notable ecological differences emerged between the two reefs, though the drivers remain unclear. Bokak’s reefs are coral-dominated, supporting roughly twice the fish biomass of Bikar, where macroalgae covers more than half of some deeper slopes.

The project underscores the necessity of assessing ecosystems in their entirety to conserve their integrity and track future climate-driven change, the researchers note, recommending that future studies examine nutrient transfer and ecological connectivity between habitats.

Even with responsible local governance, the most isolated tropical reef systems are not immune to the global impacts of human-caused climate change. They face increasing threats from coral bleaching, ocean warming, sea-level rise, and shifts in open-ocean productivity, the study warns.

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