Three days traveling the Hāna Road from Keʻanae to Kaupō, visiting places stewarded by the Kahea Piʻilani hui.
The Hoʻomalu Haleleʻa project is funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation to the University of Hawaii and partly implemented by The Hanalei Initiative. This community-led initiative includes University of Hawaii academia and Kauai north shore community partners combining diverse methods and sources of knowledge of watershed changes over time to enhance our community’s resilience to increasing threats of extreme flooding in Haleleʻa. As the administrator of the grant’s subaward, the Hanalei Initiative coordinated and planned with other partnering Halele‘a non-profits a wonderful and informative huakaʻi to East Maui, spending three days traveling the Hāna Road from Keʻanae to Kaupō, visiting places stewarded by the Kahea Piʻilani hui.
The rural communities of Haleleʻa and East Maui share many similarities and challenges to retain their sense of place, protect natural resources from the impacts of the visitor industry, build resilience to extreme weather events, and support a more diverse economy with a foundation in mālama ‘āina.
The Hanalei Initiative and Hui Maka‘āinana O Makana were able to share our Hāʻena State Park history and successes with Hāna community members who work at Waiʻānapanapa State Park while learning about how their community is managing other important lands. Our visit to Kahanu Garden showed us the incredible results that came from their empowering the community to restore Pi'ilanihale Heiau! Next door at Mahele Farm we learned about how Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke is transforming the lives of teens and young adults who are learning important vocational skills through hands-on construction projects including handicap improvements for those in need, educational facilities and kupuna cottages as well as community farming to become more food secure. We were also inspired by the amazing work of Ke Ao Hāliʻi whose leaders have secured major grants to purchase and protect significant areas of the coastline and developed their own culturally-appropriate community-based approach for taking care of iwi kūpuna that are being exposed along their coastlines.
We stayed at Ala Kukui, a non-profit that provides various culturally-based programming opportunities for the Hāna community, situated on a beautiful 12-acre property with facilities that support collaborative community development. Here we cooked, ate, and shared stories with many local community members rekindling old friendships and making new acquaintances that will help all of us in our journey to build stronger, more resilient communities who are grounded in the values of mālama ‘āina and mālama pono.
The takeaways were plentiful, and in August we hope to continue this valuable exchange in Hāʻena, sharing our experiences and bridging and building our relationships by having these important Ke‘anae to Kaupo community leaders visit Haleleʻa and experience the challenges we are dealing with on Kauaʻi.