Our Story

Moana Tasi means “One Ocean,” reflecting the unity and connection we share in facing climate change together. It creates space for collaboration, cultural connection, and community-led dialogue in a time of displacement and change.

As a Pasifika-led initiative, Moana Tasi is grounded in ancestral knowledge, lived experience, and deep ties to our islands and Ocean. We work to preserve cultural identity, shape rights-based policy, and amplify Pacific voices in global conversations on justice, belonging, and care.

Close-up of woven straw or palm leaves used in traditional basket or mat making

Our Approach

We focus on four interconnected areas, recognising there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Our holistic approach upholds dignity, justice, and wellbeing, addressing what climate change threatens to take from our Pacific communities.

  • For millennia, Pacific peoples have safeguarded their lands, waters, and skies through knowledge systems rooted in place, kinship, and ancestral responsibility. Moana Tasi ensures these systems lead the fight for climate justice, empowering Pacific communities to shape solutions that protect their peoples, cultures, and homelands.

  • Pacific peoples have always been frontline guardians of their environments, guided by ancestral wisdom that sustains life. Moana Tasi upholds this stewardship, ensuring Indigenous knowledge drives environmental governance and secures a just, enduring future for the islands of Oceania.

  • Climate change in Oceania is a profound human rights challenge, intersecting with histories of colonisation and threatening land, culture, and self-determination. Through advocacy, education, and legal empowerment, Moana Tasi cultivates island communities’ capacity to protect their heritage, influence policy, and defend their rights in the face of a changing climate.

  • Cultural identity and community connection are the foundation of dignity and self-determined futures. Moana Tasi nurtures spaces for intergenerational learning, heritage celebration, and the living practice of ancestral knowledge — protecting cultural rights as an essential part of climate justice across Oceania.

Who we are

We are a Tuvaluan- and Pasifika-led movement for climate justice, resilience, and dignity across our ocean homelands.

The Moana Tasi Project is a Tuvaluan- and Pasifika-led collective grounded in a commitment to ensuring Pasifika peoples shape their own narratives of climate resilience and justice. It centres our knowledge, culture, and lived experience as the foundation for safeguarding dignity and rights.

While rooted in Tuvalu, the project invites the wider Pacific to contribute to a shared and evolving vision of justice — for now and for future generations.

Bringing together expertise across law, health, grassroots organising, youth leadership, and media, we take a holistic, culturally grounded approach to climate change and displacement. Guided by elders and working closely with young people, we foster intergenerational pathways for dignity, justice, and wellbeing across our Ocean.

  • Founder

    Naima Taafaki-Fifita, a Tuvaluan lawyer and advocate, is a graduate of the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, specialising in environmental law and Pacific climate displacement. With over a decade of experience in law, policy, and community action, she works to ensure climate responses are just, inclusive, and rooted in Indigenous knowledge. She has led in environmental justice, non-profit work, and policy reform, and is currently pursuing a Master’s in International Law on climate migration pathways that ensure dignity and human flourishing for Pasifika. Based in Aotearoa New Zealand, she is a mother, wife, and active contributor to prevalent discourses on ensuring a just and unified future.


  • Cultural Consultant & Lead Facilitator

    Munirih R. Taafaki, MS, CCRP is Tuvaluan born in Tarawa, Kiribati (Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony) with family connections to the islands of Nukufetau and Funafuti, through her father, Falai Riva Taafaki. She is faculty at the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM), University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UHM), where she teaches courses on clinical trials, research ethics, and cultural competency in biomedical research. She obtained her MS in Clinical and Translational Research and is pursuing her doctorate in Public Health at UHM. Her community-based interests focus on Pacific Islander health and well-being particularly healthcare accessibility, rights, and advocacy; and the impacts of climate change on health. She has over 15 years of knowledge and experience in human study participant protection, research and cultural competency training.


  • Cultural Consultant & Lead Facilitator

    Milikini Failautusi is one of the country’s most prominent climate, gender, human rights and youth activists.

