HOʻOULU ‘ĀINA: RESTORATION IN THE HEʻEIA AHUPUAʻA

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIʻI AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

IN

POLITICAL SCIENCE

May 2020

By

Donna Ann Kamehaʻikū Camvel

Dissertation Committee

Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua, Chairperson Noenoe Silva Sarah Marie Wiebe Mehana Vaughan Judith Lemus

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, the foundation of this research into the historical and contemporary management of the ahupuaʻa of Heʻeia, is reflective of my position as a Kanaka ʻŌiwi wahine descendant of the Līhuʻe, Kahanu, Pāoa, Kea, Lono ʻohana. The mole or taproot of my ancestors, established within the ʻili of ʻIolekaʻa of the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, extends across the vast blue

Pacific Ocean. The ʻawe (tentacles of the octopus) of my kūpuna, who were navigators, farmers, medicinal practitioners, philosophers, visionaries, dancers, chanters, and leaders, spreads throughout the Polynesian triangle from Hawaiʻi in the North, to Aotearoa in the South, Tahiti in the center, and Rapa Nui in the East. I bring with me my ancestors, from the Hawaiian Islands of

Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Maui, Molokaʻi, and Hawaiʻi.

Mai nā kūpuna mai, from the ancestors, who were born and lived, acquiring wisdom and knowledge, so that I too, may be blessed with their ʻike to live and carry on those ancestral understandings and relationships with ʻāina. I pass that ʻŌiwi intelligence forward to my children, my childrens’ children, and so on, each generation learning to live and living to learn from ʻāina, and their ancestors. Eia kuʻu lei pua o nā piko o koʻu kūpuna, or the beloved flower lei strung with the piko of my ancestors, worn through the perpetual continuum of ea, the lei that

I am now honoured to wear.

As a result of my life-long connection with this land and twenty-five years of active participation and engagement in the restoration efforts of the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, I am privileged to be located in an extraordinary ethnohistorical space that affords me a participating role in this incredible and precedent-setting restoration project in my community. My research offers an unparalleled opportunity to examine and analyze today’s ongoing restoration efforts against the iii backdrop of historical and political transformations of land tenure in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, it’s evolution, preservation, stewardship, and the modern-day restoration taking place there today.

I want to also thank my kāne, Wali, who has been more supportive than I can every express. Aloha wai ʻia ʻoe. To Mary Elizabeth Brooks, my dear friend, my tita, who was there even in the most trying of times. I want to also mahalo my committee chairperson, Noelani

GoodyearKaʻōpua, and my committe members, Noenoe Silva, Sarah Marie Wiebe, Mehana

Vaughan, and Judy Lemus, for your patience, guidance, and faith.

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ABSTRACT

The research presented in this dissertation examines a modern-day recovery of a ma uka

ʻāina kuleana, a ma waena nenelu, and a ma kai loko iʻa, all located in the same ahupuaʻa and undergoing rehabilitation simultaneously. By studying three different sites currently undergoing restoration in the He‘eia ahupua‘a, I examine the ways in which Kānaka Maoli are, 1) rehabilitating and restoring once degraded ʻāina and resources; 2) using and implementing ʻike kupuna, and integrating Western and Indigenous science in the restorative process; and 3) utilizing mālama ʻāina 1 strategies that are framed by an ahupuaʻa systems approach. Given the context of the local land use and history that has preceded them, how are Kānaka Maoli returning to, managing, and restoring ʻāina toward food production and food sovereignty at the commencement of the third decade of the 21 st Century?

I argue that the ancient connection shared between each of the sites is premised on their shared piko, the living waters of Kāne. Those source waters flow from the ma uka uplands to the

ʻāina mōmona of the Heʻeia nenelu, establishing the muliwai at Heʻeia kai while flowing into the loko iʻa. I posit that the chronology of the land tenure of each site establishes similar patterns of resurgence, based on a shared political history that resulted in the preservation and protection of those sites making restoration possible today.

1 The term mālama ʻāina, is used here as a more culturally appropriate word for the care and management of ʻāina which includes natural resources such as wai, kai, muliwai, forests, etc.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………...ii-iii

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………….iv

List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………………ix

List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………………x

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION Research Context: Mālama ʻĀina: Reigniting Restoration and Resurgence In the Heʻeia Ahupuaʻa………………………………………………………………..1

ʻIke Kupuna: Native Intelligence……………………………………………………...8

Western Science………………………………………………………………...... 10

The Hawaiian Ahupuaʻa…………………………………………………………..….13

The Līhuʻe ʻĀina Kuleana……………………………………………………...... 16

Heʻeia Uli: the Heʻeia Wetland………………………………………………………18

Loko Iʻa ʻO Heʻeia…………………………………………………………….……..19

Historical Context……………………………………………………………………20

Indigenous Methodology: Ethnography, Self-Ethnography, and Auto-Ethnography………………………………………………………………21

Interviews, Transcripts and Citations………………………………………….…….23

Newspaper Archives………………………………………………………………....29

Hawaiian Language Usage…………………………………………………………..29

Organization of the Dissertation……………………………………………………..31

CHAPTER 2. POWER AND LAND DEVELOPMENT IN HE’E’IA: 1959-1990 ….....35

The Community of Heʻeia……………………………………………………….…..35

The Political Rise of the Nisei in Hawai’i: Postwar Development in Heʻeia……….37 vi

1960-1969: The long Political Hand of Development in Heʻeia……………………42

Hawaiian Electric Company…………………………………………………...……46

The He’e’ia Landing Project………………………………………………………..51

HECO and the Evictions at Heʻeia Kea…………………………………………….56

Heʻeia Kea and Heʻeia Uli as Sites for Golf Courses………………………………67

International Pacific Development, Inc. and the Heʻeia Wetland……………….….69

Governor John Waiheʻe, and a Bishop Estate Land Exchange………………….….70

Heʻeia Kea…………………………………………………………...... 71

Center for a Sustainable Future……………………………………………...... 72

Ideas of Restoration in Heʻeia…………………………………………………...... 75

The Ahupuaʻa Restoration Council of Heʻeia……………………………...... 76

CHAPTER 3. ʻIOLEKAʻA: RETURNING TO ʻĀINA WE ARE THE LAND, AND THE LAND IS ANCESTOR …………………………………………..…80 . ʻIolekaʻa………………………………………………………………………….....81

Flora and Fauna…………………………………………………………….……....83

Ancestral Land Tenure of ʻIolekaʻa……………………………………….…….…88

Samuel Hoʻopiʻi Lono III…………………………………………………..……...90

Haʻikū Plantations, Bishop Estate, and Sam Lono III………………….....…….…90

Lono at Kalama Valley………………………………………………………..…...93

Anita Kahanupāoa Gouveia…………………………………………….……….…94

Anitaʻs Early Days on the ʻĀina………………………………………………...…97

Kamehaʻikū Camvel…………………………………………………………..…..105

ʻIke Kupuna………………………………………………………………….....…107 vii

Food Security and Food Self-Sufficiency………………………………..………109

ʻIolekaʻa Today………………………………………………………………..…110

Settler State Governance & Jurisdiction…………………………………………112

CHAPTER 4. HEʻEIA ULI: THE HEʻEIA WETLAND ………………………….…119

The Heʻeia Nenelu (Wetland)………………………………………....…………120

Historical Land Tenure of the Heʻeia Wetland…………………………………..124

Aliʻi in the Heʻeia Ahupuaʻa……………………………………………………..125

Population of Heʻeia (1800s)…………………………………………...…….….127

Abenera (Abner) Kūhoʻoheiheipahu Pākī, Boki, and Kuini Liliha……….……..128

Uhuuhu…………………………………………………………………….....….130

Bernice Pauahi Bishop…………………………………………………….…….133

Heʻeia Sugar Company (The Heʻeia Agricultural Company)………………..….133

Kalo, Sugar, and Rice in the Heʻeia Nenelu……………………………….……134

Libby, McNeill & Libby Cannery…………………………………………....…139

Heʻeia Ulu in Transition…………………………………………..……….……140

Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority (HCDA)…………………..…….143

The Center for a Sustainable Future, Inc………………………………….…….144

Ahupuaʻa Restoration Council of Heʻeia……………………………….………146

Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi: A Community-Based Restoration Organization…………….….147

Kanekoa Kūkea-Schultz, Executive Director……………………………….…..149

Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi: In the Beginning…………………………………………..….…151

Returning to Haloa: Planting Kalo in Heʻeia Uli………………………….…....152

Producing Paʻiai and Poi in Heʻeia Uli…………………………………..……..154 viii

Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi and HDCA: Co-Adaptive Management………………..…….…157

Heʻeia National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR)……………………...... 160

The Importance of Land Tenure as a Basis for Restoration…………………...163

CHAPTER 5. LOKO IʻA ʻO HEʻEIA: THE HEʻEIA FISHPOND ………………165

Pani Ka Puka, First the Wall, then the Fish……………………………...……165

Loko Iʻa ʻO Heʻeia…………………………………………………………….170

Land Tenure of Loko Iʻa ʻO Heʻeia…………………………………….……..173

Abner Pākī, Kahu from 1848-1855……………………………………………174

Bernice Pauahi Bishop from 1855-1884……………………………………....176

Hau Hee from 1932-1943………………………………………………….….179

Jerry Kaluhiwa 1978………………………………………………………...... 182

Mary Brooks from 1989-2000……………………………………………..….183

Mahina Paishon-Duarte from 2000-2006………………………………….….186

Hiʻilei Kawelo 2006-Present…………………………………………….….....188

CHAPTER SIX: SUMMARY FINDINGS …………………………………..……..193

Site Management……………………………………………………………...194

‘Ike Kupuna……………………………………………………….…………..195

Integration of Western and Indigenous Approaches to Science………….…...196

Food Production……………………………………………….……………....198

Findings…………………………………………………………………….….200

Bibliography…………………………...... 204

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Governance Board for ARCH...... 77

