“We love Haleakalā. It is in our bones. It is in our body. It’s in everything about us that we know we must protect Haleakalā,” said Mikahala Helm, long-time Maui community leader, educator and activist, speaking in March at Hanohano ʻo Haleakalā, a community-created forum.

“Uncle Les [Kuloloio] shared with us the wisdom of our kūpuna: You don’t just go up there any old time and do whatever you want [because of] the wai, the water. You do anything on top, it’s going to affect the wai down below.”

Helm and Leiʻohu Ryder, both members of Kilakila ʻo Haleakalā, represented the forebears of a decades-old movement to protect the sacred summit at the event, which drew about 100 people.

Hanohano was organized in protest to the military’s desire for more development on the summit. The U.S. Air Force (DAF), which has been operating a surveillance complex on Haleakalā since the 1960s, wants to construct up to seven more telescopes to maintain what it calls “space domain awareness.”

DAF released its draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for the proposed project, known as the Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing Site Small Telescope Advanced Research Facility (AMOS STAR) in January 2026, with plans to begin construction this year.

For many Native Hawaiians, the DAF proposal is the latest chapter in a generational struggle.

Kilakila ʻO Haleakalā was formed in 2005 to protest the installation of a telescope on the summit of Haleakalā. “The motivation to stand up for Haleakalā is simply put: Haleakalā is sacred. That’s what led us to the 20-year journey of standing and honoring and breathing this knowing from eons ago,” Ryder said emotionally, speaking at Hanohano.

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Construction of the telescope (later named the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope) was completed in 2021 despite community objections. But in the intervening years, the movement to protect Haleakalā survived and grew.

There are now three community groups representing multiple generations of kiaʻi who are pushing against further development on Haleakalā. In addition to Kilakila, there are Kākoʻo Haleakalā and Hoʻoulu Lāhui. The groups, collectively known as the Protect Haleakalā Community Coalition, organized the March forum.

“We created Hanohano ʻo Haleakalā as a way to break out of the mold of engagements that have been the same for years,” said Hina Kneubuhl, coalition member and event speaker. “We created it to lay down a challenge in front of them [the military]: Will you engage with us on our own terms? Do you care enough to listen to information we consider important about our place?”

Hanohano ʻo Haleakalā was a community-led forum in March to discuss the U.S. Air Force’s plans to build seven more telescopes on Haleakalā. It was a way to engage with the military on the community’s terms, instead of through the military-controlled draft EIS public process as in the past. Instead of limiting testifiers to 3-minutes, the forum allowed cultural practitioners and kiaʻi time to fully express their mana’o. Speakers included (l-r) UH Maui Interim Associate VP for Academic Affairs Kahele Dukelow; cultural practitioner and entrepreneur Hina Knuebuhl (representing Protect Haleakalā Community Coalition); UH Maui Professor Emeritus Mikahala Helm with composer/musician and peace educator Leiʻohu Ryder (representing Kilakila ʻo Haleakalā); and UH Maui Associate Professor of Hawaiian Studies Kaleikoa Kaʻeo. On the far right Kumu Hula Hōkūlani Holt Padilla asks a question at the forum. – Photos: Courtesy of Protect Haleakalā

Until that point, the U.S. Air Force controlled the DEIS public process, wherein testifiers were each given three minutes to speak. But Hanohano ʻo Haleakalā shifted these dynamics and gave cultural practitioners, educators and kiaʻi the time they needed to convey the importance of Haleakalā as a spiritual-cultural- environmental connection point.

“[The summit] is where Haleakalā was connected to its mother, Papa … The symphony of life we talked about earlier, which includes us as Kānaka, is nourished through this critical point of connection,” said Kneubuhl who spoke for about 15-minutes.

“This is at the heart of why obstructions and developments at the summit, in particular, are highly detrimental” (see related story Why is Haleakalā a Sacred Place).

“One of the things that came out of [Hanohano] was [that the U.S. Air Force] engaged with Hawaiians on the terms that we set, which was huge for us,” Kneubuhl said.

“Another thing that was accomplished is they heard perspectives out of our mouths, face to face. The Air Force having to answer our questions was a huge outcome. There is nothing in their process that mandates they answer our questions,” she added.

Senior military advisor Noelani Kalipi attended the event along with members of the 15th Space Surveillance Squadron – the DAF group that operates the surveillance complex – including its commander, Lt. Col. Doug Thornton.

Responding to a question about whether AMOS STAR will increase Hawaiʻi’s vulnerability as a target in war, Thornton said, “I understand the fear and a military presence can make a location a target … we’re not here [on Maui] about directing weapons. Our purpose is to watch and protect objects in space. This capability serves as a power deterrent across the world, making conflict less likely to extend in space by ensuring the stability of the space environment.

“We believe this defensive mission contributes more to the safety of Hawaiʻi by deterring conflict than it does [by] creating risk,” Thornton added.

Kalipi, who runs the newly formed Hawaiʻi Coordination Cell under the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said she believes Hanohano was the first event of its kind (public-led with military participation) on Maui. She added that other groups on Oʻahu have expressed interest in hosting similar events.

“What I really appreciated about the Hanohano event was the opportunity to humanize the discussion. For the community to say, ʻthis is our place, and so let’s talk about it. Let us ask you the questions so that everybody can hear what the answers are,’” she said.

Preston Schlachter, strategic outreach chief for Combat Forces Command Public Affairs issued a subsequent statement saying, “We appreciated the opportunity to attend the Hanohano ʻo Haleakalā event and hear the community’s feedback firsthand. These perspectives provided valuable context for the EIS process. The written comment period closed April 15, 2026. The next step is to conduct a thorough review of the officially submitted input. Public feedback will be incorporated and considered in the final EIS, scheduled for publication in the Fall of 2026 with a Record of Decision to follow.”

By all accounts, residents, community leaders and elected officials vehemently oppose any further development on Haleakalā.

A public scoping memo at the end of DAF’s 516-page DEIS reflected that 89% of all public testimony was in opposition to the military’s proposal.

This past March, the Maui County Council unanimously passed a second resolution (the first was passed in June 2025) urging the U.S. Air Force to stop its plans and urging federal land managers to deny any permits for the project.

“As council members, we are the representatives of our community, and I’ve only heard testimony in opposition [to this proposal]. It’s our responsibility to ensure that, as their representatives, we are amplifying their voices and getting it on the record,” said Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, the Maui County councilwoman who introduced both resolutions.

Along with the cultural significance of Haleakalā that Kneubuhl expressed in her remarks, the strong opposition to the military’s proposal is because Haleakalā’s summit is at the top of the ahupuaʻa where downstream water originates – as well as being home to several endangered and endemic species.

“The Air Force wants to build seven telescope domes on one of the most sacred mountains in the Pacific which is ecologically and environmentally very sensitive. And while the Air Force admits it will cause significant and irreversible harms, it’s still asking the public to trust that telling contractors to be respectful is enough to mitigate those harms,” said Maxx Phillips, Hawaiʻi and Pacific Islands director and senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity.

“One of the glaring deficiencies with the DEIS, from an environmental standpoint, is that a federal biologist walked the site and found two (burrows) of our endangered petrels – and this is exactly where they want to put the telescopes. The Air Force’s response was to call that a ʻnon-significant’ impact,” Phillips said.

Two other endangered species found on the summit are the ʻāhinahina or Haleakalā silversword and the ʻōpeʻapeʻa (Hawaiian hoary bat), Hawaiʻi’s only native mammal. “Haleakalā silversword has already lost 90% of its population to climate change,” Phillips noted. “The Air Force wants to add construction traffic through its last remaining critical habitat and call that ʻdiscountable.’”