    After being forced to move from her ancestral atoll to the main Tuvalu island due to rising sea levels, Milikini became a climate activist and a member of the ‘Pacific Climate Warriors’. Alongside this she is the ‘Tuvalu National Youth Council Coordinator’, and member of the ‘Pacific Youth Council’ and the ‘Pacific Young Women’s Leadership Alliance’. Milkini has previously spoken at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific about shifting long-standing cultural norms to ensure women are treated as equal members of society.

    As the coordinator of the Tuvalu National Youth Council, she advocates for Tuvaluan youth in the country’s development agenda, and also works closely with the Pacific Youth Council on issues facing Pacific’s young people at the regional level.

    While she is deeply respectful of traditional culture and acknowledges the important role it plays, Milikini has been unafraid to take on long-standing cultural norms that stand in the way of progressing gender and climate justice in Tuvalu.


  • Cultural Consultant & Strategist

    Lotonui Naisali is a proud descendant of Tuvalu and Tokelau, raised in a close-knit Tuvaluan community and grounded in the values of church and family. A mother of three, she has dedicated her life to preserving and promoting her cultural heritage. With over a decade of experience as a specialist in strategy, engagement, and partnerships, she is also a passionate Tuvaluan language tutor. Lotonui’s focus is on the maintenance and promotion of Tuvaluan and Tokelauan culture, particularly within the diaspora, ensuring that future generations stay connected to their roots.

A woman wearing a colorful floral crown with white, red, orange, and yellow flowers, standing outdoors with grass and a building in the background.


  • Facilitator

    Lisepa Fianta Seve Paeniu is Indigenous to the islands of Nukulaelae and Funafuti in Tuvalu. She is currently pursuing a doctorate in anti-corruption law reform in Tuvalu as a recipient of the University of Otago Pacific Islands Doctoral Scholarship. Lisepa holds two Master of Laws degrees: one in International Human Rights Law (2015) and another in Environmental Law and Sustainability (2023). She has served as a government lawyer in both Tuvalu and Nauru, with expertise in legislative drafting, litigation, and law reform. Her research interests include the intersections of climate justice, constitutional law, and the tensions between postcolonial customary legal systems and inherited British legal frameworks.

Close-up of a young man with a wide smile, showing his teeth, and looking directly at the camera.


  • Film & Media Consultant

    Taafaki Moore is currently attending the School of the Arts at Columbia University in New York City for a Master’s Degree in Writing for Film and Television. He is Tuvaluan, Black, and Native-American screenwriter and producer. Born in Los Angeles and raised in Honolulu, with a background in media management and film production, Taafaki is committed to creating and telling stories that empower communities and spark meaningful dialogue at the grassroots.

A woman with curly hair tied back, smiling, wearing a blue and black tie-dye shirt, standing against a textured brown background.

  • Cultural Consultant

    Tuvaluan-British by birth, Jane was born in England and lived in India until she was 11, before her family moved to the USA for her parents’ graduate school education. After university, she moved to the Marshall Islands for seven years before pursuing her Master’s in Honolulu, Hawaii where she worked for 15 years before moving to Oamaru, Otago to do her PhD studies. Her research was focused on the lived experiences of rural Tuvaluan migrants navigating the Aotearoa New Zealand healthcare system.

    Jane's postdoctoral fellowship at the Va’a o Tautai - Centre for Pacific Health is on creating a model for COVID-19 response, based on the experiences of a small rural Otago Pacific Organisation. She is also heavily involved with a number rural health and school of Physiotherapy studies relating to COVID-19, Pasifika health and long-term musculoskeletal injuries of Pasifika meat workers.

    Jane is married with three beautiful daughters. She is currently a full-time researcher within the Va’a o Tautai – Centre for Pacific Health, and has a role teaching the Pacific Health curriculum in Health Professional Programmes in the Division of Health Sciences.