Table 2. LCA Index of Heʻeia Uli 1848...... 126

Table 3. LCAʻs of the Heʻeia Wetland by ʻIli, 1913...... 132

Table 4. Chronology of Events from 1775-2010, Koʻolaupoko...... 136

Table 5. Chronology of Land Tenure of the Heʻeia Fishpond...... 168

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 1. Heeia Wetland and Fishpond...... 14

Fig. 2. Heʻeia Wetlands, ca. 1920...... 19

Fig. 3. Heʻeia Fishpond 1915...... 20

Fig. 4. Gentry & McCormack’s Heeia Landing Project...... 52

Fig. 5. Stop All Evictions March Begins...... 62

Fig. 6. ʻIolekaʻa Valley...... 82

Fig. 7. The Middle Road, ‘Iolekaʻa...... 87

Fig. 8. Sam Lono...... 92

Fig. 9. ʻIolekaʻa...... 103

Fig. 10. The Ulu Tree, Haumea...... 109

Fig. 11. Kalo and Uala in ʻIolekaʻa...... 111

Fig. 12. 12. Uala Harvest...... 117

Fig. 13. Anita Kahanupāoa & Kamehaʻikū...... 118

Fig. 14. Taro Loʻi on the Flatlands of Heeia, 1930...... 123

Fig. 15. Libby, McNeill & Libby Pineapple Cannery, 1913...... 139

Fig. 16. Portion of the Heeia Meadowlands, 1922...... 140

Fig. 17. Mangrove at the Heʻeia Bridge, 2017...... 142

Fig. 18. Kanekoa Schultz...... 150

Fig. 19. Heʻeia Wetland, 2018...... 151

Fig. 20. Le Jardin students at the Wetland...... 154

Fig. 21. Sinking Excavator at the Heʻeia wetland...... 158

Fig. 22. Heʻeia Nenelu, April 2020...... 164 xi

Fig. 23. Heʻeia Loko Iʻa, Pani Ka Puka, 2016...... 165

Fig. 24. Pani Ka Puka Volunteers...... 166

Fig. 25. Hau Hee at Heʻeia Fishpond...... 181

Fig. 26. Hiʻilei Kawelo...... 189

Fig. 27. Heʻeia Loko Iʻa, 2000...... 191

Fig. 28. Pihi a Piha, 2020...... 191

Fig. 30. Heʻeia Loki Iʻa 2020...... 192

Fig. 31. Mangrove removal continues...... 192 1

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUTION

Research Context: Mālama ʻĀina, Aloha ʻĀina: Reigniting Restoration and Resurgence in the Heʻeia Ahupuaʻa

The missing man. Man on the land. Without people, there is no working ahupuaʻa. Are people willing to give up their present life-style and economic pursuits to devote their lives to such a project? (Lehman L. “Bud” Henry, Sept. 2000)

The research presented in this dissertation examines a modern-day, partial restoration of once-degraded ʻāina and the loko iʻa or land and fishpond, located in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa. Using a multifaceted approach, I examine the ways in which Kānaka Maoli are:

1) Rehabilitating and restoring once degraded ʻāina and resources.

2) Implementing ʻike kupuna 2 and science in the restorative process.

3) Utilizing mālama ʻāina 3 strategies that are framed by an ahupuaʻa systems 4 approach in the effort.

Ecosystems are complex, and the restoration of an ahupua’a that has been degraded over time is polymorphous in nature. As such, political, social, economic, and cultural events are important threads which were used in this study to weave a rich and provocative textual history of the He’eia ahupuaʻa. One of the methods used was a genealogical approach was the historical piko of the research that connected the past to the present. Kupaʻāina families, lineal

2 I use ʻike kūpuna to describe all traditional, customary, and contemporary ʻōiwi knowledge passed down generationally and contemporarily by Native Hawaiians in all forms.

3 The term mālama ʻāina, is used here as more culturally appropriate word for the care and management of ʻāina which includes natural resources such as wai, kai, muliwai, forests, etc.

4 Ahupuaʻa management systems differ on each island. Islands were divided by districts (moku), moku divided by ahupuaʻa, a smaller land division within a moku. Within the ahupuaʻa were ʻili and within ʻili were smaller sub- divisions of ʻāpana, ʻokana, lele, or kalana. These sub-divisions of ʻāina or land were consequently managed, alog with the wai and kai, or fresh water and the ocean, for the production of food for the populace. The ahupuaʻa system also served as a political and social management system with which to order the general makaʻāinana.

2 descendants, community members, and involved organizations were all a part of this historical moʻokūʻauhau. All of the people who protested and perservered to protect and preserve Heʻeia

Kea, the Heʻeia wetand and the Heʻeia fishpond from destruction are the reasons why there is a

Heʻeia ahupuaʻa to restore. Thus, a historical moʻokūʻauhau of land tenure, not unlike ancestral connections to place, is one of the facets used in this research to specify the Indigenous perspective of connection to ʻaina and to ʻike kupuna.

The essential research question is, given the context of the local land use and history that has preceded them, how are Kānaka Maoli returning to, managing, and restoring ʻāina and resources toward food production and food sovereignty at the commencement of the third decade of the 21 st Century?

The restoration of Indigenous lands, including those in Hawaiʻi, is fraught with difficulties ranging from the non-recognition of Indigenous rights and justice in both formal and informal settings, the extraction and archiving of Indigenous knowledge by non-Indigenous parties, and the state’s failure to cultivate Indigenous participation in structurally meaningful restorative mechanisms. The lack of integrating ʻike kupuna as a conceptual framework for land restoration and management that is both scientifically rigorous and culturally appropriate, is an obstacle that requires diligent and diplomatic attention. What is becoming clearly evident is the need for Indigenous knowledge to intervene in mainstream discourses of sustainability, particularly in the areas of food production that embrace new ways of cultivating, harvesting, and providing kalo, fish, and other crops while retaining traditional ʻike kupuna and cultural integrity in the process. Interventions might take the form of addressing political or governmental jurisdiction over processes that enable the duplication, rather than a reptition of the ways in which the facilitation of permits are procured. As an example, Paepae o Heʻeia, the non-profit 3 organization heading the restorative efforts at the Heʻeia fishpond, belongs to a an organization named Hui Malama Loko Iʻa, who in 2011, called out the difficulties in the permitting process for the restoration of fishponds as a major hurdle in moving forward with restoration. “In June of

2014, the board of directors in the State of Hawaiʻi’s Department of Land and Natural Resources

(DLNR) approved a tiered-system for fishpond permitting and in 2015, released a streamlined application for loko iʻa repair and restoration,” 5 and on July 13, 2105, “Governor Ige signed Act

230 waiving Department of Health water quality certification requirements for the restoration, repair,and operation of loko iʻa that are permitted under DLNR’s Hoʻāla Loko Iʻa program. ”6

These are interventions motivated by committed and steadfast practitioners, managers, and community members involved in restoration efforts in Hawaiʻi. Firm and consistent, these intervening actions represent Indigenous Peoples’s fortitude and survival.

I argue that the restoration efforts taking place in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa are practices of recovery and persistance, aligning with what Anishinaabe writer and scholar, Gerald Vizenor, defines as “a sense of native survivance, that is more than survival, more than endurance or mere response, the stories of survivance are an active presence.” 7 In other words, the physical survival of Kanaka Maoli in Hawaiʻi, the Hawaiian Renaissance as cultural recovery, and ʻāina restoration as a form of persistent presence and rejuvenation of ʻāina, have resulted in what is taking place in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa today. The fact that we remain is survivance. The restoration of Indigenous lands is a literal reconstruction of ʻŌiwi spaces (physically, culturally, spiritually),

5 “Hoʻāla Loki Iʻa,” Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands, State of Hawaiʻi Department of Land and Natural Resources, 2020, https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/occl/hoala-loko-ia/ .

6 Ibid.

7 Vizenor, Gerald. Fugitive Poses: American Indian Scenes of Absence and Pres- ence. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. 15.

4 mediated by Kānaka Maoli through political resurgences based on a collective consciousness. In

What Do Indigenous Knowledges Do for Indigenous Peoples?, Kyle Whyte notes the following:

Theories of resurgence and collective continuance suggests that Indigenous knowledges are collective capacities that can provide trustworthy and useful wisdom for planning that supports collective self-determination in the face of change. That is, Indigenous knowledges are capacities Indigenous peoples can use to facilitate their own governance. Indigenous knowledges are not backward-looking repositories of information that are about historic or waning ways of life. Instead, they have a special value in Indigenous planning efforts that is different from the supplemental-value of Indigenous knowledges for scientists. 8

Whyte’s argument is particularly useful in orienting the ʻŌiwi-led restoration of ʻāina as acts of Indigenous resurgence, 9 which facilitate the continuing apostasy from neocolonialism.

One vital purpose of this research is to articulate the ways in which, as Cristobal states,

“Kānaka ʻŌiwi are continuously forging paths of survivance that are more than physical survival; it is an act of resistance and cultural thriving.” 10 In other words, how can modern-day

Kānaka Maoli utilize ʻIke Kupuna (the intelligence and lived experiences of Kānaka ʻŌiwi) and adapt their current actions from that base of expertise, to develope new restorative skills with which to rejuvenate the land and waters.