Coupled with the intertwined cultural and environmental concerns for Haleakalā are fears rooted in the military’s documented history of poor environmental stewardship. In 2023, about 700 gallons of diesel fuel leaked from a generator at the Maui Space Surveillance Complex (MSSC). DAF said the spill would take seven years to clean up.

“The U.S. military has polluted and destroyed this land for far too long with places like Kahoʻolawe, which even to this day has yet to be cleared and cleaned in totality,” said UH Maui Associate Professor Kaleikoa Kaʻeo, speaking at Hanohano. Above him, as he spoke, was a presentation slide entitled: “A Pattern of Military Destruction & Harm.”

“There’s the U.S. Navy who continues to lie to this day over the poisoning [at Red Hill]. Let’s be clear, this is poisoning of our water; that which gives us life is the most sacred. That’s why places [like Haleakalā] were set aside as sacred.”

Another issue is the legitimacy of land ownership and management on the summit.

The proposed project site is part of a larger Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) parcel that was set aside for federal use in October 1957 via executive order 1808, signed by Territorial Governor William Quinn. But whether the federal government and its agencies actually had legal claim to do that is debatable.

“The United States’ assumption of control over Hawaiian Kingdom government and crown lands in 1898 remains the most significant of the unresolved claims of the Hawaiian people,” said Maui attorney Lance Collins.

The Protect Haleakalā Community Coalition introduced two petitions to slow or stop the Air Force’s plans for the summit. One petition, which collected nearly 2,000 signatures, unsuccessfully sought to extend the DEIS public commentary for an additional four months. Their other petition is to deny the MSSC lease renewal in 2031.

The online petitions, coalition website, and social media accounts show how new generations of kiaʻi are using technology to reach more people.

Hanohano ʻo Haleakalā was livestreamed to 170 viewers, and the archived video on Protect Haleakalā’s website has garnered hundreds more views since then. Though plans for construction on Haleakalā have changed over the years, the resistance endures. This gives movement leaders hope for the future.

“There’s a whole new crew of voices. This is the power of aloha ʻāina. The U.S. military doesn’t understand this,” said Kaʻeo. “We have awakened. Our souls have been born again, and we’re going to do whatever is necessary.”

The post We Have Awakened: Kiaʻi Vow to Protect the Wao Akua of Haleakalā appeared first on Ka Wai Ola.

Traditionally, koholā are acknowledged as ancient beings and considered to be a kinolau (manifestation) of Kanaloa, the god of the ocean – which is why they may be referred to as “Kanaloa” by cultural practitioners. Honored by some ʻohana as ʻaumākua, they are said to have helped the ancestors navigate the Pacific.

Although many residents give their arrival little thought – or relegate it to commercial whale watching opportunities – for those who respond to distressed or stranded Kanaloa, it represents a period of increased risk.

In this period following Ke Ala Polohiwa a Kanaloa (the winter solstice), those tasked with this kuleana are preparing for what may lie ahead.

On Hawaiʻi Island, a designated marine mammal response group using a cultural approach is bringing forth a cooperative model of response in a space where cultural practices and Western governance have frequently clashed.

“Our vision is a future Hawaiʻi where communities on every mokupuni (island) are well equipped with the connection, knowledge, skills, experience and authority to properly care for distressed and stranded Kanaloa,” said Roxane Keliʻikipikāneokolohaka, co-founder, executive director and lead kiaʻi of Kiaʻi Kanaloa, a statewide marine mammal response network comprised of Hawaiian cultural practitioners.

She added that developing community-led approaches is becoming more critical as federal laws created to protect marine mammals are in jeopardy under the current administration.

The emergence of a community-led response model was born from more than a decade of conflict, during which cultural practices and community preferences were often disregarded and sometimes criminalized in favor of federal decision-making and laws.

A significant point of conflict is the practice of euthanasia by the federal government when Kanaloa are severely injured or dying.

“Once the Kanaloa is euthanized, it cannot go back into the ocean unless it’s in ash form. The burial of ashes is not our practice, nor does it provide the means for the Kanaloa to feed Moananuiākea as it was intended,” said Keliʻikipikāneokolohaka.

Two incidents, about 10 years apart, illustrate the shift from conflict toward a more cooperative model of responding to strandings.

In 2015, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) issued citations to Keliʻikipikāneokolohaka (then Stewart) and Kealoha Pisciotta for violating federal law after they responded to the June 2014 stranding of Wānanalua (a melon-headed whale) in Kawaihae on Hawaiʻi Island.

The two performed a Hawaiian sea burial after NOAA left the scene, according to an NBC News report. In 2018, NOAA ended up dropping the charges against the women after legal challenges and negative public attention.

In Native Hawaiian culture, Kanaloa are viewed as living ancestors, having appeared before kānaka in the Hawaiian origin chant, the Kumulipo.

Thus, Keliʻikipikāneokolohaka said responders view their work to care for Kanaloa no differently than they view the care of kūpuna in an emergency room or hospice-type situation except that “we are dealing with an entity that is a living ancestor, one who embodies both a familial and akua form at the same time.

“We facilitate the transition of Kanaloa according to their directive. They may choose to re-enter Moananuiākea, have a bit of a respite, or they may choose to transition from the physical realm to the spiritual realm.”

In 2023, NOAA approached the Hawaiʻi Island-based Kiaʻi Kanaloa about becoming a formal stranding response partner, giving them the authority to respond to all strandings on the island.

After consultation with family, elders and community leaders, the group decided to accept the role and now has a formal agreement with the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service Pacific Islands Regional Office.

The new agreement was put to its first test in July 2024 when Kiaʻi Kanaloa was called by the Leleiwi community in Hilo to respond to a distressed whale. Kiaʻi Kanaloa worked with the community and the Division of Aquatic Resources in coordinating a community-led response.

“The community had full advocacy in handling the response from start to finish, with three generations of one ʻohana involved in the ceremonial preparation and the kanu kai (ocean burial),” said Keliʻikipikāneokolohaka. “That kind of response epitomizes how we think these events should be handled in Hawaiʻi.”

In November 2025, Keliʻikipikāneokolohaka traveled to Aotearoa (New Zealand) for the World Indigenous Peoples’ Conference on Education to speak about Kanaloa response work in Hawaiʻi and Aotearoa. There, she co-facilitated a workshop called “Kanaloa Cognizance: Countering the Criminalization of Ancestral Duty and Ritual” with Bonita Bigham, a Māori affiliate of Kiaʻi Kanaloa,

About 100 people participated in the workshop, which culminated in a written statement calling for changes to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

“We call on CITES to enable Indigenous people to travel freely with sacred cultural items of a personal nature, to use them in culturally relevant contexts and ceremonies (including gifting), and to recognise the ancestral relationships and connections that exist between marine mammals and Indigenous peoples worldwide,” the statement read.

In addition to training and advocacy, Kiaʻi Kanaloa is in the process of developing a predictive framework for when communities need to be on high alert for strandings. Through the process of kilo malama, they are studying historical stranding records and cross referencing them with significant earth and kānaka events, such as or natural disasters or deaths, to identify patterns.

According to NOAA, about 20 whale and dolphin strandings occur in the Hawaiian Islands in an average year. Strandings happen year-round, with dolphin strandings typically peaking in the summer, and large whale strandings in the winter during migration season. The University of Hawaiʻi Hilo Marine Mammal Lab has collected 30,000 observations and identified more than 5,000 individual whales over the past three decades during migration.

