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A Samoan man, Lelei LeLaulu, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
He is a development entrepreneur working at the confluence of climate change, tourism, food security and renewable energy.
The Samoa Observer reported his career spans journalism, global development, and policy reform.
He has advised organizations such as the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, and the United Nations, and chaired numerous NGOs, including currently the Earth Council Alliance.
"I do not know if I am the first Samoan, or Pacific Islander to be nominated, but I can think of several who could have been nominated," he said.
There are 338 candidates nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, of which 244 are individuals and 94 are organisations. The names of the Nobel Peace Prize laureates are announced in October.
The Nobel Committee does not confirm the names of nominees, to the media or to the candidates themselves, but said there are cases where names of candidates appear in the media, "either as a result of sheer speculation or because individuals themselves report to have nominated specific candidates".
Lelei LeLaulu was born in Samoa and has deep ties to Gataivai and Vaovai. He is a graduate of Auckland University and now living in Washington DC.
"I'm always looking for ways of returning to Samoa, the land of my birth."
Speaking to RNZ in 2022, he was working on a project granting personhood to oceans via a universal declaration of rights.
He was also in support of granting legal personhood to whales.
"Whales are much more revered in Polynesia and that's why it's very significant that the Polynesian leaders themselves adopted this declaration," he said last year.
He said the declaration for legal personhood would preserve these stories by working towards internationally recognised conservation for whales across the Pacific.
"By giving them personhood, it means that now they have rights and now people can sue on their behalf in the courts of law, and they can be much more closely protected."
LeLaulu was a member of the team that organised the series of summits and global conferences in the 1990s known as the "Development Continuum" which defined the global agenda for the succeeding decade through the Millennium Development Goals.
He is a founding director of the World Tourism Forum for Peace and Sustainable Development, and the Caribbean Media Exchange on Sustainable Tourism (CMEx), the George Washington University School of Business, an original member of the Symposium series on Religion, Science and the Environment, and manager of the Royal Polynesian Dancers' world tour.
The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded 105 times to 142 Nobel Prize laureates between 1901 and 2024, of which 111 are individuals.
The list of nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize is released 50 years after the prize is awarded, in accordance with the statues of the Nobel Foundation.