To embody ancestral expertise in today’s restoration, is to reawaken the mana and spiritual essence of these very sites of restoration. The physical, cultural, and spiritual acts of

8 Kyle, Whyte, “What Do Indigenous Knowledges Do for Indigenous Peoples?” In Traditional Ecological Knowledge Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability, 57-82. Edited by Melissa K. Nelson and Dan Shilling. Cambridge University Press, (2018): 10. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108552998

9 Jeff Corntassel, “Re-envisioning resurgence: Indigenous pathways to decolonization and sustainable self- determination,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1, no. 1 (2012): 97. Indigenous resurgence is about cultural regeneration, reconnection to land, traditional practices in food and health, bringing back ʻohana, are all examples of every-day acts of resurgence. The restoration of the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa in and of itself is, an act of resurgence.

10 Nik Cristobal, “Kanaka ‘Ōiwi Critical Race Theory Historical and Educational Context,” Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture 7, no. 1 (2018): 34. http://contemporaneity.pitt.edu .

5 restoration manifest as a reclaiming of the Indigenous body or self. In this dissertation these restoration efforts resonate with the ʻōlelo noʻeau: “Hānau hou ka āina, hānau hou ke kānaka,” literally meaning, “Born again is the land, born again is Native person.” 11 The theoretical implications of the preceding statement conceptualizes relations between people and places are not lost. In this manner, I argue that modern-day Kānaka Maoli in Heʻeia are reclaiming their

ʻŌiwi spaces, bodies, and identities as they reconnect to ʻāina.

The research for this dissertation is focused on three uniquely different restoration sites in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa. They are:

The Loko Iʻa ʻo Heʻeia (the Heʻeia) Fishpond, located in the ʻili of Pahele.

The Heʻeia nenelu or wetland in the ʻili of Heʻeia Uli.

The Līhuʻe ʻāina kuleana in the ʻili of ʻIolekaʻa.

I use a case study research design, locating three different ʻili, or land sections in the same ahupuaʻa, as sites for examining, 1) the ways each site is managed; 2) how ʻike kupuna is used; 3) what roles Western and Indigenous science play in restoration efforts, and 4) what the production of food looks like for each location. At each site, the exploration of these questions is preceeded by an examination of the land tenure of each of those sites, thus placing the current restoration within their historical contexts.

One of the critical piko (umbilical cord) shared between the sites in this research, is wai, or fresh water. 12 Streams from the ma uka or upland sections of the ahupuaʻa provide the life-

11 Incepted by the author of this dissertation, the figurative meaning relates to the embodying and transformative power of ʻāina upon the Kānaka body once re-immersed in the lepo of the land and all of it’s elements.

12 Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert, Hawaiian Dictionary (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1986), 328. Piko is defined as “Navel, navel string, umbilical cord. Fig ., blood relative, genitals.” I use the term here to more appropriately ground the relationship between wai as the life giving source for the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, akin to the life-giving koko that is passed to a child from its mother in utero, through the piko and into the ʻiewe or placenta. Here I use wai as a metaphor for the life-giving connective piko connecting the restoration sites in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa. 6 giving waters of Kāne 13 that flow from the upland streams making their way to the nenelu, 14 traversing throught the loko iʻa, traversing and the muliwai, 15 making its way to the sea. I use the term, nenelu, not only as the ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi word for wetland, but to also situate the the marshy, soft, plumpness of the nenelu, or momona (fat, fertile, rich) of the ʻāina itself. The nutrient rich environment of the nenelu is what makes the site so special and powerfully spiritual.

Ronald L. Walker, Wildlife Program Manager with the Division of Forestry and Wildlife for the State of Hawaiʻi in conducted a “Multi-Resource Survey,” 16 in 1990. The survey was an excellent beginning in examining and providing and inventory of the flora and fauna of the nenelu, which had lain fallow for nearly fifty years by the time Walker conducted his survey.

While the survey was detailed, it did not contain a cultural analysis. The report substantiated the baseline information for the area and ideas of restoration focused on the rehabilitation of Native forests, plants, grasses, birds, coral reefs and marine resources, fish, and other habitat. 17 Walker’s survey was one of the first examinations into the nenelu, and Walker himself, became one of the initial members and continued supporter of the Ahupuaʻa Restoration Council of Heʻeia.

13 Kāne is the elemental akua associated with fresh water and sunshine. Water is life therefore, water is sacred. This is a widespread Indigenous belief that reflects the relationship between water as sacred, and humans as recipient of that life-giving resource, thus the sanctity should promote its protection at all costs. Unfortunately, wai has become a secular commodity in contemporary times.

14 Pukui (Hawaiian Dictionary, 1986, pg. 265) defines the word nenelu, to mean flabby fat, soft, as fine worked-up soil, boggy, marshy, springy, swampy, mire, bog, marsh, and soft plumpness. All of the definitions are consistent with what the term, ʻāina mōmona, is as it relates to the environmental condition of the Heʻeia wetland.

15 According to Pukui (Hawaiian Dictionary 1986, pg. 256), muliwai is a, “River, river mouth”. Muliwai is the brackish-water estuary portion of a freshwater stream or river that flows to the ocean. Where fresh water meets ocean water is referred to as muliwai or the estuary.

16 Ronald L. Walker, “Multi-Resource Survey of the Heeia Meadowlands,” State of Hawaiʻi, Dept. of Land and Natural Resources (March 8, 1990).

17 Allen, 2000; Rauzon & Drigot, 2002; Friedlander, Shackeroff, & Kittinger, 2013; Ostertag, Warman, & Cordel, 2015; Jacobs, et al.; Oliet, et al., 2015; and Atkinson & Paxton, 2016. 7

In retrospect, had Walker’s survey included an ʻŌiwi analysis, the ahupuaʻa baseline of information would have included ʻike kupuna and the survey report would have had a fuller and richer prospectus of the Heʻeia nenelu.

What makes this dissertation unique is that it promotes and advances an understanding of how the restoration of a surviving ahuapuaʻa, replete with a nenelu and a loko iʻa (ma uka to ma kai), might have far-reaching local and perhaps even global implications for other Indigenous land restoration and resource management efforts in the production of food. Further, the use of

‘ike kupuna provides the necessary ‘Ōiwi perspective and is the kumupaʻa for each case study site.

Resurged efforts in the restoration of ʻāina, and the production of food by Native

Hawaiian communities are resurgent vehicles of resilience that bring about transformative change, embodied by both ʻāina and Kānaka ʻŌiwi. The goal of the restorative efforts in Heʻeia is not to return ʻāina, loʻi (irrigated taro terraces), nenelu, or loko iʻa to their respective original states. Due to the terrestrial, environmental, developmental, and ecological impacts over the last one-hundred years in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, that is not possible. Beyond the aims of Native habitat enhancement and revegetation, the primary focus of the case study sites in this dissertation is food production as a pathway toward food sovereignty. Food sovereignty means resilience and the ability to restore ʻŌiwi lands to the production of kalo and fish, toward self-sustenance and the protection of ʻŌiwi natural resources and food for the community.

8

ʻIke Kupuna: Native Intelligence

“Oral traditions are historical accounts which provide modern scholars the insights to ancestral culture thereby revealing the connection that Kānaka 18 living in ancestral times had with their environment.”19 By Oliveira’s argument, it is clear that the hana of Kānaka Maoli today, must continue to follow in the steps of our ancestors. In other words, our stories must continue to be told and it is our kuleana to do so for the generations now present, and those yet to be born.

ʻŌiwi wahine scholar and loea Dr. Pualani Kanakaʻole Kanahele reminds us, “We are bringing old knowledge back and making it new knowledge today.” 20 ʻŌiwi practices are kept alive and continuous when we record and document contemporary moʻolelo, scholarly or otherwise, pertaining to our lives today.

Scholarship on traditional ecological knowledge or TEK summarily agrees that TEK is traditional, often meaning ancestral and evolving knowledge that has amassed over generations, culminating in best practices which are applied to land and natural resource management. Berkes argues that, “There is no universally accepted definition of TEK and that the term is, by necessity, ambiguous since the terms traditional and ecological knowledge are themselves ambiguous.” 21 I agree. The ahupua’a management system is based on autonomous location with a central cultural foundation, thus requiring place-specific management practices.

18 I use the terms, Kānaka, Kānaka Maoli, Kānaka ʻŌiwi, Hawaiian, Native Hawaiian and Native, to mean those people who are ethnically Hawaiian or those having koko (blood).

19 Katrina-Ann R. Kapāʻanaokalāokeola Nākoa Oliveira, Ancestral Places:Understanding Kanaka Geographies (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2014), 1.

20 Dr. Pualani Kanahele, Ph.D., “Pahu Manamana o ʻUmi,” He Au Honua Conference , Maui Community College, March 19 – 22, 2019, conference session.

21 Fikret Berkes, Sacred Ecology (New York: Routledge, 2012), 3.

9

Berkes is a foremost scholar on the subject of navigating social-ecological systems, adaptive co-management, collaboration, and resilience building for managing ecosystems. Taken from the third edition of his book entitled, Sacred Ecology , is his working definition of TEK, “A cumulative body of knowledge, practice, and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through the generations by cultural transmission, about the relationships of living beings

(including humans) with one another and with their environment.” 22 Is ʻike kupuna the same as traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) by Berkes’ definition? Literally yes. Contextually, no.

