Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and northwest of Vanuatu. Honiara is located on the largest island, Guadalcanal. Part of the Solomon Islands archipelago, which is a collection of Melanesian islands. The Solomon Islands have a coastline of 9,880 km and the provisional EEZ is with 1,589,477 km2 the second largest in the Pacific. It comprises a total reef area of approximately 5,750 km2 and a total mangrove area of 642 km2.

A baseline survey of marine biodiversity in the Solomon Islands (2004) found 474 species of corals including nine species which could be new to science. This is the second highest diversity of corals in the World, second only to the Raja Ampat Islands in eastern Indonesia.

The overharvesting of marine resources is posing a great threat to communities in Solomon Islands today and, in recent decades, resultant shortages of fish have rapidly changed methods of fishing in the country’s waters. In particular, the prevalence of fish poisoning and occasional blast fishing – often with dynamite – are now seriously affecting fish stocks, and the marine ecosystem as a whole. Five of the Solomon Islands have submerged underwater and six more have experienced a dramatic reduction in shoreline due to man-made climate change, according to a paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.