Illness, injury and disease have all been tied to the obvious causes of Kanaloa in distress.

In June 2025, three dolphins stranded on east Oʻahu shorelines over a 7-day period tested positive for Brucella ceti, a bacterial infection that can transfer from animals to humans. In all cases, cultural practitioners were present to advise the UH Mānoa first response team.

Keliʻikipikāneokolohaka said preparations continue to be made on all fronts to increase communities’ ability to meet their cultural responsibility to care for Kanaloa as our living ancestors.

To report a marine mammal stranding, call the Kiaʻi Kanaloa response hotline at 808-987-0453, or the NOAA Fisheries hotline at 888-256-9840.

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ʻĀina Hoʻokupu o Kīlauea (AHK), together with partnering farmers, ranchers and fishermen, produces more than 10,000 pounds of produce, meat and fish each month. That is enough to fill 250 donated farm boxes weekly and serve about 100 to 150 people daily through AHK’s retail space, Johnny’s Market.

But unless the organization can increase its production or support other farmers, it will not be able to meet the needs of the community.

To address this, AHK is developing an innovative 2-acre model of food production designed to connect Native Hawaiian farmers with AHK’s financial resources and agricultural expertise.

The idea is for AHK to partner with grantees of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands’ (DHHL) Kuleana Homestead Program, which allows beneficiaries to lease unimproved, off-grid homestead lots for agriculture.

Through the 2-acre model, AHK would provide all the infrastructure needed for farmers to start raising pigs, chicken and sheep and to grow plants like banana, ʻulu and pineapple. The farmers would provide the labor and land. The model is designed to be a high-yield, low-input system, requiring only about 1-2 hours a day of feeding animals and harvesting food, said AHK Executive Director Yoshito L’Hote.

“The goal of this model is for everybody to engage with the food they eat. [The grantees] get to support the community by providing locally grown food. But also, in case of emergency, there’ll be up to 100 breadfruit trees planted, hundreds of pigs, and thousands of chickens raised. Those are the elements that provide food resiliency and economy,” said L’Hote.

Based on a recent financial analysis conducted by AHK with support from philanthropic donors and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), the initial start-up cost for each farm is estimated at $80,000, and the investment would pay for itself in about three years.

After this initial period, all the infrastructure is turned over to the farmers. If they choose to continue with the system, there is the potential to generate $50,000 to $60,000 per year in revenues. AHK is coordinating with DHHL to arrange a field visit so the department can provide feedback about the feasibility of their plan.

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A key part of the model is being in proximity to a retail and processing space – which is where Johnny’s Market comes in, said L’Hote. The market, which opened in 2023, was a critical piece of making AHK’s operations financially viable. Johnny’s Market, which sells only Hawaiʻi-grown products, has helped shift the center’s funding from 80% grants and philanthropy to 80% earned income.

“The biggest change since we opened the market [has been] financial relief. It’s the final piece to the puzzle,” said 25-year-old Kalei Waipa, AHK’s production manager and field supervisor for the past six years. “We finally have a store that has allowed us to sell our vegetables and bring in financial income to supplement everything.”

Johnny’s Market is part of AHK’s Kīlauea Community Agricultural Center (KCAC), which includes a 75-acre farm, education center, pavilions and food processing facilities. The property, acquired by the Kīlauea community through a contested case hearing, is now owned by the County of Kauaʻi and leased by AHK.

The market is named after the late Johnny Akana, a founding member and president of Kīlauea Agriculture Association, who pushed for the community to be able to farm the 75 acres. Thanks in part to Akana’s efforts, AHK has been farming the area for the past decade.

“We have discovered how much everybody wants to buy local, fresh, high-quality produce and, because there’s nobody between the farmers and the customers, 60-70% of the money made from the sales of produce is going to the farmers – which is not the case in a regular grocery store. It’s more like 15%,” said L’Hote.

“We’ve also eliminated so much of the waste of transportation, the carbon footprint, the plastic wrapping, the cardboard, and the fuel to distribute. We’re creating a way healthier food system that takes into consideration the impact on the ʻāina and the people.”

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Part of cultivating sustainability for such a system is to empower the next generation of farmers and local food advocates, according to L’Hote. “It’s that generation that needs to see the value and push the boat forward.” By design, the team at AHK is comprised mostly of employees in their 20s and 30s – including L’Hote’s son and daughter.

Waipa said engaging the younger generation in farming is important. He is already seeing a shift in how his peers value local food and local food systems. This, coupled with a growing dissatisfaction with higher-paying but less-satisfying jobs, may push more people from “Generation Z” (those currently ages 13-28) to return to the land.

AHK’s vision is to give the upcoming generation access to land and housing, allowing them to farm and mālama ʻāina not as a job, but as a lifestyle that increases food availability, economic diversity and security for generations to come.

“You can only do a job that makes you money, but doesn’t make you happy, for so long,” said Waipa. “I have a friend in construction who I worked with before on a farm. He says he’s not nearly as satisfied with his job. He’s making more money, but he’s not feeling fulfilled and happy. I think that’s been a huge thing for our generation.”

The post Engaging With the Food We Eat appeared first on Ka Wai Ola.

But just four years later, Hawaiʻi had its first documented widespread coral bleaching event, which affected reefs in Kāneʻohe, Kailua and Waimānalo.

A decade later, two major coral bleaching events happened in 2014 and 2015, bleaching more than half of all corals statewide and leading up to a 30% loss. In Kāne- ʻohe Bay alone it was observed that 80% of the coral had been bleached white.

Once a phenomenon predicted to happen every 50 years, coral bleaching episodes, triggered in part by heat waves, are now expected about every six years.

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Researchers and resource managers now know more than they did a decade ago about why some corals seem more resilient in the face of increased stress. What they’ve learned has led to positive changes in coastal management, scientific advancements and the implementation of novel approaches – all aimed at giving corals a better chance of survival.

“We’re at a very pivotal place right now in history where the decisions we make today, and especially this decade, are going to determine the direction of the future of our reefs. It’s gotten that bad,” said Rodgers, who recently retired from HIMB. “We’ve already lost over half of the world’s coral reefs. But the good news is that we still have half of the coral reefs – and many of them are in Hawaiʻi.”

Coral bleaching happens when corals expel symbiotic algae from their tissues as a stress response to environmental factors, including increased ocean temperatures.

But many Hawaiian corals also uptake zooplankton from the water as another source of nutrients, said Rodgers. These species of corals have lower mortality rates than others. Prolonged coral bleaching can cause die offs of coral colonies, which form the foundation of all marine life.

In 2015, the Hawaiʻi Coral Bleaching Collaborative (HCBC) was formed to create a system and network through which coral reefs could be rapidly surveyed following bleaching events.

“Hawaiʻi has stood out across the world as being one of the more coordinated places. We’ve had inquiries from all over the world, asking us how we’ve been so successful. The reason why is because we came together under the HCBC,” said HCBC Coordinator Mary Donovan who joined HIMB last year as an assistant researcher.

The surveys are triggered when members of the collaborative receive notification from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) about an impending heat wave or a prolonged period of above- average water temperatures.

Heat waves in Hawaiʻi typically occur during the warmest months, usually starting in August and ending by December. Donovan said a prominent study has shown that heat waves are becoming more frequent and longer lasting.

