“No empire can be felled by beauty, but, thankfully, a human being can.” In his October 2021 E.F. Schumacher Lecture, Julian Aguon discusses the history of colonization in his homeland of Guam, as well as the cultural, environmental, and health impacts of these empire-building activities. But he also shares how the Indigenous Chamorro people are fighting for justice and self-determination in spite of the growing U.S. military buildup on the island. Aguon describes a limestone forest which the U.S. military plans to develop into a gun range—a forest which houses key medicinal plants as well as the remarkable eight-spot butterfly. Through fierce resistance to this proposed project, Aguon shares how Indigenous groups in Guam are demonstrating “the centrality of beauty in the struggle for collective liberation.”