Non-Indigenous academics, scientists, and others not ontologically rooted in TEK, or who have no tangible or intangible relationships with the beings (human, non-human, and others) that are distinctly place-based (generationally) within an Indigenous landscape cannot perceive the kaona or concealed references hidden in ʻŌiwi or Native knowledges and thus might never come to know the landscape or seascapes from an Indigenous perspective. The boundaries of the He’eia ahupua’a extend beyond the near-shore fisheries and are de-marcated by the barrier reef of

Kaneʻohe Bay and the northern section of the Mōkapu peninsula. Many chants, hula, and mele, identify and connect portions of the seascape, i.e., the reefs, and the islands of Moku Manu,

Kekepa, Ahu o Laka, Moku o Loʻe, and Kapapa, with moʻolelo that connect akua to these land and seascapes such as the wahine akua Hina and Haumea with the the moku of Kapapa.

One of the questions asked in this research is what is ʻike kupuna, how is it being used in the management of ʻāina and resources today and in what capacity? ʻIke Kupuna is ʻŌiwi. It is place-based, relational, generational and spatial. In other words, it is ancestral knowledge, garnered over generations of lived experiences that are often place-based or place-specific. It is a pilina of ʻike, sprung from the depths of time immemorial until the present day, from our

22 Ibid., 7.

10 antecedents to our descendents in perpetuity. ʻIke Kupuna is a valuable resource refined over the ages by the ancestors, passed down and currently being used in the case study sites by the managers or caretakers of each site. Protocols, ʻŌiwi ways of knowing, management strategies in mālama ʻāina, the new and the old, moʻolelo or stories, pule (prayer), and the oli or chants that are used to reinvigorate the ʻāina and the akua or gods as elements.

One of the most interesting and important questions governing the restoration taking place in Heʻeia is the source of knowledge supporting the activities and decisions that are made on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis. As I spoke with participating members of each of the three restorations projects, one of the themes occurring again and again – the source of knowledge is a combination of science and ʻike kupuna along with daily hard work and trial and error. Before being introduced to the three sites of investigation, following is a brief look at the approaches of science and ʻike kupuna.

Western Science

The interaction between Indigenous knowledge and Western science is more often than not, a contested site. 23 Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, Leanne Simpson argues, “The focus on documenting TEK, or converting it from its oral form, to one that is both more accessible and acceptable to the dominant society has the impact of separating the knowledge from all of the context (the relationships, the world views, values, ethics, cultures, processes, spirituality) that

23 Michael Marker, “Theories and Disciplines as Sites of Struggle: The Reproduction of Colonial Dominance Through the Controlling of Knowledge in the Academy,” Canadian Journal of Native Education (2004), Lyn Carter, “Chapter Twenty: The Challenges of Science Education and Indigenous Knowledge,” Counterpoints 7379, (2011), Fikret Berkes, Sacred Ecology , 2012.

11 gives it meaning.” 24 Simpsonʻs critique is not unwarranted. “The entire subject of Indigenous knowledge is a contentious one. From what constitutes “Indigenous,” and to whose interests are being served by the documentation of such knowledge, lies a string of contradictions, of sectorial interests, of local and global politics, of ignorance, and of hope for the future.”25

Western science methods are derived from a Euro-centric system. The scientific approach to research follows a process, i.e., “…(a) problem is identified, relevant data is gathered, a hypothesis is formulated, and is then empirically tested.” 26 Indigenous knowledge, on the other hand, is transmitted generationally through a context of lived and living experiences over time.

While both Indigenous and Western knowledge bases are rigorous, “Native science is a map of natural reality drawn from the experience of thousands of human generations [and] can be said to be inclusive of modern science, although most Western scientists would go to great lengths to deny such inclusivity.” 27

I posit that the value of Indigenous knowledge lies in its accumulative (ancestral) body of intelligences (ontologic & epistemologic), which is the result of shared relationships of and between all living things, seen and unseen, heard and unheard, deeply spiritual, commonsense, and relativist over the continuum of life. These notions do not align with the pedantical methods and nature of Western science; however, in addressing sustainability issues in the management of

24 Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, “Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Marginalization, Appropriation and Continued Disillusion” (presentation, Indigenous Knowledge Conference , 2001. 25 Martin Nakata, “Indigenous Knowledge and the Cultural Interface: underlying issues at the intersection of knowledge and information systems,” IFLA Journal 28, nos. 5/6 (2002): 281.

26 Scientific method, Random House Kemerman Websterʻs College Dictionary, 2010. freedictionary.com

27 Gregory Cajete, Native Science: Native Laws of Interdependence (Santa Fe: Clear Light, 2000), 3.

12 lands and resources, inclusion of both ʻIke Kupuna and Western science is needed in restorative work today. True collaboration is necessary for restoration goals to be met, but how?

Cree scholar, Willie Ermine offers an answer. He writes:

An ethical space is formed when two societies, with disparate worldviews, are poised to engage each other. It is the thought about diverse societies and the space in between them that contributes to the development of a framework for dialogue between human communities. Engagement at the ethical space triggers a dialogue that begins to set the parameters for an agreement to interact modeled on appropriate, ethical and human principles. Dialogue is concerned with providing space for exploring fields of thought and attention is given to understanding how thought functions in governing our behaviors. 28

Clearly, this is a space of opportunity for collaborative knowledge-sharing in restoration work.

One such collaboration occured in 2015. Two simultaneous research projects were conducted on the island of Oʻahu by two graduate students, one of them myself, and the other, Florybeth

Flores La Valle. This was, “A collaboration brought about to integrate Indigenous and Western approaches as a means to address complex environmental challenge, and to bridge the gap between structural and epistemological barriers.” 29 The result of the collaboration was a lexicon that defined scientific hydrological terms into ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. These are spaces for dynamic colloborations within multi-disciplines that are critically necessary in the ʻāina restoration work.

In the restoration sites of this study, evidence suggests that Ermineʻs “ethical space of engagement” has been deployed, creating an interval for collaborative capacity. Examples of convergence sites in the Heʻeia restoration are the upland kuleana, wetland and the fishpond sites

28 Willie Ermine, “The Ethical Space of Engagement,” Indigenous Law Journal 6, no. 1 (2007): 202.

29 Florybeth Flores La Valle, Donna A.K. Camvel, Florence I.M. Thomas, Hōkūlani Aikau, and Judith D. Lemus, “Interdisciplinary Research through a Shared Lexicon: Merging “ike Kupuna and Western Science to Examine Characteristics of Water,” Hūlili: Multidisciplinary Research on Hawaiian Well-Being 11, no. 1 (2019): 167.

13 of this study, who are currently engaged in multi-disciplinary approaches to research taking place today.

Scientific research projects focusing on the hydrology of the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa are in fact, scientific data generated by scientists that have provided essential hydrological data.30 In this example, bringing ʻIke Kupuna into productive and active dialog with Western science 31 has been initiated and the building of a collaborative bridge has begun.

The Hawaiian Ahupuaʻa

The traditional Hawaiian ahupuaʻa management system provides the foundation for the three case study sites in this research dissertation. Each case study site is uniquely situated within the Heʻeia ahupua’a. While the theoretical framework, that of an ahupua’a management system, provides the nexus for restorative work at each site, the contextual differences between each of those locations provides the management specificities associated with each site. In other words, food production, hydrological management, spatial or geographical differences, site maintenance, and governance differences.

Beyond Oliveira’s working definition of an ahupuaʻa—that being “a land-sea continuum where “the ocean is an extension of the land, and the land is an extension of the sea,” 32 the ‘ilis of the Heʻeia ahupua’a are differentiated by their location, biology, ecology, biome, and most critical, traditional ʻōiwi ecosystems. Informed by the ahupuaʻa system where the relational or

30 Hufana, 2014; Ghazal, 2017; (Mohlenkamp, Beebe, McManus, Kawelo, Kotubetey, Lopez-Guzman, Nelson, & Alegado, 2019; (Englund, Imada, Preston & Arakaki, 2003; Ghazal, Leta, El-Kadi, & Dulai, 2018; Campbell & Campbell, 2017.

31 Donna Ann Kamehaʻikū Camvel, and Hōkūlani K. Aikau, “Urban Waterways, Native Hawaiian Traditional, Customary Practices and Western Science,” Urban Waterways Newsletter 6, (Spring 2016): 35-39.

32 Katrina-Ann R. Kapāʻanaokalāokeola Nākoa Oliveira, Ancestral Places: Understanding Kanaka Geographies (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2014): 54. 14 shared use of resources, the most critical being wai or fresh water, the sites in this research provide a blueprint for how restoration efforts might be conducted.

A 1928 picture of a portion of the Heʻeia Ahupuaʻa (fig. 1), serves as a useful way in which to illustrate how an ahupuaʻa management system works. An ahupuaʻa management system is complex and multifaceted (including important sociological components) however, in its essence it takes into consideration the flow of water through each ʻili of the watershed and is cognizant of the ways in which the nature of water changes as it passes through the ʻāina, on its way to the sea, such that those changes are actually beneficial to each subsequent downstream use, always keeping in mind its eventual importance to the health of the inshore fishery and the reef. This is the very embodiment of the life of the land, making more than evident why the

Hawaiian word for wealth is waiwai. Reawakening this life force is the very purpose of the current restoration, and as it reawakens, so too do the people.

Fig. 1. Heʻeia Wetland & Fishpond , 1928, Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi. 33

33 Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi, accessed June, 2017. 15

By 1928, kalo ( Colocasia esculenta ) or taro, had made a comeback due to the decline of rice. The amount of kalo that was growing in the nenelu at this time was considerable and its cultivation and harvest was based on the upland streams which provided the needed and available abundance of wai necessary for the cultivation and harvest of kalo and other remaining crops.