Donovan’s lab team also leads the Hawaiʻi Monitoring and Reporting Collaborative (HIMARC), which combines data from various surveys to produce maps and graphs about coral reef health for decision makers.

The latest data shows pollution, particularly from waste disposal, weakens corals’ ability to survive heat stress. The presence of herbivorous fish, such as uhu, kala, and nenue, help maintain the balance between corals and algae.

Areas with pollution and low populations of herbivores can be overgrown with algae that suffocate coral reefs and make them less likely to survive bleaching events. Donovan’s team is working on a statewide analysis on the variability of coral reef health related to these environmental factors.

“There’s still a lot we can do, even as we have climate change causing these really devastating events to happen,” said Donovan. “We can work together to decrease the pollution that gets into the ocean and fish in a pono way.”

Donovan said progress has been made, especially in the past 10 years. “I want to give credit to DAR (the Division of Aquatic Resources under the Department of Land and Natural Resources) for the work they’re doing with the community to develop rules and other actions that will help us in the next bleaching event.”

DAR set a goal of “sustainably managing herbivore populations through responsible harvesting practices in order to promote coral reef resilience.” In February 2024, after a years-long public process, resource managers adopted new fishing rules that increased the minimum size required to harvest certain herbivore species important to coral reef health.

The restoration of corals lost during recent bleaching events also became the highest priority in DAR’s plans related to coral bleaching. Specifically, the “Makai Restoration Plan” updated in April 2023 has set a goal to “build capacity to develop, test, and apply restoration methods that enhance the resistance and recovery of coral reefs impacted by bleaching.”

Fourteen potential areas that had experienced severe impacts to coral communities during bleaching events were identified in the plan. These include the Leeward side of Maui, North and South Kona and South Kohala on the island of Hawaiʻi and Kāneʻohe Bay, Lanikai and Waiʻalae-Kahala on Oʻahu.

Beyond management actions, scientists are also looking at ways to support coral restoration efforts through technological advancements. One example comes from Smithsonian Institution researcher, Mary Hagedorn, whose lab at HIMB is studying viable ways to save coral egg and sperm through cryopreservation or freezing. “If these corals are lost, at least there is still something that can help them, like having a bank for reproduction,” said Rodgers.

Last year, Hagedorn and other researchers from Harvard Medical School, National Ecological Observatory Network, University Corporation of Atmospheric Research, and the University of Minnesota published a paper in BioScience exploring the idea of creating a passive lunar biorepository – cryogenic preservation of biological material on the moon – to safeguard Earth’s biodiversity.

The post Combating Coral Bleaching appeared first on Ka Wai Ola.

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Despite myriad challenges, advocates for Hawaiʻi’s Farm to School movement continue to persevere, inspired by their belief that our keiki deserve to eat fresh food grown near their homes.

The Farm to School movement is a general term that describes wide-ranging actions to bring locally grown food into school cafeterias. More broadly, these efforts support local agriculture, increase Hawaiʻi’s food independence and improve the overall health of our communities.

“It’s about our ability to stand on our own two feet and provide the foods we need to survive outside of continental influence,” said Kawika Kahiapo, program coordinator for Hawaiʻi Farm to School, a program of the Hawaiʻi Public Health Institute (HPHI). Kahiapo said that local food advocates have a strong drive to make Farm to School happen in Hawaiʻi, especially now given the instability of federal funding.

The movement officially organized in 2010 when HPHI set up the first state network of public- private partnerships to advance Farm to School. In 2015, the Hawaiʻi Department of Education (DOE) began purchasing locally sourced food for cafeterias, and schools started to plant their own gardens.

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In Kohala, for example, the nonprofit organization Hawaiʻi Institute for Pacific (HIP) Agriculture and Kohala High School started a school garden in 2018 to provide food and learning. Students from the school’s natural resource classes spend one to three days a week growing fruits and vegetables like kalo, ʻuala (sweet potato), ʻulu, avocado and citrus.

Before the pandemic, students and faculty harvested the vegetables to cook in the school’s cafeteria. But due to liability concerns, processing of the food was moved to the Kohala Food Hub.

“What’s really beautiful about a local school garden is that there are ways, through Farm to School activities, that we can still have impact outside of the cafeteria where there are more barriers,” said Erika Kuhr, co-founder, co-director and chef at HIP Agriculture.

The DOE is mandated by state law to locally source 30% of its food by the end of this decade. But progress toward this goal has been lagging. Depending on who you ask, the reasons for this vary but include rising food costs, inflexible procurement rules, a lack of eligible vendors, and decreased farm productivity due to climate change.

According to DOE’s January 2025 report, local food made up only 5.43% (about $4.5 million) of all food purchased by the department’s School Food Services Branch. This is compared to the non-local food expenditures, which amounted to 94.57% (about $77 million) – thus, most of the money spent on food for our keiki is leaving Hawaiʻi instead of being reinvested into our local economy.

The DOE’s local food purchases are composed of 1.83% local fresh fruit, 3% local meat, 0.51% local dairy, 0.06% local bottled water, and 0.03% poi.

Currently, food purchasing for schools happens at a statewide level. Changing the rules to allow procurement to occur at a smaller, more localized level would make a big positive difference, said Kuhr.

“Hawaiʻi is very complex and its harder to move forward on the dial because we have islands, and each island is individual,” said Kuhr. “The type of coordination and farming needed to get to different sites varies.” She added that training and equipping cafeteria staff and managers is greatly needed. Beyond that, Kuhr sees opportunity for innovation – to train and involve students in the preparation of their food.

Several pieces of legislation to remove systematic barriers for Farm to School or Farm to Home initiatives are currently under consideration by lawmakers. HB 1293, for example, seeks to temporarily adjust the DOE’s small purchase procurement rules for local edible produce and packaged food products to make it easier for the department to buy these local goods.

Groups like the Hawaiʻi Food Youth Council are training and supporting high school students to learn about legislation and advocate for better local food policies. In March, the Council hosted the 10th annual We Grow Event at the Hawaiʻi State Capitol. Through the event Hawaiʻi youth connect with farmers, cooks and others involved in agriculture while also learning about the legislative process.

“We work with them to develop their own personal story related to local food, and they use that story as part of their testimony. Their relationship to the issue is what tears at the heart strings of legislators,” said Kahiapo. He is currently working with 16 high-school-aged youth, each one following a different bill at the legislature.

One of those students is Vivienne Momo Hill. “There’s such a want and demand for the Farm to School movement,” said Hill who testified on behalf of HB 428, a bill to provide funding to Hawaiʻi’s food banks to purchase, store, and transport Hawaiʻi grown or produced foods to food insecure communities.

“Our families often can’t afford the locally grown produce because it’s more expensive than what is coming in on the ships, which is ultimately what families can afford,” Hill said. “There’s something wrong with a system that makes shipping stuff from across the world more affordable than something grown like a couple miles away.”

She said events like We Grow are important because they empower Hawaiʻi’s youth to engage with local food issues. “Students took time off school to come to the Capitol and lobby their legislators. They realize, ʻOh my school lunch isn’t great’ and that it’s not just a given – they can change it,” Hill said. “Tapping into those voices and giving them space to share stories is so important.”

The post The Farm to School Movement: Getting Locally Grown Food into School Cafeterias appeared first on Ka Wai Ola.

An early look at the data suggests affordability for single family homes has gotten “marginally” worse. Most Hawaiʻi residents still cannot afford to buy a home, and market conditions – including low supply and high interest rates – remain unchanged.

