“Demilitarizing Hawaii and the Pacific for Planetary Survival,” will feature a panel of scholar-activists discussing the intersection of the climate crisis, environmental justice, and dangerous militarization amidst rising geopolitical tensions in the Pacific and Asia. As a fulcrum of U.S. empire building and a center of demilitarization organizing, Hawaiʻi plays a vital role in creating liberated futures for the region. Panelists will discuss the intersecting problems of militarism, climate crisis, and ongoing geopolitical conflict alongside the unprecedented window of opportunity for demilitarization, in view of the rising anti-war movements, the de-fueling and decommissioning of the Red Hill fuel tanks and the upcoming expiration of military leases on Hawaiian trust lands.

Walden Bello is a Council Leader of Progressive International. A former member of the Philippine House of Representatives and recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (aka the Alternative Nobel Prize) in 2003, Walden Bello was named in 2023 the Most Distinguished Defender of Human Rights by Amnesty International Philippines. A retired professor of the University of the Philippines, he was named Outstanding Public Scholar by the International Studies Association in 2003. He is currently the International Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton and the author or co-author of 25 books, among them Paper Dragons: China and the Next Crash (Bloomsbury) and Counterrevolution: The Global Rise of the Far Right (Fernwood). 

Neta Crawford is Montague Burton Chair in International Relations at Oxford University and also holds a Professorial Fellowship at Balliol College. Her research focuses on war, ethics, normative change, emotions in world politics, and climate change. Neta was elected a member of both the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2023. She received the Distinguished Scholar award from the International Ethics section of the International Studies Association in 2018. She was a co-winner of the 2003 American Political Science Association Jervis and Schroeder Award for best book in International History and Politics for her book Argument and Change in World Politics: Ethics, Decolonization, Humanitarian Intervention (CUP, 2002). Crawford is a co-founder and co-director of the Costs of War Project, based at Brown University. Her opinion pieces have appeared in The Washington Post.

Kyle Kajihiro is an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He is a board member of Hawaiʻi Peace and Justice and a long time researcher, educator, and activist for the protection and restoration of military-occupied lands in Hawaiʻi. He has worked with global demilitarization networks from Vieques and Ecuador to Okinawa and Jeju.

Davianna Pōmaikaʻi McGregor is a Professor Emerita of Ethnic Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, a department she helped found. She is a historian of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific and lives in Kaiwiʻula, Kapālama, Oʻahu. She is a long-time leader with the Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana, which led the fight to stop the Navy bombing of Kanaloa Kahoʻolawe and continues to help steward the healing of the island. Kanaloa Kahoʻolawe has become a piko of the contemporary Hawaiian movement for aloha ʻāina—love, honor & respect for land and nature, spiritual life forces, and Hawaiian national sovereignty.

Hanaloa Helelā is a member of the HPF board of Directors and a Kanaka Maoli activist and organizer who first became involved in activism during the first US War in Iraq during the early nineties. As an Air Force veteran, Hanaloa became involved in demilitarization effforts thoughout Hawai’i, working for the protection and return of US occupied lands. After learning about the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom by the United States, Hanaloa became involved in the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement, joining several organizations working throughout Ka Pae ʻĀina o Hawaiʻi, to protect Kānaka Maoli rights, culture, land, water and iwi kūpuna. Currently, he is a member of the Kānaka Maoli organization Kaʻohewai, who built a shrine at the gate of the Indo-Pacific Command following the Red Hill spill in November 2021. He is also a member of Oʻahu Water Protectors, ShutDown Red Hill Mutual Aid coalition and the Wai Ola Alliance (WOA), as a plaintiff in a citizenʻs suit against the US Navy for violations of the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.