The wai from Heʻeia Uli flowed into and through the loko iʻa, providing nutrients and biota, which in turn nourished the fish and other life in the loko iʻa. The Heʻeia ahupuaʻa was enhanced by its exceptional hydrological circulatory system which provided life-sustaining wai to the ʻāina through its streams.

As introduced, the restoration activities being implemented by the three case study sites are based on an ahupuaʻa-systems approach. As such, there is some acknowledgement that while each of these sites are governed somewhat independently, and they are treated as separate case studies in this research, from a larger point of view they are all related to each other and are part of a single management system. This is true whether articulating this in ‘ike kupuna or by modern hydrology, geology and biology.

The ahupuaʻa approach to land management is therefore, the kūkulu, or framework, for management values used at the sites which are based on, respect for ʻāina, ʻike kupuna, adaptive land management strategies, science that is in alignment with ʻōiwi values, and supporters

(workers, funders, managers, etc.) who understand the essence of mālama and aloha ʻāina.

ʻIke kupuna must underpin management strategies that are not only best practices for those with their boots on the ground, but for the proper ways in which pono is exercised culturally within the entire organization. Having set the context for the ahupuaʻa as a whole, this 16 introduction now turns to the specific ahupuaʻa of Heʻeʻia, the case study location, and the ʻili sites within Heʻeia that are the subjects of this research.

The Līhuʻe ʻĀina Kuleana

The Līhuʻe kuleana is located in the upland ʻili of the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa. The family has had ownership of the land for one hundred and eighty years and trace their genealogy to Līhuʻe, who purchased the land during the Māhele. The Līhuʻe, Kahanu, Pāoa, Kea, Lono ʻOhana, lived on the kuleana off and on until the WWII when my great-great grandmother, Kahanu Pāoa, was forced to leave by order of the U.S. military so that the inland forest of ʻIolekaʻa could be used by the military for jungle warfare training. Within a decade, in the early 1950s Kahanu Pāoa’s grandson, noted kahuna lāʻau lapaʻau, Samuel Hoʻopiʻi Lono III, resumed the family’s continuing history of intimacy with this land, taking up residence, once again, on the kuleana. He passed away in 1985.

Anita Kahanupāoa Gouveia, Lono’s niece and the mother of the author of this dissertation, moved to the kuleana in the late 1970s. It was during this time and in the years before her hala in 1998, that the ʻāina kuleana began to show its potential as a place in which to revive loʻi kalo, ‘Ōiwi culture, and the ʻohana.

In 1993, I moved onto the ʻāina kuleana and one year later, my younger sister joined me.

We, along with my uncle and his wife, currently live on the kuleana. I navigate my time between two different hale, my kuleana hale and the hale of my kāne (husband). This is a living literal and figurative metaphor for existing in two different worlds—each with their own cultures and economies, and each having their own inherent discursive challenges in the intermittent

17 occupation of those particular spaces, as will be discussed later in the case study chapter on

ʻIolekaʻa.

An example of one of those challenges is the inherent guilt of not actually living on the

ʻāina full time due to the economic challenges of having to be employed for income, which is also needed to maintain the ʻāina. The push and pull of the kind of committment needed to mālama the kuleana takes strength and responsibility and the integration of differing lifestyles can be physically and spiritually exhausting. This results frequently, in not being able to keep up with the hana of the ʻāina kuleana. Further, fully embracing an off-grid lifestyle on a full time basis is fairly difficult in terms of day-to-day needs such as food storage, lighting, refrigeration, and cooking. While compsting toilets are wonderful, they take maintenance and not everyon is comfortable using them. These are some of the inherently discursive difficulties associated with intermittent living in two different living spaces.

Discussions with the ‘ohana, informal “talk story” sessions, family meetings, and day to day interaction by and with the ‘ohana contributes to the ways in which information is shared with the family. Talk story sessions are absolutely wonderful. Often occuring at ʻohana gatherings, volunteer community work days, celebrations, or other events that bring people and food together, stories are shared by those in attendance. The revelations shared often run the gamut of outlandish or comical events, significant occurences, family members, special occasions, genealogy, manaʻo on specifics or of general topics, historical and contemporary renderings, and perhaps best of all, what it was like in the old days kinds of sharing. These exchanges yield a wealth of information and brings people closer together, furthering collaboration and camaraderie in each restorative site. For differing restoration and management 18 perspectives, informal interviews and talk story sessions were recorded with the Līhuʻe, Kahanu,

Pāoa, Kea, Lono ʻohana over the summer of 2019.

Heʻeia Uli: the Heʻeia Wetland

The study of nearly any Hawaiian place begins with a study of its name. The area of the

Heʻeia wetland is referred to as Heʻeia Uli in maps and other resources, 34 and thus will be referred to as such in this dissertation.

The name, Heʻeia Uli, makes sense when considering that the place name of the adjacent

ʻili separated by the ridge named Keʻalohi, 35 is named Heʻeia Kea. The duality of dark (uli) and white (kea) indicates the sacredness of the area. 36 Chapter four examines the challenges facing contemporary practitioners in the restoration of a large, degraded and long fallow nenelu.

Comprised of more than four hundred acres of land, the Heʻeia nenelu was planted in kalo before the introduction of sugar, rice, and pineapple (fig. 2).

After the Māhele of 1848, land tenure would change as would what was produced in the ahupuaʻa of Heʻeia, in addition to the ways in which wai or fresh water would be managed.

34 Nogelmeier, 2006, 138 & 148; Sterling & Summers 1997, 197; Pukui, and Elbert & Moʻokini 1976, 45.

35 Baldwin & Alexander. [Map of Portion of Heeia Koolaupoko Oahu, Tracing by W.H. Smith]. Scale 200 ft. to an inch. Honolulu: Territory of Hawaiʻi Survey and Map, 1913. The ridge top is identified as Kealohi 2 in this map.

36 Mary Brooks, former kahu of the Heʻeia loko iʻa, was informed that the loko iʻa was called Heʻeia Uli. Uli is also a akua associated with divination or sorcery.

19

Fig. 2. Heʻeia Wetlands , ca. 1920, Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi. 37

Loko Iʻa ʻO Heʻeia

While no one knows the exact age of the fishpond, estimates given by the executive director of Paepae o Heʻeia, 38 Hiʻilei Kawelo, range between six hundred and eight hundred years. The fishpond is a kuapā or walled fishpond built on the Malaukaʻa fringing reef and encloses eighty eight acres of brackish water 39 (fig. 3).

After its introduction in 1922, mangrove ( Rhizophora mangle ) found its way to the wall of the Heʻeia loko iʻa. The encroachment of the mangrove covered nearly the entire circumference of the more than 5,000 foot wall enclosing Heʻeia fishpond. Even more important, in terms of restoration, was the damage that mangrove had done over the years to the stonework of the wall itself, including large sections that had been blown out during historic and extreme floods.

Paepae o Heʻeia, who took over the management of the fishpond in 2001, after twelve years of preliminary restorative work by Mary Brooks, began their efforts in fully restoring the

37 Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi, accessed January, 2020, https://kakoooiwi.org/history-of-heeia .

38 Paepae o Heʻeia is the non-profit 501c3 corporation that is the administrative arm of the Heʻeia fishpond restoration effort.

39 Paepae o Heʻeia, “The Fishpond,” https://paepaeoheeia.org/the-fishpond/ . 20 loko iʻa with the initial project of removing the remaining mangrove. By 2018, nearly 4,800 feet of mangrove had been removed from the 7,000 foot long kuapā wall.

Fig. 3. Heʻeia Fishpond , R.J. Baker, ca. 1915. 40

Historical Context

Understanding the history of land tenure and land use in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa from 1830 to 2010 is important for understanding the contemporary challenges and opportunities of the current restoration. That is to say, history provides the underlying foundation and frame of reference for understanding the political environment which facilitated the relentless development of Heʻeia in the early 1950s and which made the restoration efforts of the Heʻeia

Uli and Heʻeia loko iʻa posssible today (fig. 3).

This approach to the study of a place is true along the entire spectrum from local to global. The FAO of the United Nations states:

40 R.J. Baker, accesssed March 2020, Kāneʻohe A History of Change.

21

Land tenure is an important part of social, political and economic structures. It is multi- dimensional, bringing into play social, technical, economic, institutional, legal and political aspects that are often ignored but must be taken into account. 41

Indigenous Methodology: Ethnography, Self-Ethnography, and Auto-Ethnography

What was marked formerly by the firm and rigid shapes of a Eurocentric geometry is now the fluid, shape-shifting image of chemical flux and transformation, as margins move to the center, the center moves to the margins, and the whole is reconstituted again in some new form. 42

Writing back against the historical legacies of colonization and imperialism is not only an

Indigenous research method, but an act of insurgence which serves to dismantle the continuing legacies of colonial xenophobia. ʻŌiwi scholarship, in privileging the Native Hawaiian voice and lens, attends to the, “Promotion of community-based action that targets the demise of colonial interference in our lives and communities.” 43 In this case, the political history of land and power in Heʻeia substantiates the ways in which Kānaka ʻŌiwi were then, and continue to be today, dispossessed and disenfranchised from their Native lands and resources in neocolonial Hawaiʻi.