Another factor likely to adversely impact the housing market is the Trump Administration’s termination of thousands of federal jobs in February. These job cuts included positions at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) which administers programs in Hawaiʻi such as the rental assistance program known as Section 8. HUD could not be reached for comment.

“Hawaiʻi’s been in a bad place for housing affordability for a long time,” said Justin Tyndall, an economics professor with UHERO and the UH Department of Economics. “Our first factbook (2023), pointed out that during the COVID era things got worse, in terms of prices going up quite a bit. Over the last couple years, we’ve been dealing with high interest rates. A very small portion of the population has sufficient income to afford a house, and that figure has gotten historically worse.”

Currently, the median single-family home sells for about $1 million, though this figure varies widely between the islands with the highest median prices in Maui and Honolulu counties.

The condo market on Oʻahu offers some “glimmers of hope,” Tyndall said. New condo developments in Central Honolulu are being built and will become available soon. Condo prices are slightly down on all islands except Maui. According to the 2024 Factbook, the median condo price was $600,000.

But the immediate cause for the slight decrease in condo prices is the insurance market. “These condominium buildings are not able to get insurance because prices have gone up so much. Part of (the rise) is reckoning with climate change, but also a general unraveling of that insurance market. For most buildings, you can’t get a federally insured mortgage if the building doesn’t have full insurance,” said Tyndall. Homeowners’ association fees have gone up rapidly in response to the insurance crisis, and the increase in fees will likely negate any decrease in condo prices.

Affordability in the free market is unlikely to change significantly, at least not any time soon.

People at all levels of government and in the nonprofit sector are pushing for restricted-market housing solutions that can shelter everyone from the houseless to the middle class. A sustainable housing market needs to be permanently affordable, deed restricted to full-time residents, and subsidized said Kenna StormoGipson, Hawaiʻi Housing Policy Foundation executive director.

The Foundation wants to take practices and policies that have worked in other parts of the country and bring them here to Hawaiʻi. StormoGipson often points to Aspen, CO., as a model for what could be.

Of the total housing inventory in Aspen, 40% is permanently affordable through deed restrictions and is only for residents who live and work in Aspen full time. By contrast, only 6% of Hawaiʻi’s housing market is similarly restricted. This leaves the remaining 94% of housing vulnerable to increasing rents that outpace wages or to being sold to buyers who do not live or work in Hawaiʻi.

“The most exciting things happening in housing across the country are happening at the city, county and state level. That’s really the shift. The shift is thinking of housing as a local issue, and then setting local rules and local funding,” said StormoGipson.

State and county elected officials have proposed and introduced measures to address both supply and affordability. But implementing such measures has proven challenging. Tyndall pointed out some examples of county level actions and public housing investments, such as the recently adopted ALOHA Homes legislation and the phasing out of the Minatoya List. “The bigger reason to be somewhat optimistic is there seems to be some political alignment or will to implement policies,” said Tyndall.

Sponsored by Sen. Stanley Chang, the ALOHA Homes bill (SB 864), which became state law in 2023, establishes a 99-year leasehold program to make low-cost leasehold condos units available for Hawaiʻi residents on state-owned land near rail stations. According to Chang’s website, the law would allow half of the units to be sold for up to 140% Annual Median Income (AMI) and no more than 33% to be sold on an income blind basis. AMI is an annual figure generated by HUD and has been criticized for not reflecting local wages. The 140% AMI for a 4- person family in Honolulu is about $183,400.

The “Minatoya List,” created in 2001 by Richard Minatoya, Maui County deputy corporation counsel, allowed more than 7,000 apartment-zoned condos already used as vacation rentals to be permitted as short-term rentals.

In 2024, Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen submitted a proposal to phase out these short-term rentals. After being reviewed by the Maui, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi planning commissions, Bissen’s proposal was transmitted to the Maui County Council. Many of the short-term rentals impacted by this proposed legislation were initially built and designed for workforce housing, including in West Maui, where an existing housing shortage was exacerbated by the August 2023 wildfire.

“This is one potential solution to increase long-term housing capacity among many that we are pursuing to address our housing crisis,” Bissen said. “We need to work together to do what’s best for our people. Every day our people are leaving, and this is a consequence we cannot accept as a community.”

Other state programs already in place to lift restrictions for developers seem to be popular, said Tyndall. Examples of these include the Rental Housing Revolving Fund and the 201H Program in Honolulu, which grants permitting or regulatory waivers for projects aimed at creating “affordable housing.” Tyndall questions whether this is the right approach to creating more housing supply.

“We spend a lot of effort making it very difficult to build housing, and then we spend a lot of money to subsidize developers so they can overcome these barriers,” Tyndall said. “The counties and state put up those barriers, and then they have programs to overcome those barriers. It’s a bit inefficient. A bigger supply of housing would come from making it easier for developers to build housing.”

The post The “State of Housing” in Hawaiʻi appeared first on Ka Wai Ola.

The students are not on an annual field trip. This is their normal. This is part of their classroom at Kūlaniākea, a nonprofit nature and Hawaiian immersion school. The children engage in activities outdoors, including plant identification, biology, geography, engineering and zoology, as well as learning about navigation and cloud names.

“They watch, they look, and they learn. They feel the movement of the wave. They can tell you what direction the wind is coming from, because of the way the sail moves. That experience is invaluable. People have said, ‘Wow, your kids are so smart!’ It has nothing to do with that, it has everything to do with the environment we put them in,” said Wailani Robins, executive director of Kūlaniākea.

The environment Robins speaks of is a school built on intentionality and aloha. In 2015, the school got its nonprofit status. The following year it officially opened with about nine children. But it didn’t have a space. It was a preschool without walls that traveled with keiki around the island of Oʻahu, often visiting Bishop Museum. In 2018, Papahana Kuaola, a mālama ʻāina-based education organization, gave them a space to store their things and put down a hale peʻa (tent).

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Though the school technically opened six years ago, it is the culmination of 30 years of experience in education. Robins worked at two Pūnana Leo sites, where she learned a lot about immersion. Then she was the director at Kawaiahaʻo Church School, a Christian Montessori school. Taking what she learned from children, families, educators and environments, she sought to create something different.

Parents Kaniela and Tash Lyman-Mersereau said they chose Kūlaniākea for their 5-year-old son Paʻakanialeʻa (Paʻa) because they wanted a safe place where he could deeply connect and experience all that is Hawaiʻi.

“It is the language, the experiences with kai and ʻāina, and the compassionate, caring kumu that make this school so special,” said Kaniela Lyman-Mersereau. “We want our children to share the same love for home and seek the same ʻike as us so we can all connect to our genealogy without shame and move forward to remake Hawaiʻi into the unique, beautiful place it is. To us, this is what education needs to be in this day and age. This school shoulders the kuleana of our generation in so many ways.”

Paʻa and his classmates have learned about kindness, sharing their feelings, taking care of one another and taking care of their space. They are also growing their knowledge of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi and the natural world, and they share this knowledge with their families.

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“Paʻa teaches us new words in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi and is quick to correct us if we mispronounce a word,” said Kaniela. “Recently, they learned about Lā Kūʻokoʻa and he came home telling me about Timoteo Haʻalilio. He has learned how to observe and interact with the language of nature with his trips on the waʻa, Kaʻihekauila, and up ma uka at Papahana Kuaola. He can name the native plants and birds around him, tell us the name of the winds, rains and mountain peaks of his home. The list goes on…”

Robins believes Kūlaniākea is unique because of its dedicated and knowledgeable staff, and its untraditional classroom setting. The current enrollment for the combined preschool and kindergarten class is 24 students, ages 3 to 6 years old. Their toddler program is maxed out at eight students. Robins said they hope to expand the school up to fifth grade, believing that keeping children until this age will prepare them for any future educational path.

