Quote by ʻInapo Faatauvaa: “The ocean is not our boundary. It is our highway.”

For Pacific peoples, the ocean has historically been seen by outsiders as an isolating barrier. But for Polynesian, Melanesian, and Micronesian cultures, it was always the pathway that connected communities across thousands of kilometres. This reframes what looks like an obstacle as the very thing that made Pacific civilisation possible.

The mid-2010s saw the Polynesian Voyaging Society's Hōkūleʻa canoe undertake a worldwide voyage using traditional wayfinding. Pacific communities were reasserting ocean knowledge as integral to identity at a time when rising sea levels from climate change threatened low-lying island nations, adding urgency to discussions of Pacific sovereignty and survival.

Samoan cultural practitioner and navigator whose work focuses on traditional Pacific wayfinding and ocean knowledge. He has contributed to discussions of indigenous Pacific maritime heritage and the reclamation of traditional navigation as a living cultural practice relevant to contemporary Pacific identity and climate resilience.