According to Eriksson, “Ethnography is the study of social interactions, practices and events, normally from the outside looking in, self-ethnography is the study a group of people to which we, the researcher, already belong, and in auto-ethnography, one observes themselves in a

41 Food and Agriculture Organization, “Why Is Land Tenure Important ,” United Nations (2002): 2.1 http://www.fao.org/3/y4307e/y4307e04.htm#TopOfPage

42 Denzin, Norman K., and Yvonna S. Lincoln, Handbook of Qualitative Research . Second Edition. (Thosand Oaks, Sage Publishing, 2000), 63.

43 Adam J.P. Gaudry, “Insurgent Research,” Wicazo Sa Review , 26, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 114.

22 particular role.” 44 Seemingly unconventional, the self/auto ethnographic method of this research dissertation provides a specific insight, one that can only be articulated by the author.

The paradigm of science, or the patriarchal male insistence on the separation between science and the personal (quantitative and qualitative), is a disparaging modality that continues to constrain Indigenous research, regulating academic rigor and worthiness, while continuing to locate Indigenous research in spaces of othered, or substandard. This is a prevailing colonial structure that I look to deconstruct in the scholarship of this dissertation using the application of ethnography, self-ethnography, and auto-ethnography as the baseline of this research effort.

Indigenous methodologies, “Are those that permit and enable Indigenus researchers to be who they are while they are actively engaged as particpants in the research process.” 45 “A self- ethnography, or study and text, in which the researcher-author describes a cultural setting in which she/he has ‘natural access’ is an active participant, more or less on equal terms with other participants.” By that definition, my lived experiences in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa restoration effort,

“situates me within the research setting [Heʻeia] and allows my experiences, knowledge, and access to empirical material for this research project.” 46 I hope to shed light on the incredible history of resistance, resurgence, and restoration taking place in Heʻeia while maintaining an appropriate gaze on my own subjectivity, distance, and personal exposure.

44 Thommy Eriksson, “Being Native-distance, closeness and doing auto/self-ethnography,” World Congress on Communication and Arts Proceedings, Geelong, Australia April 4-7, 2013.

45 Michael Anthony Hart, “Indigenous Worldviews, Knowledge, and Research: The Development of an Indigenous Research Paradigm,” Journal of Indigenous Voices in Social Work 1, no. 1 (2010): 9.

46 Teresa Brannick, and David Coghlan, “In Defense of Being “Native The Case for Insider Academic Research,” Organizational Research Methods 10, no. 1(2007): page 60.

23

One of the constraints of using auto/self-ethnography as a method hinges on how the reality of the work of restoration for Kānaka Maoli resonates with those who have actually played critical roles in the history of He’eia, and of the participants currently involved in the work today. In drawing upon my own experiences over the last twenty-five years, I have also tried to capture the experiences of those who have been involved in the political, social, and cultural resurgence that has led to restoration of more than just land, seascapes and natural resources, but of people as well. I argue that researches, particularly in Indigenous researchers, need and must be storytellers. By virtue of Indigenous experiences, academic training, and cultural practice, this qualitative method allows entry into the Indigenous world, one that is filled with the kinds of rich experiences that can be articulated from an ʻŌiwi worldview that is also the means by which the Native voice is heard. One must pay attention to personal bias, sensitivities of others who also have a story to tell, and the feelings of family members. In light of the many individuals involved in the history and contemporary story of Heʻeia and its restoration, I argue that the research presented here is less self-indulgent and more of a kuleana, a responsibility to the kupuna to raise their voices, especially those who are no longer with us, through real-life exchanges and conversations that serve as a way for moving into the past, while journeying into the future. I stand accountable to my ancestors, my kupuna, and my community.

Interviews, Transcripts and Citations I conducted and recorded formal, informal, and group interviews with the operational management organizations of two of the case study locations: Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi in the wetland, and

Paepae o Heʻeia at the fishpond. Formal interviews were conducted over two time periods. The 24 first set of interviews were conducted from 2013 –2014 with Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi, and the second set were conducted over the period from 2018 -- 2019.

For Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi, interviews were conducted at the field site of Heʻeia Uli and in the executive director’s car while surveying the Heʻeia wetland’s progress. Following that, we had seven one-on-one, and shorter exchanges of information updates either by telephone, or site visits. Additionally, two Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi staff members were interviewed at the wetland.

For Paepae o Heʻeia, I conducted a group interview at the Heʻeia Fishpond with five

Paepae o Heʻeia staff members in the fall of 2019.

The research and writing of this dissertation took place over a period of four to five years.

At the time in which I wrote the proposed methods for my line of inquiry to understand the political, cultural, and pragmatic aspects of a contemporary restoration of an ahupuaʻ a, I was fresh out of course work for my degree. As such, I proposed methods that I had learned about in classes and from readings I had completed my coursework towards my degree. As I continued forward with my research, the methods that I had originally thought would be fruitful, turned out to be less so and self/auto ethnography took on a greater role for me as an Indigenous researcher.

There were several reasons for this and was particularly true for the use of interviews, and especially true in trying to extract cultural meanings through coding and analysis. A brief note on what I posit as a problematic terms for Indigenous Peoples, the words extract, extractivism, and extrativist. Extractivism and extractivist are characterized contemporarily, by what is referred to as an extractive economy, one that is dependent on stripping or extracting natural resources from Mother Earth for profit, leaving the Indigenous lands from which those resources are removed depleted and degraded. High demand for those extracted resources results in the depletion of those resources for profit and exportation across the around the globe. 25

The idea of extracting cultural meaning from coding and analysis, while a rigorous and bonafide research method, in this research, epitomizes the anesthetic and impersonal nature associated with the word extract. The coding and analysis of the interviews was not able to capture or keep up with a living, breathing, pulsing and moving ahupuaʻa ecosystem.

This is due to the fact that during the study period, the people involved and the restorative work itself, in addition to conditions on the ‘āina, were changing faster than static interviews could reflect. New perspectives were constantly arising as adaptive management was clearly the primary orientation in all three study sites. That adaptation was happening in real time in ways which interviews could not keep up.

Observing these changes over years, the story of Heʻeia began to reveal itself in a different way. It became clear that the work being conducted, learned, and accomplished in the present, were all dependent on and situated in a larger historical context, which I had undervalued at the commencement of this study. That is to say, everything that is happening now is part of a flow of history, such that can only be understood vis-à-vis by what has come before.

It became evident that this was true in all three of the case study sites, and therefore a method of research into land tenure and land use history became much more important than I had originally proposed. In this light, the results of interviews revealed no more than a blink of an eye in the more interesting moʻolelo of Heʻeia which makes today’s work possible and sheds insight onto the key features required for restoration.

At first, I was not aware of the need for a larger historical perspective and halfway through the study I realized that each of the interviews at the three sites were already outdated.

For example, by 2013, the nenelu had already changed its kalo cultivation site from the Kahekili

Highway or ma uka side of the wetland to its current location which aligns with Kamehameha 26

Highway at the ma kai side of the nenelu. By this time, management had changed, as had objectives, which are the realities of adaptive management on land that had been degraded, and was now being restored. Four hundred acres of wetland is a vast amount of ʻāina, thus locating a site for the production of kalo needed to be selected carefully. Five acres were selected near existing, but deteriorated ʻauwai. Much work was needed to begin hydrological restoration in the area that was, at this time, called Hoi. Interviews were conducted with the staff, revealing structural management and communication concerns.

By the summer of 2014, a new farm manager had come aboard and community-based involvement increased, as well as educational opportunities. Poi was now being milled and sold, and some income was being realized. The area was starting to take shape as ulu and maiʻa, which had been planted, grew and bore fruit. Loʻi kalo that had been opened and planted with huli, was now flourishing. By the winter of 2017, personnel had again changed, as did the direction of work at Hoi. While the objectives tied with the mission and vision for the wetland was not altered, earnest attention was now turned to the removal of the mangrove on the wetland side of the Heʻeia viaduct. This again, provided new pathways in the restoration that required heavy earth movement equipment and knowledge.

Once that expertise was garnered, opportunities for multidisciplinary collaborations, particularly with the Heʻeia National Estuarine Research Reserve, the University of Hawaiʻi at

Mānoa, and the Hawaiʻi Institute of marine Biology, were forged and the wetland project turned toward another phase of operations, that of clearing the mangrove forest and restoring the waterways under it.

A second round of interviews conducted in the summer of 2018, revealed that Kākoʻo

ʻŌiwi was indeed moving forward in the overall vision for the wetland. The road which encircles 27 the perimeter of the nenelu was being cleared, and mangrove removal was significant enough to provide the community with a visual of what the wetland might have looked like a hundred years prior. In real-time restoration, the land is a living, breathing entity. It participates, it provides the lessons from which Kānaka learn. By the summer of 2019, six years after I had begun this research study, it was apparent that the Heʻeia Uli had spoken and was, in effect, leading the work through the individuals that were meant to be a part of the restoration, at certain intervals of time, intermittently, to bring their own makana of participation, hana, skill, and mana, as part of the legacy of restoration in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, just as the kupuna had done before them

By the time I began to write the chapters on each of the case study sites, even the second round of interviews were out of date. Therefore, interviews became a supporting but minor methodology informing this study. The value of the interviews is found primarily in their contribution to expanding the relations between the principal kahu of each of the sites.

What spoke more eloquently to the management and activities of each site were the physical transformations I observed during the intervals of my site visits. For example, at the start of this project, an enormous mangrove forest separating two of the study sites has been cleared and is no longer there. This is a powerfully visual and functional change. It is also a key necessary component in the restoration of both sites rendering them nearly unrecognizable before the removal of mangrove on both sides of the Heʻeia viaduct.

