Pacific Advocate Sharing Insights To Protect Our Island Earth & the Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment

WAILUKU, Maui (January  2025)) — The County of Maui Office of Innovation & Sustainability (OIS) coordinates a conversation around sustainability and solidarity for the people of Hawai’i and the Pacific with a leading lawyer in Oceania

Kavita Naidu, an international human rights lawyer, will share insights on common challenges on the front lines of the climate crisis among island peoples of the Pacific and her latest research with the United Nations on The Ocean and Human Rights. The second Know Your Rights/ Human Rights in Hawai’i event will feature Naidu covering her decade of experience in youth leadership determined to not drown in climate apathy but demand climate justice for the Pacific.

Kavita Naidu will deliver talk on February 18 at 12 p.m. noon, at the Mayor’s Conference Room covering, “The Right to a Clean, Healthy & Sustainable Environment For Our Collective Future,”and a community forum on February 19 Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the Maui Ocean Center highlighting recent UN research on “The Pacific Ocean and Human Rights: The Moananuiakea Movement for Climate Justice,”

Kavita Naidu is a feminist climate activist and international human rights lawyer from Fiji-Australia specialising in international human rights, gender and international climate change legal and political advocacy, providing training and resources to promote climate justice. Her presentation and research is aimed at advancing adaptive, inclusive and evidence-based management measures to reduce the vulnerability of the ocean to harms from the triple planetary crisis and their cumulative impact on human rights. Naidu will  also identify challenges to and opportunities for achieving a healthy ocean and sets out priority recommendations for Maui Nui and our neighboring nations of the Pacific.

Kavita is recognised as a leading voice and is actively involved in high-profile regional and international fora shapring policies and advocating for grassroots communities across the Global South. Kavita brings a keen analysis on intersectional gendered impacts of the climate crisis through her numerous published writings including feminist participatory action research.

She grew up in Fiji working closely with feminist movements including with the Fiji Womens’ Rights Movement, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Asia Pacific Transgender Network before moving to Thailand to join the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development. Now based in Australia, Kavita works as a consultant with numerous NGOs, UN, regional organisations, feminist funders, academic institutions and movements on gender and womens’ rights, climate justice, human rights and fostering feminist climate movement building across the region and internationally.

The Know Your Rights! Human Rights in Hawaii Series features individuals dedicated to fundamental freedoms, inherent dignity of all individuals and collective rights of our community.   This series aims to facilitate essential conversations about communications for social change and how we can come together to create a more just world beginning in Maui Nui. The series will empower and engage Maui Nui around the upcoming Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United States of America at the United Nations.

OIS hosts the Know Your Rights Human Rights Human Rights in Hawaii event  covering major themes for transformative human rights promotion and protection in our island understanding there are major global, national and local developments that demand a cultivation of the rule of law, mutual respect and inherent dignity for all.  The Know Your Rights! Human Rights in Hawaii Series brings together county and community to understand our universal human rights and stand in solidarity and unity for each other in pursuit of equality and equity.  

“This series brings people together to drive action in our daily lives for human rights for all, said Joshua Cooper, Chief Sustainability Officer for the OIS. “The creative and courageous conversations are designed to inspire and initiate a culture of rights, resilience, and regenerative public policy around the most significant challenge of our times. We aim to engage our public servants as well as empower our community to be active participants in promoting solidarity and  social justice.”

For more information, please contact Joshua.L.Cooper@MauiCounty.gov. and 808 318 0690

About the County of Maui Office Innovation & Sustainability (OIS) OIS, under the Office of the Mayor, is committed to driving environmental and social progress in through policies, programs, and initiatives, building a resilient community for sustainable prosperity and economic health for current and future generations.