The participation of families is integral to the school’s philosophy. Community is baked into everything the school does and is.

“ʻOhana Kūlaniākea does an excellent job of making it clear how we can support and what is expected of the mākua (parents). We all have basic kuleana in bringing snacks, fundraising and helping set up and break down their off-campus classrooms, but like other families we have also been able to help based on our given skill sets and work expertise,” said Kaniela.

For example, Tasha runs a small business and helped the school set up their online purchasing system, while Kaniela is a teacher responsible for a small coastal sailing canoe similar to the one the kids learn on.

Kūlaniākea has a waiting list of two years for both programs. Robins said that while the waitlist indicates a high level of interest in their programs, it also illustrates the unmet needs for this kind of education. This is why they’ve made their educational resources available to other preschool programs, homeschooling families and the larger community. These resources include home labels, puzzles, posters and themed resource boxes. All of this can be purchased through the nonprofit’s website.

Taking the community outreach even further, Kūlaniākea started an event in 2021 called Ola Ka ʻĪ, the Hawaiian Language Thrives. It takes place at Windward Mall every February during Mahina ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language month) and is a celebration with local musicians, storytelling and more. More than 3,000 people attend the event annually. That original event inspired the development of other Ola Ka ʻĪ events in ʻEwa, on Maui, and on Kauaʻi with Niʻihau participating. This year, new events will be added in Hilo, Kona, and on Molokaʻi.

More recently, through an initiative called “Let’s ʻŌlelo,” Kūlaniākea is also building a database of Hawaiian words that people can access through a QR code in various community spaces. “If you learn to include one to two words a day in your everyday conversations, that’s keeping (ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi) alive,” said Robins. “Through this initiative, we’ve touched hundreds of people.”

For more information go to: www.kulaniakea.org.

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He Alo a He Alo is a “listening tour“ led by Papa Ola Lōkahi that invites Native Hawaiians to share what it means to be Hawaiian and the challenges of maintaining one’s cultural identity. The tour will visit all 50 states. It began this August in Utah and will conclude in Las Vegas in August 2025. The top photo was taken after a listening session in Southern California, and the bottom photo after a session in the Pacific Northwest. – Photos Courtesy of Papa Ola Lōkahi

Forty-one year-old Leilani Kaʻula moved to the continent from Hilo, Hawaiʻi Island, in 2001 to further her education. She ended up staying after her mom relocated to Aloha, Ore., a few years later. Though she is far from the islands, she has built a community around her Hawaiian culture and started a hālau 15 years ago after receiving her kumu hula’s blessing. She plans to eventually return to Hawaiʻi to give back to her community.

Charlene Kehaulani Kazner, 74, took her first trip away from Hawaiʻi in 1972 to attend her classmate’s college graduation in Seattle. Once on the continent though, she discovered a world beyond the islands that she wanted to explore. She went home, saved money and moved to Los Angeles. Her plan was to visit for a year and return home. But her dad told her she would stay and marry a “haole boy” and that’s what she did. After her retirement from the corporate world, Kazner said she felt a need to return to her roots. “I got very involved in the Hawaiian Civic Club and am still very involved today,” she said. “I just love having my Hawaiian ʻohana. We eat the same food, we look alike, we love the same music. It’s been a wonderful journey for me.”

Kaʻula and Kazner are some of the more than 100 Native Hawaiians living on the continent who have participated in “He Alo a He Alo,” (Face to Face) a nationwide listening tour led by Papa Ola Lōkahi (POL), the Native Hawaiian Health Board. The purpose of the tour is to better understand Kānaka Maoli perspectives on what it means to be Hawaiian, and the advantages and challenges of maintaining their cultural identities.

“He Alo a He Alo provides visibility. I think for so long, our Hawaiians on the continent have felt like their voice isn’t worthy. They’re so disconnected to home that they don’t feel they have value. But the reality is, they do. I think that’s why this project is so important because it makes them feel seen in a time when identity crisis is so heightened,” said Kaʻula.

The tour, which will visit all 50 states, began in August 2024 in Utah and continues through August 2025 in Las Vegas. So far, more than 20 sessions have been held across 10 states. Two additional states are scheduled for the first two weeks of December. In January 2025, POL will begin its sessions for Native Hawaiians living in Hawaiʻi.

“What I started recognizing at POL is that we were in spaces to advocate and to uplift our kānaka. But in order to do that, we needed to be aware of where they were and what they were thinking,” said Dr. Sheri Daniels, POL chief executive officer. “People cannot see themselves in health statistics or in any statistics unless they’re directly impacted.”

From input gathered in the sessions to date, Daniels said connection to community, culture and family are emerging as themes. She has also seen that connection diminish with each passing generation. “Our first-generation, continental Hawaiians are still very passionate and connected to Hawaiʻi. They come home; they still visit. Trying to maintain the second generation’s connection is a little harder. Then the third generation is way more disconnected,” Daniels said.

Participants have also expressed feelings of “not being Hawaiian enough.” The process of meeting with other kānaka to share these feelings of sadness has had a healing effect.

“Those moments of how kānaka interacted with each other – somewhere outside of the ocean boundaries – makes me so proud,” Daniels said. “We are truly resilient. That’s the great part. The ugly side is seeing people hurt by not feeling Hawaiian enough. But then at the end of our conversations, people are lighter.”

For the first time ever, the number of Native Hawaiians who live on the continent now outnumber the ones living in Hawaiʻi, according to the 2020 U.S. Census, with 53% living on the continent compared to 47% in Hawaiʻi.

Daniels said people move off island for a variety of reasons. But they typically stay for economic reasons – because of the availability of work and affordable housing.

POL’s kuleana is governed by the Native Hawaiian Health Care Improvement Act, which was born out of the 1985 E Ola Mau report, a comprehensive health needs study of Native Hawaiians.

POL began an assessment in 2019 to create a revised report. However, the pandemic caused them to shelve their efforts. Now the listening tour is picking up where the assessment left off.

Findings from the tour, as well as new chapters on data governance, workforce, review of recommendations, practices and traditions, racism and others will be added to the updated E Ola Mau report. POL has begun to create state profiles with the data they’ve gathered. This data can be used by organizations and individuals who are advocating for resources for Native Hawaiian health.

Census data also reveal that while the size of the Native Hawaiian populations in Hawaiʻi and on the continent both increased, the continental Native Hawaiian population is growing five times faster than the Native Hawaiian population in Hawaiʻi.

One of the session participants, Ualani Hoʻopai, 60, said hearing people’s perspectives made her realize that the younger generation of kānaka, those born and raised on the continent, yearn for more. “I feel like my kuleana is to help create community where we are. It’s ideal for us to be back in Hawaiʻi and on the ʻāina but it may not be possible, either now or ever. Many of us are yearning to connect. But how do we do that?”

Hoʻopai, a graduate of Kamehameha Schools, left Oʻahu for college. Her dream of becoming a dancer and fashion designer led her to Washington, then back to Honolulu, and finally to New York City, where she got an associate’s degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology. She lived in the city for more than 20 years before her job took her across the country. She now lives in California and works in public health.

