Land governance must be restored as a central pillar toward regional peace and security efforts across the Pacific, a new paper released from the Pacific Security College has found.

Author Dr Anna Naupa, a ni-Vanuatu senior research engagement fellow at the Canberra college, said the region must renew its attention on land security.

"As climate change reshapes coastlines, affects food systems and forces communities to relocate, land is becoming a critical security issue," Dr Naupa said.

"(Land) underpins identity, livelihoods, governance and community cohesion, yet it has become increasingly absent from regional security discussions.

"This has created a vacuum in regard to regional land policy."

Dr Naupa proposed several initiatives to strengthen the consideration of land in regional peace and security efforts that includes recognising its importance to the Pacific peoples' identity and belonging.

She also said using the development of the Regional Peace and Security Action plan from the Pacific Islands Forum to formally recognise the role of plural land governance systems and (its) annual Pacific Security Outlook Report to spotlight pressing land policy issues were key.

"Sustainable access to and management of land are fundamental for the environmental, human and livelihood security of Pacific peoples," Dr Naupa said.

"Developing regional collective actions within a Regional Peace and Security Action Plan presents an opportunity to focus on how land governance systems could contribute to regional goals for peace, prosperity and security."

Regional experts have also contributed to Dr Naupa's policy paper.

Dr Karen Mapusa, the director of the Pacific Community land resources division, who is both a Samoan and Australian national, said that the paper highlighted critical gaps in the discourse on resilience in the region.

"Donor institutions, development banks and regional policy frameworks routinely approach land as a resource," she said.

"Pacific peoples, however, have long understood land as something far more elemental: not as an asset to be exploited, but the very ground of identity and belonging.

"Food insecurity and hunger are drivers of social unrest.

"When people cannot feed themselves and cannot afford healthy imported alternatives, the crisis is real."

George Hoa'au, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and External Trade of the Solomon Islands, added there was much to be learned from national policies regarding land.

"We need more regional knowledge exchange so we can learn from each other," he said.

"They are not abstract practices; they are already happening."

Vehia Wheeler, a Ma'ohi Nui scholar of Tahiti, reflected on lessons from the past that includes nuclear testing and its impact on land and oceans, and subsequently on food security and displacement.

"Without secure, healthy land and ocean space for people to practice traditional management, agriculture and fishing, we create vulnerable societies," she said.

"Furthermore, the Pacific can look to the history of several communities that have experienced similar issues of displacement due to factors out of their control."

Dr Akka Rimon, a senior research fellow at the college, said the paper highlights that land remains the spiritual, relational and cultural foundation the society.

"As climate impacts intensify and mobility pressures rise, the region faces mounting challenges of land scarcity, contested tenure and undermined sovereignty," she said.