A great deal of adaptability was required during this period that might best be understood through photographic evidence. Another example at the start of this project is in the ‘ili of

‘Iolekaʻa. At the start of this study, there was some degree of carbohydrate food production, i.e. ulu, mai’a, uala, and kalo, but in the desire to move toward the goal of food security, what was missing was protein. During the course of this study, freshwater loʻi were stocked with fish, 28 nurtured, and harvested beginning with fourtysix fish and currently standing at nearly one- thousand fish requiring adaptation and larger loʻi. What was learned during this time and what is ongoing adaptive site-specific learning is less readily captured in an interview than it is in a meal made of that fish and poi and served at the table.

While interviews are excellent windows for understanding the management mindset at the restoration sites, I have been very fortunate to have observed a living transformation of three locations over the last twenty-five years. It is that knowledge that underpins the value of my research. My own lived experience in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa is one I find to be very powerful.

My engagement with the historical specificities associated with the restoration of these particular sites, and by virtue of my own involvement in these processes over the last twenty-five years, privileges my research, which I believe to be extremely significant and I want to use that experience to inform my analysis in this research study. It is not possible to separate my position in this community as a resident, from my position as a researcher.

As an example, a close friend of mine, Mary Brooks, began the restoration of the Heʻeia loko iʻa in 1988, and both she and I were the founding co-directors of the Ahupuaʻa Restoration

Council of Heʻeia. Additionally, in Heʻeia Uli, my brother, Donald Gentzler, is the primary heavy equipment operator, whose work has literally transformed vast acres of the Heʻeia nenelu while discovering and embodying his own ʻŌiwi consciousness. I was honored to be one of the initial board members of Paepae o Heʻeia, and it goes without saying, that as kahu of the ʻāina kuleana in ʻIolekaʻa, I have a personal involvement as well.

For these reasons and a lifetime of connection to the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, the historical research, underpinned by ethnography and self/auto ethnography, became the primary research 29 methods for this dissertation case study on the ahupuaʻa of Heʻeia, and therefore takes the overall form of a moʻolelo of this ʻāina, unlike any other.

Newspaper Archives In order to analyze the historical transformation of Heʻeia over the last century, I relied on the archives of newspapers, in both English and Hawaiian, to review and contrast the ways in which residential development occurred and was underpinned by particular events occurring between the years of 1949 and 2005. This time period looks at the political foundation which established the building boom of the 1950s to the 1980s in Heʻeia, political affiliations formed resulting in profitable business deals, residential development, protest and preservation by the community of Heʻeia, ahupuaʻa restoration, and current restoration projects now underway, made possible by the history of protest and protection of ʻāina in Heʻeia.

Hawaiian Language Usage

Hawaiian words are essential in this research and are used liberally throughout this dissertation. Translations are not always provided, however when translations are given, they are taken from the following sources; 1) Hawaiian Dictionary by Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel

H. Elbert, 2) A Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language by Lorrin Andrews, and A Dictionary of

Hawaiian Legal Land-Terms compiled and edited by Paul F. Nahoa Lucas. 47

If needed, contextual explanations are included in the text or footnotes. In referencing archived newspapers or other resources in Hawaiian language, I have written the words exactly as they appear in the source keeping the original state of the resource text, including any

47 Readers should check Wehewehe Wikiwiki if they need translations of words. See https://hilo.hawaii.edu/wehe/

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Hawaiian language spelling, diacritics, or grammatical errors. I have also included translations of my own in portions of the text and have cited those inclusions.

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Organization of the Dissertation

Chapter One

This dissertation is organized into six chapters. Chapter one is the introduction to the dissertation and sets up the discourse by which the research is conducted, examined, analyzed, and summarized. ʻIke kupuna or Native intelligence is examined alongside Western science for itʻs symmetry within each site and within the context of the ahupuaʻa management system, which is also discussed. The three case study sites are introduced and a brief explanation of the importance in the historical relevance of land tenure is articulated. The ethnographic, self/auto ethnographic method is discussed against the use of interviews and active researcher participation and closes with the organization of the dissertation itself.

Chapter Two

In order to evaluate how the restoration of Indigenous lands functions as a resurgent

Kānaka Maoli political project, chapter two examines the contemporary history of land development in the Heʻeia Ahupuaʻa from the mid 1950s until 1980, as a retrospective into land acquisition and the political partisanship and patronage in Hawaiʻi that made the suburban development of Heʻeia possible. Community protests against the dislocating sprawl of housing developments occurred against the backdrop of student protest movements taking place in

Hawaiʻi. The rise of ethnic studies at the University of Hawaiʻi was fueled by anti-war protests, the civil rights movement of the 1960s across the U.S., free speech demonstrations, and the right to the peoples’ protest. Those events lifted the veil of Hawaiʻi, exposing the unsightliness of

Hawaiʻi’s Kānaka Maoli and minority marginalization. Economic disparities, political 32 disenfranchisement, racism, classism, and sexism all reared their ugly heads in Hawaiʻi as territorial nationality subsumed ethnicity, conflating two distinctly different words, nationality and ethnicity, to mean nationality. The term nationality, was and continues to be, confused with ethnicity today. Native Hawaiians are subject to colonial mechanisms of erasure, brought about by expanding settler occupation and exploitation of Indigenous lands and resources. Native

Hawaiians found themselves homeless in their own land invaded by foreign, and white settlers who relegated Kanaka Maoli to the fringes of society. Homelessness in Hawaiʻi today, is a legacy of settler colonialism and occupation of ʻŌiwi lands. In 1959, the community members of

Heʻeia would find their own voices of dissent and protest against land dispossession and changes in the ahupuaʻa Heʻeia.

Chapter Three

Chapter three focuses on the case study site of the ʻāina kuleana located in the ʻili of

ʻIolekaʻa. Land tenure is reviewed. Three generational kahu or caretakers of this āina kuleana are highlighted in this chapter and provides a gritty and tactile perspective of what the ʻohana faces in trying to produce food toward food sustainability in the face of necessary resiliency and to simply live with ʻāina in settler colonized Hawaiʻi today.

Chapter Four

Chapter four investigates the Heʻeia nenelu or wetland. As in all of the case study sites for this research study, land tenure is reviewed to foreground each of the contextual variables within the specific sites. The Heʻeia wetland is and has had the same owner since 1848. The leasing of the Heʻeia nenelu to sugar planters reflects land use change. From the plantation era 33

(1864 to 1940), to the land exchange of the Heʻeia wetland for ʻaina in Kakaʻako by Bishop

Estate and the Hawai’i Community Development Authority, the wetland remained intact but subject to degredation due to its fallow condition. Community-based collaborative restoration at the behest of the Heʻeia community and Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi are discussed and the fruits of those efforts are examined and analyzed.

Chapter Five

Chapter five concerns the Heʻeia loko iʻa. Kahus of the loko iʻa are surveyed, and strung together like a lei to reveal the beauty, commitment, and spirit of both the loko iʻa and those kahu. Stewardship and tremendous restorative work are examined as a template for what true community-based and community-participant restoration looks like in conjunction with Heʻeia wetland, which abuts the fishpond. In the case of both the wetland and the fishpond, collaboration is not a luxury, it is an environmental and ecosystem necessity. Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi and

Paepae o Heʻeia are proximal to one another. That is to say, not only do they share the life-giving waters of the ahupuaʻa, but that they abut each other, such that any impacts occurring in the wetland immediately affects the fishpond. This was apparent when the first movement of water was initiated on the wetland side of the viaduct after the initial work of mangrove removal occurred. The freeing of that body of water allowed for an abnormal influx of fresh water into the fishpond resulting in a fishkill. One place affects the other, and thus communication between these two sites are critical and must be ongoing.

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Chapter Six

Chapter six summarizes the dissertation study’s aim, that is to, examine, in the context of history, how the current restoration efforts in each case study site, are meeting the challenges that arise in the work of restoration. How is food being produced? How is each site managed? How is

ʻike kupuna being used and what roles do Western and Indigenous science play in restoration?

This chapter looks at the ways in which this dissertation has or has not answered the research questions, and pathways toward the future in the ongoing restoration of the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa.

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CHAPTER 2: POWER AND LAND DEVELOPMENT IN HEʻEIA: 1959 - 1990

“Ke nihi aʻela ka ua Kālepa, ka ua ʻokiʻoki koʻa o Heʻeia, Ke hehi maila i ka maka o ke koʻa, a luhi ē – luhi i ka ua ke koʻa.

The Kālepa rain moves quietly, the coral-breaking rain of Heʻeia, Trampling on the bud of the coral until weary, Weary from the rain is the coral of Heʻeia. 48

The ahupua‘a of He‘eia, with its extraordinary legacy of traditionally engineered cultural resources, is currently in the midst of substantial restoration efforts which extend from ‘Iolekaʻa

Valley, to Heʻeia wetland and down to the coastal fishpond of Heʻeia at the edge of Kāneʻohe

Bay. The restoration of an upland kuleana, a nenelu or wetland, and a fishpond located in the same ahupuaʻa and occurring simultaneously, is undoubtedly an unprecedented event and a dominant feature of this research dissertation.

He aha ka moʻolelo o Heʻeia? What is the story of Heʻeia? How did we get to the restorative opportunities and challenges that are faced today on the lands and in the waters of this unique and powerful Indigenous cultural landscape? To set the modern historical context of the current restoration, let’s take a brief look at the contemporary history of power and land development in Heʻeia in the latter half of the 20th century.

