Hope Spot Champion Grantee Highlight: Conserving Coral and Building Community in the Conflict Islands Hope Spot

August 7, 2025

Header Image: The Conflict Islands. Credit – Conflict Islands Conservation Initiative (CICI).

A tiny and remote atoll off Papua New Guinea holds an extraordinary secret: it is home to more than 400 species of coral. The Conflict Group of Islands, named after the HMS Conflict whose crew first identified them on British navigation charts in the late 19th century, are a chain of 21 privately owned islands in Papua New Guinea. Together, the islands form an atoll, a ring of coral marking the location where a volcanic island once rose out of the waves. Long since eroded and dormant, all that is left of the volcano is a ring of pristine beaches and a central lagoon bursting with incredible marine biodiversity.

The Conflict Islands Conservation Initiative (CICI) is leading efforts to protect these islands. Since 2016, CICI has worked to document and safeguard the hundreds of species of fish, corals, turtles, sharks, rays, and other marine life that call the Conflict Islands home. Started originally to protect the Critically Endangered hawksbill sea turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) that nest on the atoll, CICI has now expanded into shark and coral conservation projects. The organization has trained 38 rangers, all of whom are local inhabitants of the islands and former sea turtle poachers. Where they once made a living by harvesting marine life, CICI has now created opportunities for them to support themselves and their families by protecting it. And it’s working–in CICI’s first year, co-founder, marine biologist and Hope Spot Champion Hayley Versace documented 45 cases of nesting turtle poaching across the atoll. This year, there have been zero.

These rangers have spent their lives on and around the water, but few have had the training or opportunity to dive below the surface. Now, thanks to Versace’s vision and a grant from Mission Blue, that’s changing. Seven of CICI’s rangers were recently certified as Advanced Open Water SCUBA Divers, with an eighth achieving the qualification of Dive Master. The team can now spend more time under the water, documenting and assessing the health and biodiversity of the reef and tending to the coral nurseries CICI has established. These nurseries, a series of ropes strung on underwater frames in the lagoon, host more than 1,700 coral fragments collected byVersace and her team, carefully selected for their apparent resilience to bleaching and extreme heat.

Versace has the spirit of a true explorer and naturalist. The atoll’s remote location and seasonal southeasterly trade winds mean that everything must be meticulously planned, from importing the fuel for the boat needed to take rangers out onto the water, to scheduling extended time for rangers to go back home to their families. Despite these challenges, Versace runs a thriving conservation program with scientific rigor and enthusiastic creativity. She and her team are currently experimenting with different methods of shading water in the nurseries to reduce water temperature and to study the effects of ultraviolet rays on the growing specimens. She also trains rangers in coral species identification, predator management, and disease treatment to enhance ongoing surveys of life on the reef.

Coral restoration has a huge impact on the overall health of the marine ecosystem around the Conflict Islands. The atoll provides a home for more than 220 species of reef fish, including the tiny wrasses and gobies that clean the majestic manta rays that frequent the area. It is also home to the endemic Milne Bay epaulette shark (Hemiscyllium ocellatum)and provides critical habitat for a breeding colony of dugongs (Dugong dugon). “We are essentially doing a bottom-up restoration of the atoll with all inhabitants included,” says Versace.

These efforts fulfill another purpose, too–they bring ecotourism dollars to the islands and to the program. Despite the islands’ remote location, the lure of their white sands and unmatched diving attracts about a dozen cruise ships per year. Thanks to CICI’s coral restoration and monitoring program, these tourists can now adopt a coral rope and take a coral restoration tour guided by one of CICI’s indigenous rangers. All proceeds from these tours go directly back into the island communities and into the conservation programs themselves, something that Versace takes very seriously.

“I can’t do conservation here unless I’m looking after the community first,” Versace notes. Everything that CICI undertakes is done with care, intent, and the involvement of the local community. She works closely with provincial administrators, local leaders, and other conservation groups to ensure that CICI works in concert with local priorities and needs. For example, CICI has installed over 900 solar lights on the islands. More importantly, rangers trained by CICI take their knowledge back to their communities, often establishing local conservation efforts of their own.

None of this would be possible without the support of organizations like Mission Blue. “Without Mission Blue’s support,” says Versace, “our coral and restoration monitoring program would never have gotten off the ground. It’s only through their hope and belief in our rangers and our work that any of our education and coral work has been possible.”