A meeting for the wellbeing of our ocean.

An intergenerational movement for Pacific solidarity from Aotearoa.

Te Hui Oranga o te Moana nui a Kiwa 2024 will bring Pacific activists together with movement leaders and organisers in Aotearoa to build regional awareness and address threats to our ocean.

For generations, communities and campaigners in Aotearoa have acted in solidarity with Pacific whanaunga. Forty years have passed since the first Te Hui Oranga o te Moana nui a Kiwa. These were local versions of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific conferences, where Māori, Pasifika, and Pacific-minded allies contributed to a grassroots Pacific regionalism and resisted nuclear colonialism. In the context of new, entwined ecological and political crises, we are revitalising this initiative for today.

Te Hui Oranga will build awareness on regional issues, including: Indigenous rights and independence struggles, anti-nuclearism and demilitarisation, as well as environmental threats like climate breakdown and deep sea mining.

Aotearoa must again find a voice on issues that concern us, as peoples of the ocean, in the knowledge that our regional environment is our heritage, the foundation of our unique cultures, and our only basis for a liberated future.

Learn more about Te Hui Oranga.

View the weekend programme

About our manuhiri/guest speakers

Epeli Lesuma

Epeli hails from Somosomo Village, Cakaudrove Province, Fiji. He is the nuclear justice campaigner for the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) and the focal point for the Pacific Collective on Nuclear Issues. His work addressses legacy and emerging nuclear issues in the Blue Pacific.

Joy Lehuanani Enomoto

Joy is of Kānaka Maoli, African American, Japanese, Scottish and Caddo Indian descent. Currently resident in Honolulu, she is a Pacific Islands scholar, community organiser and visual artist and is currently the Executive Director of Hawaii Peace & Justice and hope pelekikena of Hui Aloha ʻĀina o Honolulu. Her work focuses on the demilitarisation and de-occupation of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific.

Hinamoeura Morgant-Cross

Hinamoeura is an advocate and politician from Ma’ohi nui, whose realisation that her leukaemia was a legacy of the French atomic tests in the South Pacific led her into activism. Hinamoeura was elected to the Assembly of French Polynesia in May 2023 and shepherded through a unanimous Assembly vote supporting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in September 2023. Hinamoeura works for nuclear justice, victim assistance, and environmental remediation.

Billy Wewetea

Billy is a pastor serving in the Protestant Church of Kanaky New Caledonia. Hailing from the tribe of Gossanah of Iaai Island in Kanaky, he is Atsai, the people of the sea, connected through the totems of the frigate bird, lizard and the cordyline plant. Billy works with youth to build their capacity and with the Pacific Conference of Churches Self-Determination desk as a translator… Oleti gan hmâ.

Sheila Babauta

Sheila is a former politician and community advocate from the Northern Mariana Islands. Born and raised in Saipan, she served four years in public office in the Commonwealth Legislature alongside current roles in non-profit organisations such as the Friends of the Marianas Trench, Our Common Wealth 670, and Micronesia Climate Change Alliance where she aims to amplify the Marianas voice around decolonisation, demilitarisation, and environmental justice.

Akeina Tairea

Akeina is a project officer at Te Ipukarea Society in the Cook Islands with a passion for agriculture, community and her heritage. Te Ipukarea encourages and supports local communities to implement initiatives that address pressing environmental issues like seabed mining and loss of biodiversity due to invasive species. Akeina hopes to improve the perception of agriculture and properly express its importance to becoming independent and preserving our culture.

Bronson Kainoa Azama

Kainoa hails from Heʻeʻia, Koʻolaupoko on the island of Oʻahu. He is a Kānaka Maoli youth leader and community advocate who serves as a member of the Oʻahu Water Protectors; Steersperson of the Pacific Risk Management ʻOhana (PRiMO) Indigenous Knowledge and Environment Working Group; Trainer for Fresh Tracks Native Youth Climate Adaptation Leadership Conference (NYCALC); Director for the Koʻolaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club; and the Hawaiʻi Hub Coordinator for the Rising Voices Changing Coast (RVCC) Hub.

Rosa Moiwend

Rosa is a West Papuan human rights activist, feminist and researcher. She is a member of the Pacific Feminist Community of Practice and current Pacific Movements campaigner for the Pacific Network on Globalisation. Rosa seeks to raise awareness about the human rights violations and political issues plaguing her homeland and works for women’s liberation in a free West Papua.

Leianuenue Niheu

Leianuenue is a Kānaka Maoli cultural practitioner, artist, poet and health care professional with 30 years experience. A lifelong activist, Lei visited Aotearoa in 1984 to attend Te Hui Oranga to show Hawaiian solidarity with Māori for the honouring of the Treaty of Waitangi as part of Protect Kaho’olawe ‘Ohana and the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific movement.

Noelene Nabulivou

Noelene is from Dravuwalu, Naceva, Kadavu and has been a Pacific small island/large ocean feminist Indigenous activist and community organiser for over 40 years. She is a co-founder and executive director of Diverse Voices and Action (DIVA) for Equality that works in local to global spaces and processes since 2011 for gender justice; sexual rights, social, economic, ecological and climate justice.

Contact the host of Te Hui Oranga o te Moana nui a Kiwa 2024