Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture Celebrates Unity and Diversity of Cultures

Coming from throughout the Pacific Islands, thousands gathered in June for the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture held in Hawai’i.

For the first time, Nia Tero participated in this historic event and supported several partners in attendance. The theme of this year’s Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture (FestPAC) was “Ho‘oulu Lāhui: Regenerating Oceania.” There was a significant focus on celebrating the diversity of Pacific Islander arts and culture with beautiful displays of dance, fashion, music and more. Different areas of the Hawai’i Convention Center event venue were filled with artwork, while others were used to showcase movies and literary works from throughout the Pacific Islands.

There were also several panel discussions held that focused on a range of topics, including issues around guardianship of the Pacific Islands by those who have called them home since time immemorial. The Indigenous Peoples of these islands are, of course, not a monolith. Their territories, governments, cultures, and peoples’ experiences of colonization were sometimes quite different from each other, yet there was a palpable unity in this gathering of Pacific Islands Peoples, which occurs only once every four years.

“Things like FestPAC are most effective in reminding us that we are all really one,” Justice Joseph Williams (Māori, Aotearoa), Chair of Nia Tero’s Board of Directors, told Hawai’i Public Radio (HPR). “And trying to remind other people to whom our relationships are more distant – who moved into these places in an unsuccessful attempt, thankfully, to displace we who are already there – that our ways of relating to land and ocean make sense.”

The delegations represented at FestPAC included:

• American Samoa
• Australia
• Cook Islands
• Rapa Nui (Easter Islands)
• The Federated States of Micronesia
• Fiji
• French Polynesia
• Guam
• Hawai’i
• Kiribati
• Republic of the Marshall Islands
• Nauru
• New Caledonia
• New Zealand
• Niue
• Norfolk Island
• Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands
• Palau
• Papua New Guinea
• Pitcairn Island
• Samoa
• Solomon Islands
• Tokelau
• Tonga
• Tuvalu
• Vanuatu
• Wallis and Futuna
• Taiwan

In an opinion piece for Honolulu Civil Beat, ‘Aulani Wilhelm (Kanaka ‘Ōiwi, Hawai’i), Nia Tero’s Chief Strategy & External Relations Officer, and Nia Tero Board Member Brenda Toineeta Pipestem (Eastern Band of Cherokee) wrote that “FestPAC created a timely opportunity to elevate the critical importance of securing Indigenous Peoples’ guardianship of their lands, and to share Indigenous values and methodologies toward living in relation with our lands and waters for the health of all people and our planet. … Indigenous Peoples are calling for the world to join as allies in their efforts to protect the world’s oceans, take bold actions to address climate change, pollution of our ocean and air, deforestation, extractive industries, and the loss of biodiversity, knowing that together we can tackle the confluence of crises before us.”

Commonality on Customary Land Tenure for Future Generations

Despite the distinct differences in cultures, regions, governments and more, there are important commonalities that hold true for all peoples throughout the Pacific Islands. One unifying characteristic among all Pacific Islanders, no matter from where they come, is a reciprocal relationship with the natural world around them.

“Deep in our cultural core, we reject and refute the idea that the land, the water and the sea are commodities subject to our control,” Williams said in an interview with Nia Tero staff. “Deep in our core, we believe that we are subject to their control, that we serve them - not the other way around. These are very, very fundamental ideas for Indigenous People globally and certainly for Indigenous People in the Pacific.”

These ties to the environment and elements go deep, explained Peter Bosip, Executive Director of the Centre for Environmental Law & Community Rights (CELCOR) based in Papua New Guinea. CELCOR works with local landholders*, communities, NGOs, and others to raise awareness, develop policy, offer legal support and capacity building for communities affected by extractive industry such as logging and mining.

“Land and sea: that's our life throughout time immemorial for our generations that came before us and the generation at present and the generations that have yet to come,” Bosip said. “Some tribes, they proclaim themselves or they're believed to be ancestors from the animals like sharks, dolphins. … So, we have a very strong attachment. Our cultural beliefs are based on the existence or presence of these environmental beings.”

That’s why in so many of these nations there is a fight to protect customary land, with some enshrining it in their constitutions.

Customary land in Pacific countries refers to territory – both land and sea – that remain held and occupied by Indigenous Peoples themselves.