Overall, 680,442 Native Hawaiians were counted in the United States in 2020, a 29% increase over 2010. The five states on the continent with the highest counts of Native Hawaiians are California, Washington, Nevada, Texas, and Oregon. These were the same states identified in 2010. The proportion of Native Hawaiians in Hawaiʻi remained stable from 2010 to 2020, now representing 21.8% of the state’s population. This is a 0.5% increase from 2010, demonstrating consistent Native Hawaiian representation within Hawaiʻi’s population over the past decade.

Daniels said she would not be surprised to see the gap between Hawaiians living in Hawaiʻi and outside of Hawaiʻi widen by the time the 2030 U.S. Census happens. She said one of the factors that could drive additional out-migration is the 2023 wildfires.

For more information go to www.papaolalokahi.org/program/he-alo-a-he-alo-listening-tour and to participate email: kanakaconnections@polhi.org

The post Meeting “He Alo a He Alo” With Hawaiians on the Continent appeared first on Ka Wai Ola.

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For three generations, many in the rural community of Kaʻū, on the southern point of Hawaiʻi Island, have been fighting against the development of their culturally and environmentally sensitive coastline. They face a future in which that coastline is either protected for generations to come or developed and changed – some say, lost – forever.

Black Sand Beach, LLC, a company owned by developer Eva Liu, is proposing to build a 225-unit residential and commercial project on 434 acres at the former Sea Mountain site at Punaluʻu. Liu’s company purchased the parcels, which includes most of the land ma kai of Punaluʻu Black Sand Beach, in 2020.

“Punaluʻu has been neglected for years, leading to its deterioration – something that anyone who loves Kaʻū, respects its culture, and is dedicated to environmental protection would not want to see,” Liu wrote in an email. “That is why our plan has received widespread support from the community. For those who oppose it, we maintain open communication, giving them the opportunity to understand our plans and the current state of Punaluʻu.”

Liu is seeking Hawaiʻi County’s approval for a special management area use permit to move forward. But at the Windward Planning Commission’s (Commission) hearings earlier this year, the public testified overwhelmingly against the project.

The reasons for their opposition were cultural, environmental, economic and legal in nature.

“If you know the moʻolelo of the people of Kaʻū, you know how we connect to our environment. When people look at development to this extent, it’s damaging to our natural ecosystem that we evolved with,” said Nohea Kaʻawa, president of ʻIewe Hānau o ka ʻĀina, a group of citizens and lineal descendants of Punaluʻu and Kaʻū opposing the development.

“We never see ourselves as separate from our environment. The honu living at Punaluʻu are our ʻohana. The honu to us is kinolau of demigods that stem from the same genealogies of who we are.”

In March, the Center for Biological Diversity and ʻIewe Hānau o ka ʻĀina filed a legal intervention opposing the project. The groups were later joined by the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation.

In May, the Commission voted to grant standing to the center and ʻIewe in a contested hearing case, a quasi-judicial process in which evidence and testimony is presented by involved parties. Once the hearing concludes, the Commission will vote on whether to give its approval for the permit.

The Commission denied standing to a third party, the Association of Apartment Owners of Colony 1 at Sea Mountain, which represents 76 individual properties encircled by the developer’s holdings.

Though the association has taken a neutral stance on the permit, they are concerned about the dilapidated state of the public water, fire suppression and wastewater systems. In a letter to the Commission, the association noted that the proposed project site does not have a current environmental impact statement (EIS) or environmental assessment. Group 70 International, a consulting firm based in Honolulu, produced a draft EIS in 2006.

Maxx Phillips, Hawaiʻi program director and staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said Punaluʻu is already overrun by tourists.

Every day, tour buses drop off crowds of visitors. Some of them illegally take sand or get too close to endangered and threatened sea turtles. The unmanaged impacts of tourism crowd out locals, increase traffic, and compound infrastructure problems. The situation would become much worse if development is allowed, said Phillips.

“No matter what a developer says, no matter if they use our words, our place names, even our people, the reality is this resort development will change Punaluʻu for the worse. We just cannot afford that anymore,” said Phillips. “Our natural resources, our cultural resources, are too precious. We don’t want to look in the faces of our moʻopuna and say, ʻwe wish we did more.’”

Elsa Kalani Kauleleiaiwi Dedman, a Native Hawaiian with kuleana land that is surrounded by the proposed development, has many concerns about the project. Chief among them is the ability of current and future generations of Native Hawaiians to practice their culture on their land.

“Personally, I was denied my traditional spiritual practice to worship at Lanipau Heiau, which is located adjacent to the Sea Mountain Golf Course,” she said. “The developer’s land use planner told me in February that I could not go there because it was off limits. This heiau is a known heiau of Kekealani, my ancestor.”

Dedman said the proposed resort continues the desecration that began in the 1970s, when C. Brewer & Co. built Sea Mountain. Despite the known presence of iwi kūpuna in the former and proposed resort location, Liu and Black Sand, LLC want to use the same site.

“This is horrendous because our Kānaka Maoli believe the bones of our kūpuna are imbued with mana, life force. Their proper care and respect are a critical component to our wellbeing. This proposed development is going to continue the genocide of the Indigenous Kānaka Maoli.”

Some government officials have voiced their concerns over the project’s policy-related shortcomings.

Hawaiʻi County Planner Ron Whitmore submitted testimony that the project is inconsistent with three policies in the Kaʻū Community Development Plan. More specifically, he said the project does not include affordable housing, did not establish a new shoreline setback, and did not complete the necessary assessments related to impacts on resources.

Those who oppose any development in Punaluʻu are fighting for a future in which the area is preserved in perpetuity, perhaps through a conservation easement or other legal mechanism.

ʻIewe Hānau o ka ʻĀina held its first meeting for residents, native and non-native, to come together to share their hopes for their home. Kaʻawa said they want, among other things, for lands to be returned to their rightful owners, for water and other natural resources to be protected, and for keiki to have jobs that help restore the area.

“People need to know that we don’t always have to accept what is thrown our way. We have solutions,” she said. “We hope to minimize the impacts caused by overuse of our natural resources, and to perpetuate traditional and customary practices. We want to keep educating and empowering our keiki.

“We were gifted Kaʻū by our ancestors, and we want to gift Kaʻū to our descendants.”

The post Punaluʻu Black Sand Beach in Danger of Development appeared first on Ka Wai Ola.

Maui County Council Backs the Community’s Opposition to More Telescopes

In a decades-long conflict over development on Haleakalā, Maui County officials took the unprecedented step of unanimously standing with community in opposition to a military proposal to build up to seven telescopes atop Maui’s most sacred summit.

In April 2024, the U.S. Department of the Air Force (DAF), a division under the Department of Defense (DoD), announced its proposal to build the new telescopes. The proposed project is known as AMOS STAR, which stands for Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing Site Small Telescope Advanced Research.

In May, the DAF hosted three public meetings on Maui where they heard overwhelming opposition to the proposal. The community expressed concerns about cultural and spiritual impacts to Haleakalā as well as the negative impacts to the mauna’s still mostly pristine natural environment, citing the U.S. military’s long history of environmental destruction and negligence.

“We have reached such a critical point that if local elected officials are not holding other government agencies responsible for their actions, then we are complicit in the harm they are causing to our people,” said Maui County Councilmember Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, who authored and introduced the resolution.

“After numerous proven examples wherein the military has lied to our community, our state and local government, they cannot be trusted.”

Rawlins-Fernandez worked with community groups Kākoʻo Haleakalā and Kilakila ʻo Haleakalā to paint a more complete picture of the history, conflicts and impacts in the resolution. Rushing to submit their statement by the public comment deadline, the council unanimously passed its resolution on June 5.

