Noho a Kupa
Noho a Kupa means to stay and become well acquainted with a place. This model is aimed at helping kupa, natives of a place, who know it well, to care for and make decisions about their home. Noho a Kupa also refers to opportunities for diverse stakeholder groups, including students, faculty, and policy makers to learn in and from particular places through their people, and to build capacity for local management. Through NRP&E, Noho a Kupa, I work on four priority areas to enhance community capacity.
1. Kuleana ‘Āina: Education for community engagement and responsibility.
2. ʻIke ʻĀina: Transmission of place-based knowledge within communities.
3. Kahua ʻĀina: Application and ongoing adaptation of Hawaiian values and approaches to resource management.
4. Kiaʻi ‘Āina: Community led care and governance of lands and waters in Hawaiʻi.
Ho‘okahua Class
Hoʻokahua is the very first college level course offered on the north shore of Kauaʻi. Taught at the community non-profit, Waipā Foundation, as well as at the Kauaʻi Community College, this course is designed to serve as a model for similar interdisciplinary classes in community-based natural resource management offered in rural communities statewide.
Kiaʻi Kāhili and Nā Kiaʻi o Nihokū
Community members have been working for nearly a decade to care for the Kāhili and Nihokū areas by stopping vehicle traffic on the beach, holding monthly clean ups, and monitoring illegal commercial harvesting activities. The community has retired development rights by securing land trust ownership of 17.63 acres and conservation easements on 150 acres, including the sensitive muliwai (river mouth) and riparian corridor. The volcanic crater above, Nihokū, is vital sea bird habitat protected from sea level rise, and a designated site for translocating native species, including the Hawaiian petrel and Newell shearwater. I am working with the Kiaʻi Kāhili and Nā Kiaʻi o Nihokū community entities on building stewardship partnerships with land owners, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through their Kīlauea Point Refuge, and the Hawaiian Islands Land Trust. To enhance community stewardship and restore knowledge of the cultural history of the area, we conduct educational programs, seasonal observations and native species restoration with students, cultural practitioners including hālau, conservation and community groups.
This project aims to create ways for families to retain and continue to care for ancestral lands while maintaining community presence and connection to place. Kīpuka Kuleana provides support to families working to keep ʻohana lands by connecting them with legal, counseling and ho`oponopono, financial, genealogy, and other resources. Community researchers conduct genealogical, archival and Hawaiian lands searches to assist families while also providing training them to conduct their own.
ʻĀina Based Education
Our team contributes actively to learning on land with students of all ages from schools and other educational programs in the communities where we work. On Kauaʻi, we partner with programs such as Waipā and Kawaikini Hawaiian language immersion and charter school to support student study and stewardship of Kauaʻi moku. Field trips focus on place names, moʻolelo (stories), knowledge of ahupuaʻa boundaries, kilo (observation), kupuna knowledge and understanding of coral reef ecosystems. Students engage in water quality testing, coral reef and seaweed monitoring projects along with beach clean ups, invasive species eradication and other restoration activities.
Hāʻena – Community Based Subsistence Fishing Areas (CBSFAs)
I am engaged in multiple statewide efforts to develop policy to support community-government partnerships for coastal management in Hawaiʻi. My students and I supported the Hāʻena community in creating the stateʻs first permanent community managed subsistence fishing area in 2015 and continue to support their efforts including community monitoring, ongoing evaluation and public outreach. I support designation for other communities through work with DAR and the E Alu Pū Network of KUA, Kua ʻĀina Ulu ʻAuamo. (Photos by Kim Moa).
Enhancing Resilience: Lessons From the April 2018 Kauaʻi Flood Relief – Hālana ka Manaʻo
In April 2018, Haleleʻa, Kauaʻi, set a US record for 24-hour rainfall (49.69 in), causing flooding, landslides and $19.7 million in losses. I am the Principal Investigator, with a team of four Co-PIʻs in Atmospheric and Hydrological Sciences, seven community non-profits, and the Kauaʻi Emergency Management Agency in a project to enhance flood resilience. Funded by the inaugural National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and Department of Homeland Security CIVIC Innovation Challenge award, our project focuses on piloting indigenous and emerging technologies for watershed monitoring and management within community settings. We have created both baseline studies and genealogies of streams; piloted removal of invasive species such as albizia to minimize blockages and debris; analyzed Hawaiian language newspapers, satellite and rain gauge data to understand rainfall trends; deployed weather stations and other monitoring technologies to identify the role atmospheric variables play in changing flood conditions, while developing online platforms to communicate this risk to the public. Our research, which informed the 2022 Kauaʻi Climate Adaptation Plan and supports community management of a model shuttle system for Hāʻena state park, has also been shared for transferability and maximum impact with 400 people across Kauai and Hawaiʻi, and in forums with agencies and communities working on resilience to climate change induced disasters in Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, New Mexico, Lima and Nairobi. Our grant has supported 6 students along with 12 community research assistants, exemplifying how my research program builds local research capacity while seeding community-based economic development in ʻāina fields.
E Hoʻolau Kānaka
In 2018, I co-chaired OHA’s first ever ʻĀina summit to address accelerating threats to Hawaiʻi’s lands and waters, and raise community efforts to greater levels of collective impact. Over two hundred community, non-profit and government leaders from across the pae ʻāina attended the two-day event. Discussion and action planning revolved around: expanding community stewardship of lands; retaining and restoring lands for Hawaiʻi’s people; forwarding culturally grounded decision-making; adaptation to climate change; sharing existing resources, tools and lessons; identifying key barriers and solutions; building relationships and supporting networks to forward action and solutions. Seven of my students helped to take notes, create daily summary presentations and synthesize recommendations for the summit report and action plan.
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