12 March 2024, 6:30 PM HST at UHM Art Auditorium
Please join us for the inaugural Eleanor Sterling Memorial Lecture, a talk on the Indigenous transformation of environmental conservation in the Pacific. Free and open to the public. Reserve your seat here.
Pacific Island nations face an array of environmental threats: worsening storms and rising seas, over-fishing and species extinction, drought and coral death. Large environmental NGOs have traditionally addressed these problems with little consideration for the people living in the ecosystems they’re trying to protect—even though these communities in many cases have been sustainably managing their land- and seascapes for centuries. In response to Indigenous advocacy and deepening environmental crisis, however, this approach is starting to change.
In this searching conversation, two internationally renowned experts on and advocates for Indigenous cultures and sustainability in Papua New Guinea will discuss the evolution of conservation across the Pacific. In looking toward an Indigenous future of environmental management, they see a reconnection of people to place, a transfer of resources from carbon-producing and former colonial powers, more robust knowledge sharing between environmental scientists and traditional ecosystem stewards, and, not least, greater respect for the Pacific’s Indigenous communities. If Oceania is to survive the climate crisis, they contend, environmental solutions have to be equitable, collaborative, and local.