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Solomon Islands National University (SINU) proudly opened the Pacific Maritime Security Coordination Workshop this morning at the Department of Fisheries Studies, SINU Ranadi Campus, which will run from 23 to 24 July 2025. Vice Chancellor Professor Transform Aqorau delivered a powerful keynote address, setting the tone for two days of high-level dialogue on maritime cooperation in the Pacific.
Co-convened by SINU and the University of Adelaide, the Workshop brings together security experts, policymakers, and academics from across the region to tackle key challenges, including illegal fishing, climate change, transnational crime, and geostrategic pressures.
Professor Aqorauโs keynote captured the urgency and opportunity facing the Pacific: โWe Pacific Islanders may be custodians of small land masses, but we are also guardians of immense ocean spaces. The ocean is not a barrier that isolates usโit is a bridge that unites us and a resource that empowers us.โ
Speaking from the perspective of the Solomon Islands, Professor Aqorau spotlighted the countryโs new National Maritime Security Strategy 2024โ2027 and its flagship innovationโthe establishment of a National Maritime Surveillance Centre to centralise monitoring, intelligence, and enforcement.
He emphasised, โWe are determined to stand our ground as guardians of our own waters, harnessing innovation and cooperation to overcome our constraints. A threat to one islandโs waters can imperil all of us.โ
In a rousing call to regional unity, he advocated for the Oceans of Peace vision, โjust as our forebears declared the Pacific off-limits to nuclear weapons, so now should we declare to the world that our ocean will not be a venue for rivalry or war. We must paddle forward together, with courage and clarity of purpose.โ
The keynote also marked the public launch of SINUโs Postgraduate Diploma in Security Studies (PGDipSS)โa landmark program to train the next generation of Pacific security leaders.
โIt is the universities and think-tanks that develop home-grown strategies. With the PGDipSS, we are investing in Pacific minds to solve Pacific problems.โ
Professor Aqorau closed with a Pacific proverb that resonated with all present:
โWe are not passengers on this canoeโwe are the crew. Each of us has a paddle in hand. The direction is setโa secure, sovereign, and peaceful Pacific.โ
Also speaking at the workshop, Professor Joanne Wallis from the University of Adelaide shared that โwe hope that the workshop discussions can find ways that the Pacificโs partner countries can provide some wind at the back of our Pacific friends to speed along their canoe. At the very least, we hope to find ways to ensure that the many partners now setting sail in the crowded and complex geopolitics of the Pacific donโt make the ocean choppier and the waves higher than they already areโ.
Professor Wallis continued, “this workshop, and the broader Pacific Maritime Security Coordination: Partnerships, Priorities, and Possibilities project, respond to calls by Professor Aqorau for SINU to seek partnerships with regional and international institutions, in this case, the University of Adelaide, to advance our research agendas and find ways to work together to develop teaching programsโ.
The workshop continues through 24 July, featuring expert panels on legal frameworks, humanitarian disaster and relief assistance coordination, transnational crime, and regional training. Participants include representatives and experts from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, New Caledonia, and Guam, as well as regional organizations such as the Pacific Community (SPC) and the University of the South Pacific.
Click to read the Vice-Chancellor’s full address: Charting a Shared Course Keynote Speech
ENDS//