“Land is an ancestor, land is spiritual,” said Maureen Penjueli, Coordinator for the Fiji-based Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG). “It is more than just allowing for sustenance or where your food comes from. Attached to land is custom, practices - which really then shapes and informs relationships.”

The Tension of Western Education and Traditional Values

One of the reasons customary land is threatened in some areas of the Pacific Islands is because of tensions rooted in westernization of the islands, specifically western education. It is an issue common among Indigenous Peoples throughout the globe including the Pacific. In some Pacific Island nations, where the majority of residents are Indigenous, western education offers the lure of economic gain and opportunity. But this may result in a devaluation of the Indigenous economy and lead Indigenous leaders away from their traditional lifeways, lands, and sources of strength.

Lysa Wini has worked in the conventional conservation world and, as an Indigenous person herself, has worked alongside her fellow Indigenous Solomon Islanders as Nia Tero’s Solomon Islands Coordinator. As she pursues her doctorate, she continuously sees how important Indigenous wisdom is in this dialogue about resources and development.

“The most biodiverse places in the world are places being looked after and cared for by Indigenous Peoples. People who remained in place. People who remain true to their values. People who remain true to their knowledge,” Wini said. “We just need to ensure that these places remain, that they use their knowledge systems, that they use their values to continue to protect these places because it is a gift to the world.”

Exploring the Role of Indigenous Constitutions in Melanesia

One of the key events focusing on guardianship of the Pacific Islands was the Islands Knowledge Institute’s Indigenous Constitutions event. It featured a number of experts from the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu who spoke about how these countries’ national constitutions have enshrined indigenous cultures as a source of law and have preserved customary land as a foundational core of all law and governance.

They are the manifestations of Indigenous sovereignty that predate the colonial experience and UN decolonization process, the speakers said. Collectively, they articulate a vision in which state sovereignty and law rest on pre-existing sovereign Indigenous nations. Fifty million hectares - or over 90 percent - of these countries’ land is under indigenous customary tenure, supporting the vast majority of their populations in an indigenous, non-cash economy that dwarfs the monetized sector. Despite this unprecedented vibrancy, the Indigenous underpinnings of these states are being undermined by diminishment of Indigenous values.

In Vanuatu, the country has “a constitution that said all land belongs to the Indigenous customary owners*, according to the rules of custom. And that customary law will continue to apply as the laws of the new republic,” says Ralph Regenvanu (Vanuatu), a member of Nia Tero’s Advisory Council. “The change in and the enshrining of the land in perpetuity with Indigenous owners was the key change that still allows the people of Vanuatu to practice a life that's very strongly connected to their traditions and to the land.”

Why Nia Tero Supports This Work

Approximately 40 percent of the planet’s healthiest ecosystems are cared for by Indigenous Peoples who hold deep relationships to the lands and seas they have stewarded since time immemorial. This is no accident. These remarkable places persist because of Indigenous Peoples’ guardianship.

"The work we're doing at Nia Tero is really about supporting Indigenous communities to do what they need to, to be able to remain in their homelands, to be able to be active guardians, caretakers of the land and sea and each other," Wilhelm said in conversation with Hawai’i Public Radio. “What’s beautiful about it in the Pacific is – [although] it’s hard there’s struggles that all of our people have actually sustained through a very short history – is holding on to the joy. And holding on to the togetherness. And holding on to the beauty of our places and the wisdom of our ancestors.”

Indigenous territories thrive because of what we call guardianship: time-earned knowledge systems and place-specific technologies linked to the rights, responsibility, and capacity to sustain vital ecosystems.

“Indigenous guardianship for me is a gift. It's about people who are able to, people who have the value of life around them, that they're not superior than the life around them. They are actually in balance with the life around it and they have a responsibility to make sure that life around them is maintained in a way that supports each other,” Wini said. “And to me, that is Indigenous guardianship. You're able to see your part in that whole system and you're able to take responsibility, because it is a gift.”

Learn More

To learn more about FestPAC and Indigenous guardianship, check out these resources:

• Nonprofit group Nia Tero reflects on attending FestPAC for 1st time

• Non-profit Nia Tero reflects on how FestPAC empowered Indigenous groups

• Recent Celebration Of Pacific Arts And Culture Is A Call For Indigenous Guardianship

*There is no good translation in the English language to describe the relationship between land and Indigenous Peoples who have lived on and with the land since time immemorial. “Landowner” and “landholder” are both flawed but are used in this article in the absence of better options in English.