Two days later, Maui Mayor Richard Bissen released a formal statement opposing the proposal, stating in part: “The County of Maui stands in strong alignment with the Maui County Council, seeking that no action be taken by the Department of the Air Force to construct and operate an optical and supercomputing telescope research facility on the culturally sacred site of Haleakalā.”

Maui County Council’s vote to oppose the AMOS STAR project is the first time that a governmental body here in Hawaiʻi has taken a unanimous position on a issue like this.

This recent challenge to the construction of telescopes on Haleakalā is not the first. Telescope construction on Haleakalā is a long-standing issue for Maui residents.

Despite three court challenges, community meetings, scoping meetings and years of protests, construction of the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope on Haleakalā began in 2013 and took eight years to complete.

According to a Space Force official, the DoD began conducting research and development and operational missions on Haleakalā in the early 1960s at the Advanced Research Projects Agency Midcourse Observation Station, known today as the Maui Space Surveillance Complex.

The reasons for opposing development on the mauna then and now remain the same; they are rooted in religion and culture, which are essentially codified scientific observations made over millennia, explained long-time educator and community organizer Kahele Dukelow.

“When we talk about an area that is ‘wao akua’ (a region inhabited by gods) there is limited human interaction.”

Dukelow serves on the State of Hawaiʻi Board of Education and is the vice chancellor of academic affairs at the University of Hawaiʻi Maui College. She helped coordinate public involvement in this issue in the mid 2000s and continues to be involved with Kākoʻo Haleakalā.

“The purpose [of a wao akua] is to maintain an area untouched by humans for different reasons – spiritual reasons and environmental reasons. Our spiritual and cultural understandings come from scientific underpinnings. You don’t do things in a certain area because it is going to have negative impacts in another area.”

Dukelow noted that when Native Hawaiians carry out their cultural practices on Haleakalā they are forced to work around telescopes to do so. “It’s heartbreaking. We constantly see this symbol of dominance. Basically, nobody wants [us] there.”

None of this is new. For decades all across Hawaiʻi – at places like Kahoʻolawe, Mākua Valley, Pōhakuloa, and Haleakalā – Hawaiians have challenged, and continue to challenge, military occupation.

Like protests in opposition to the Thirty Meter Telescope on Maunakea, the resistance to building additional telescopes on Haleakalā has been mischaracterized as being “anti-science” by those pursuing the development.

“This has nothing to do with Hawaiians being anti-science,” asserted Dukelow. “This has everything to do with Hawaiians being anti-American – if you’re talking about the American military that is dominating the Hawaiian space in all [the] ways that it does – and anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism. They don’t talk about any of those things. They just default to our objections being ‘anti-science.’”

In addition to Maui County’s government, other leaders have articulated their opposition to the AMOS STAR proposal. In a June 6 letter, Office of Hawaiian Affairs Board of Trustees Chairperson Carmen “Hulu” Lindsey wrote: “The disrespect to the sacredness of the wao akua on the summit of Haleakalā with the construction of the Department of Air Force’s planned AMOS STAR project absolutely will not be tolerated and the no build alternative, or not building at all, is the only alternative.”

According to DAF, the facility would involve the construction and operation of up to seven telescopes enclosed in individual domes. The development would require utilities and infrastructure, including fiber optic links, a paved access drive and parking facilities, surface water runoff management measures, and other site improvements.

There are already seven different astronomical facilities spread out over 18-acres on the summit of Haleakalā. Most of these facilities have multiple telescopes.

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For the AMOS STAR project to move forward, five federal agencies and two state agencies must review and provide permits. These include the National Park Service, Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the Board of the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Brad Sturk, chief media ops and mission partner support for U.S. Space Force, sent a written statement that said: “To adequately perform America’s Space Domain Awareness mission, optical telescopes require clear weather, dark skies, and excellent atmospheric ‘seeing’ conditions. Hawaiʻi is a very remote geographic location with critical strategic significance.”

The statement went on to read that “The summit locations on Haleakalā offer pristine conditions for tracking threats across the region, in addition to allowing observation of satellites over the Hawaiian Island chain. Given the remoteness and strategic location, there are no other similar summit locations within thousands of miles that offer such viewing conditions.”

In the statement it was also noted that the project intends to use existing developed land adjacent to the Maui Space Surveillance Complex.

But Dukelow says that the military’s plan to use already-developed land on Haleakalā is irrelevant. “What we want [the military] to do is to walk it back. We want them to decommission [the telescopes]. We want them down,” she said.

“When a telescope is no longer in use, we want them to remove it. And you know what? It is totally possible. We’ve watched people remove entire hotels.”

Regardless of the project’s proposed footprint, Rawlins-Fernandez noted that emerging technology – including powerful space telescopes (like the Webb and Hubble space telescopes), and the development of autonomous telescopes and neutrino telescopes – could soon mean that spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build massive observatories on mountain summits is no longer necessary.

“While our county and community members recognize the importance of monitoring satellites and space debris, we also understand that there may be other ways to accomplish this that are also respectful of our culture, people, and ʻāina.”

Another concern is that the proposed site for the seven AMOS STAR telescopes is zoned for conservation and lies outside the 18-acre parcel of land managed by the University of Hawaiʻi Institute of Astronomy.

According to Maui County Council resolution 24-103, the university-managed parcel is the only site on Haleakalā set aside for observatory purposes.

Additionally, in recent years, the military has come under increasing scrutiny for fuel and chemical spills that have polluted – or threatened to pollute – Hawaiʻi’s groundwater.

In November 2021, approximately 20,000 gallons of jet fuel leaked from the US Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility at Kapūkakī on Oʻahu, contaminating the drinking water of more than 92,000 residents. Oʻahu’s main aquifer, the Hālawa Shaft, was affected by the fuel spill and remains closed almost three years later.

Then in 2023, the U.S. Space Force, which operates the Maui Space Surveillance Complex at the Summit of Haleakalā, reported that 700 gallons of diesel fuel was spilled at the facility. A year later they are still assessing and mitigating the impacts of that spill.

A DoD audit of fuel spills at its 591 defense fuel support points (DFSP) facilities worldwide was initiated after the 2021 incident at Red Hill. The audit, issued in April, reported that between FY2020-2022 there were 172 fuel spills at U.S. military DFSPs – the largest of which was 136,000 gallons. Most of the spills were due to equipment failure. The audit concluded that the Defense Logistics Agency, which manages and oversees DFSPs, did not consistently provide required oversight of the facilities.

“Our communities want to decide what happens in our places, especially in our most special places,” said Dukelow. “We’re tired of being the pawns in somebody else’s game. They control all the rules. They control all the pieces. We are left with crumbs – and sometimes there are no crumbs. I think the community is feeling marginalized to the greatest extent that they ever have. ”

The draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the AMOS STAR proposal is due in early 2025. It will include three alternatives: the proposed development; the development with one less telescope; and a “no action.” Sturk would not comment on the number or the nature of the public comments that were submitted. He said that information would be released with the draft EIS.

Rawlins-Fernandez and other officials who have submitted public comment want the military to withdraw its proposal altogether.

“Although the scoping period is not yet complete, it will be interesting to see how the military responds to our county council’s unanimous decision, the [position taken by the] Office of the Mayor, and the hundreds of people who participated in the recent community meetings about this project and expressed their opposition to the destruction of their sacred mauna,” said Rawlins- Fernandez.

“What does it say about the military if they disregard the unanimous vote of another government body and of the mayor duly elected by the people of this place?”

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