Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson
Indigenous Climate Journalist I Pacific Island Professor
I am a Samoan journalist, scholar, and media practitioner working across climate change, Indigenous knowledge systems, artificial intelligence, and global governance. My work bridges frontline climate reporting in the Pacific, participation in international policy processes, academic research, and media development.
Rooted in Polynesia and shaped by more than two decades of practice, my work centers sovereignty, accountability, and the responsibility of storytelling in a climate-altered world.
Guarding Indigenous Knowledge
As an Indigenous Pacific Island scholar, my work is grounded in Polynesian knowledge systems that understand land, ocean, people, and governance as inseparable. I approach the climate crisis as a cultural and intergenerational issue, including how Artificial Intelligence shapes whose knowledge is preserved, amplified, or excluded. My work centers Indigenous epistemologies in journalism, climate reporting, governance, and AI, challenging extractive models and advocating for Indigenous authority in both climate discourse and emerging technologies.
Journalism
My reporting focuses on climate impacts, migration, sovereignty, ocean governance, public health, and Indigenous resilience.
My work connects lived experience to global decision-making, challenging deficit-based portrayals of the Pacific and documenting how international climate policies affect everyday life in Small Island Developing States. I have reported on climate negotiations, disasters, political crises, and community-led adaptation for international audiences.
Training Journalists Globally on Climate Reporting and Ethical Reporting on Indigenous Communities.
News Media Development
I am an academic in Journalism and Pacific Island Studies, with teaching and research experience across universities in the Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Europe.
My academic work focuses on climate journalism, Indigenous media, environmental governance, gender, and ethics. I teach courses in climate reporting, Indigenous reporting practices, journalism ethics, and Pacific studies, and mentor emerging journalists and scholars working across climate, media, and justice.
I am currently part of the AI Innovation Academy with Portland State University and Google AI, where my work focuses on Indigenous safeguards, journalism ethics, and climate information systems.
Current Journalism Projects
3
SAMPOD, IFJ & New Narratives
Featured Reporting
224
The Guardian, AP, BBC & The New Atoll
Research Projects
11
Yale, PSU, UCSC & NUS
Lagipoiva
Tusitala mai i le Malo tutoatasi o Samoa
Fa’afeso’ota’i Mai
contact@lagipoiva.com
Toa House, Apia, Samoa
lagipoiva 