Every year, whales undertake extraordinary journeys through Australian waters, following ancient migration routes between feeding, breeding and resting grounds. These vast ocean highways are essential to their survival, but shipping, underwater noise, fishing activity, pollution and climate change are placing increasing pressure on the routes.
Now Novotel and World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia (WWF-Australia) are joining forces to help protect them, bringing Novotel’s global ocean conservation partnership with WWF into Australian waters for the first time.
Through the partnership, Novotel will support WWF-Australia’s Blue Corridors initiative, which combines research, mapping and advocacy to better understand and safeguard important whale migration routes across Australia and the wider Southern Hemisphere.
Mapping the highways of the ocean
Whales might roam seemingly limitless oceans, but their movements are far from random. Migratory species rely on connected marine habitats as they travel between areas used for feeding, breeding and resting.
Known as Blue Corridors, these routes can stretch across thousands of kilometres and multiple jurisdictions, making international cooperation and a better understanding of whale movements particularly important.
WWF-Australia’s initiative aims to close existing data gaps for marine mammals, improve mapping tools and support advocacy for the Western Pacific Blue Corridors initiative across Australian waters and other important areas of the Southern Hemisphere.
The work incorporates science alongside the knowledge, stewardship and enduring connections of Traditional Owners, Indigenous peoples and local communities across Australia and the Pacific. The resulting information could help identify high-value ocean habitats requiring greater protection, including areas around Lord Howe Island.
WWF-Australia CEO Dermot O’Gorman said whales play an important role in maintaining healthy oceans, while facing growing cumulative threats.
‘The Blue Corridors initiative is building a clearer picture of the ocean habitats that need stronger protection from human activities,’ O’Gorman said.
The partnership forms part of WWF-Australia’s ambition to protect 100 million hectares of ocean in the Southern Hemisphere and contributes to wider global efforts to protect 30 per cent of the world’s oceans by 2030.
Why protecting whales matters
Whales are much more than one of the great wildlife encounters of an Australian coastal journey. Their health is closely connected with the health of marine ecosystems.
Australia is home to more than 33,000 recorded marine species, with scientists estimating many more remain undiscovered. Yet warming waters, plastic pollution, overfishing and industrial pressures continue to affect these environments.
Protecting migratory pathways therefore means looking beyond individual whale sightings and considering the connected ecosystems these animals depend upon throughout their lives.
Chris Johnson, Global Lead for WWF’s Protecting Whales and Dolphins Initiative, describes Blue Corridors as ‘lifelines connecting the ocean’s giants to the habitats they depend on’.
The interactive BlueCorridors.org platform draws together decades of scientific information to show where and when whales travel, helping identify areas where conservation action could have the greatest impact.
Hotels turn attention to the ocean
For Novotel, the Australian partnership expands a global collaboration with WWF that began in 2024.
Its Together for Oceans Protection program focuses on reducing the hotel group’s operational impacts on oceans, encouraging more sustainable food choices, improving ocean awareness and supporting conservation research and innovation.
Across its Australian network, 90% of Novotel hotels are now compliant with Accor’s single-use plastic policy, while 80% have received third-party eco-certification, with the remaining 20% working towards certification.
Globally, more than 1,600 chefs and kitchen team members have completed WWF Sustainable Seafood Training, while more than 3,200 hotel employees have undertaken Ocean Awareness training.
The broader roadmap includes reducing water use and single-use plastics, improving sustainable seafood practices, increasing plant-forward menu choices and educating guests and hotel teams about ocean health.
Adrian Williams, Chief Operating Officer of Accor Pacific, said the partnership extended Novotel’s environmental commitments beyond its hotels.
‘Australians have a strong connection to the ocean, and a shared responsibility to protect it,’ Williams said.
For travellers, particularly those drawn to Australia’s coastlines for whale watching and marine encounters, the initiative is a reminder that the wildlife spectacle visible from the shore represents only one small part of a much larger journey happening beneath the surface.
Safeguarding the routes connecting those feeding, resting and breeding grounds could help ensure these ocean giants continue making their remarkable migrations through Australian waters for generations to come.
