Three Technology Pilots Selected to Strengthen Ocean Protection Across Southeast Asia and the Pacific

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and Newlab today announced three pilots selected through the Global Ocean Innovation Challenge, an initiative to accelerate technology solutions that address critical bottlenecks in ocean conservation.

Why it matters: a protection gap where the stakes are highest

Southeast Asia’s ocean sustains food and livelihoods for over 700 million people, and Asia Pacific accounts for 89% of the world’s aquaculture. Yet less than 30% of the region’s ocean is formally protected. Overfishing, habitat degradation and chronic data gaps continue to undermine effective ocean management, while monitoring vast stretches of coastline remains costly, labor-intensive and often dangerously dependent on manual patrols—leaving marine protected areas under-enforced and fisheries under-observed.

“At The Nature Conservancy, we bring together trusted science, deep partnerships and a truly global reach to protect our oceans, and we know that we cannot achieve the transformation needed by incremental measures alone. Addressing overfishing and habitat destruction requires tackling the inadequate data and outdated monitoring systems that have long hampered effective conservation—challenges that demand technology-driven solutions deployed at unprecedented scale,” said Jennifer Morris, Chief Executive Officer of The Nature Conservancy.

From Concept to Coastline: the Selected Pilots

Launched in January 2026, the Challenge attracted strong global interest, receiving over 60 submissions from technology developers and startups across 24 countries. Following a competitive selection process evaluating both technical feasibility and relevance to real-world conservation needs, three cutting-edge tech pilot projects have been selected:

• Havoc (U.S.): A fleet of autonomous surface vessels for continuous monitoring of marine protected areas (MPA), expanding coverage while reducing reliance on costly and sometimes dangerous manual patrols.
• blueOASIS (Portugal): Solar-powered acoustic listening stations that use artificial intelligence to detect vessels and marine activity in real time, improving visibility in remote and hard-to-monitor environments.
• Blurgs.AI (India): A detailed training and analytics library for electronic monitoring inputs to help transform fisheries data into timely, decision-ready insights, supporting more effective and responsive large-scale fisheries management.

Grounded in Local Expertise

The pilots will launch in June 2026 in collaboration with Yayasan Konservasi Alam Nusantara (YKAN), The Nature Conservancy’s longstanding partner in Indonesia. Havoc and BlueOASIS will be deployed across the Savu Sea, one of the world’s most important marine biodiversity hotspots, while the Blurgs.AI pilot will draw on data collected from industrial fishing fleets operating across the Pacific.

The solutions will be developed in close partnership with government agencies, academic institutions, NGOs and local communities, particularly those living around conservation areas, to ensure they respond to real operational needs and local contexts. Insights from the pilots will also help identify future opportunities for scaling across The Nature Conservancy’s global ocean programmes and broader partner network.

The Challenge brings together TNC’s global conservation expertise with venture platform Newlab’s experience in designing and deploying pilot programs that move emerging technologies into real-world operational environments. The selected pilots will receive conservation and operational support to help apply their technologies to pressing ocean conservation challenges.

“At Newlab, we help critical technology startups address complex, system-level challenges, including the long-term sustainability of ocean ecosystems. Through our work with TNC, we are bringing together entrepreneurs, governments and local stakeholders to accelerate the path from concept to deployment, while building the regional infrastructure and partnerships needed to scale these solutions,” said Garrett Winther, Chief Product Officer, Newlab.

The Global Ocean Innovation Challenge contributes to TNC’s 2030 Goals—its most ambitious conservation commitment in history, building on 75 years of experience and more than 960 million hectares already conserved. TNC is working to conserve four billion hectares of ocean by 2030, equivalent to 10% of the world’s ocean, while helping protect 100 million people most vulnerable to climate risk.

Learn more about the Global Ocean Innovation Challenge and follow its progress.