The Community of Heʻeia

The community members of Heʻeia, Oʻahu have a renowned reputation of being zealously protective of the ʻāina in their neighborhoods. Vigilant and attentive for outlander interests in the Heʻeia community, in particular toward development, they keep a watchful eye

48 Collette Leimomi Akana and Kiele Gonzalez, Hānau Ka Ua Hawaiian Rain Names , Honolulu: Kamehameha Schools Publishing, 2015. From a letter describing Queen Kapiʻolaniʻs journey from Honolulu to Koʻolau, Oʻahu. 36 for the appearance of external actors or outside interests in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa. The lessons of history have not been lost on the kupaʻāina of Heʻeia who have played a pivotal role in both protection and restoration of Heʻeia.

As former Hawaiʻi state legislator Bob Nakata notes, “The battle for Heeia’s restoration didn’t start with this [current] generation. The ahupuaʻa could have had a very different fate as it was once slated to become the heart of Oʻahu’s second city.” 49 Nakata’s statement is right.

Heʻeia might have looked like Hawaiʻi Kai today. Heʻeia, like many other places on Oʻahu, was subjected to land use reforms and systematic changes that altered the way land deals would be negotiated. In both scale and impact, this 20th century moʻolelo is analogous to the māhele of

1848, challenging those who stood for the protection and preservation of Hawaiian cultural resources.

This contemporary story of major changes in land use began with the Democratic revolution of 1954 in which the majority of politicians were Nisei, 50 or second generation

Japanese settlers in Hawaiʻi. In overthrowing the Republican stranglehold in the political arena of the Hawaiʻi State Legislature, these newly elected, returning WWII vets, would become major stakeholders in many of the companies formed during the 1960s that would develop urban and housing projects. Therein lie the roots of the moʻolelo of land development and power in

Hawaiʻi.

49 Lavonne Leong, “From the Mountain to the Sea: Saving the Heeia Ahupuaa, Honolulu Magazine , June 6, 2013. http://www.honolulumagazine.com/Honolulu-Magazine/June-2013/From-the-Mountain-to-the-Sea-Saving-the- Heeia-Ahupuaa/

50 According to Cooper and Daws (1985, pg. 5), the federal McCarran-Walter Act of 1953 allowed many non-US citizens in Hawai’i to become naturalized thereby attaining the right to vote. “If there was one single decisive force in the new politics of Hawaii, it was the Japanese vote – perhaps 40% of the electorate in the early 1950s.” The ILWU and a newly formed Japanese political base became the foundation for the Democratic party in Hawai’i situating many Japanese Nisei in powerful political positions that would later play out in land reform and land acquisition.

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The Political Rise of the Nisei in Hawaiʻi: Postwar Development in Heʻeia

“In Hawaii, land has always been a political battleground and prize. Those who have held land have generally occupied the high ground in politics. If those out of political power have managed to come into power, they have usually set about using their new position to get hold of land.” 51

Cooper and Daws

The political relationships and economic events outlined in this section, some of which may seem esoteric at first read are key to understanding the postwar changes of land use management in Hawaiʻi and the development pressures that came in the decades to follow.

Politically empowered when the Democrats won control of the Legislature in 1954, Nisei began consolidating their political power into financial and educational opportunities. The

Territory of Hawaiʻi was still being controlled economically by the“Big Five,” 52 an elitist group of five conglomerates involved in nearly all sectors of prevailing businesses in Hawaiʻi and the sugar industry.” 53 Within their political, social, educational, and economic ranks, the Big Five, made up of foreign and missionary descendant families, were the white elite in Hawaiʻi, holding positions in society which afforded them power and prestige, many of them directly related to the sugar plantation owners and their families.

All of the Issei or first-generation men and later women, had worked for these sugar barons and were bridled to obligatory contracted labor for the plantations in Hawaiʻi. The Nisei,

51 George Cooper and Gavin Daws, Land and Power in Hawaii The Democratic Years, (Honolulu: Benchmark Books, 1985), 2.

52 John S. Whitehead, “Western Progressives, Old South Planters, or Colonial Oppressors: The Enigma of Hawaiʻi’s Big Five,” 1898 -1940 Western Quarterly 30, (1999): 298-299. The Big Five are, Castle & Cooke, Ltd., Alexander & Baldwin, Ltd., C. Brewer and Company, Ltd., Theo H. Davies & Company, Ltd. and American Factors, Ltd. These companies controlled the territoryʻs economy. These companies were a monopoly who used their profits to buy stock in the same plantation and shipping companies for which they were agents and whose members were often from the same families.

53 Mariko Takagi-Kitayama, “A Look at the Political Process of Hawaii’s Second Revolution: From the Standpoint of Jack Kawano, a Nisei Labor Organizer Bulletin of Tokai Womenʻs College 20 (2000): 51. 38 along with Filipino, Chinese, Portuguese, and Korean plantation laborers were subjugated to low wages for hard, physical work, lamentable living conditions, and suffered the brunt of racism by plantation owners. These were the circumstances underpinning the mobilization of support for a local Hawaiian chapter and formation of a union. Japanese, Filipino, Native Hawaiians,

Portuguese, and others who worked under grueling and low paying wages for plantations, warehouses, the docks, persevered against violence and death, with protest to the eventual membership that led to the formation of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehouse’s

Union (ILWU). The ILWU played a critical role as the location for the consolidation of politically powerful alliances and became the platform and a newly revived and invigorated

Democratic Party in Hawaiʻi whose constituency was made up of a proportionate number of

Japanese. 54 In “Japanese Americans: The Development of a Middleman Minority,” Harry Kitano writes:

The Japanese in Hawaii had numerical superiority, so that once these numbers could be organized, there was an opportunity for change. It was the Nisei, especially after their ex- periences during World War II, who were able to challenge the political status quo. They were numerically strong; they were citizens; and they had ties based on ethnicity, culture, nationality, and kinship. They were well educated; and many had volunteered and fought valiantly in the United States armed forces (in segregated units under white officers). By the time Hawaii became a state, the Japanese American was no longer content to settle for a second- class status. 55

The politicians who took part in the Democratic uprising would go on to assume political office, become members of zoning and permitting agencies, forge business alliances with the

54 Eileen Tamura, Americanization, Acculturation, and Ethnic Identity: The Nisei Generation in Hawaiʻi (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1994), pg. 30. According to Tamura, “By 1920, the Nisei represented 44.5 percent of the population in Hawaiʻi.

55 Harry H.L. Kitano, “Japanese Americans: The Development of a Middleman Minority,” Pacific Historical Review 43, no. 4 (1974): 515.

39 wealthy of Hawaiʻi, and become partners in key development companies from which lands were bought and residential projects were sold in Hawaiʻi. Partisan change in the 1959 Democratic overthrow of the Hawaiʻi state legislature provided the opportunity for modifications in the existing land use laws of Hawaiʻi. These amendments to permitting and zoning of land, assured a continuing flow of profit shared by legislative policy makers and land owners through their business partnerships in residential development taking place in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa on the island of Oʻahu.

By the time the Honolulu Advertiser’s advertisement for Heʻeiaʻs $100 million dollar development was announced in 1959, many of those who would be purchasing homes in those development projects would be the colonizers and settlers while Kanaka Maoli would continue to be displaced.

Mitsuyuki Kido, of the Heeia Development Company, was one of five founding

core members of the Democratic Party in Hawaiʻi which also included John A. Burns, Jack

Kawano, Ernest Murai, and Chuck Mau. 56 Kido was a close confidant of Governor John Burns and a powerfully connected state senator in the Hawaiʻi State legislature. In 1959, Senator Kido

“Lobbied for the passage of a bill that would allow for an increase in pay for Bishop Estate trustees.” 57 Mitsuyuki Kido would form the Heeia Development Company, partnering with

Thomas F. McCormack and Bishop Estate in the development of the Aliʻi Shores subdivision in

Heʻeia. Developer, builder, and land provider, the palpable link between Kido, McCormack, and

Bishop Estate was a financially profitable one.

56 Mariko Takagi Kitayama, “Hawaiiʻs Japanese community in the postwar Democratic Movement,” (masterʻs thesis, University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa, 2004), 1.

57 Cooper & Daws, Land and Power in Hawaiʻi, (Honolulu: Benchmark Books, 1985), 48.

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According to the City Planning Department study of 1959, “Heeia was still largely undeveloped with 71% of its land in agricultural use.” 58 “Bishop Estate commissioned a study of the district in 1957 looking at the development potential of their Heʻeia land holdings believing that it was only a matter of time before Heeia became urbanized as a commuter suburb for

Honolulu.” 59 They contacted Mitsuyuki Kido.

Kido, who after indicating his interest in a development proposal for Heʻeia, was asked to provide a personal financial statement in order to submit a development agreement with Bishop

Estate, which he did. Unsurprisingly, that financial statement was furnished by Central Pacific

Bank of which Kido himself was then vice president.

On April 14, 1959, Kido submitted a proposed development agreement to Bishop Estate and on May 2nd the Bishop Estateʻs trustees’ fee bill was approved by the legislature. On May

5th, “Bishop Estate trustees agreed in principle to award an agreement to Kido, (and to makai developer McCormack), and on May 27th, then Governor John Burns signed into law, the

Bishop Estate trustees’ fee bill.” 60

According to Cooper and Daws:

It was well known that Kido was one of the principals of a hui that held a development agreement concerning Bishop Estate lands in Heeia, with the agreement calling for, among other things, creation of a large number of residential leasehold lots. His conflict of interest declaration, according to the State Journal, did not specifically mention the Heeia agreement, however, as with a number of large partnerships, some of the partners’

58 Ibid., 50. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid., 49. The Hawaiʻi State Legislature in 1959 passed the fee bill which established how much Bishop Estate trustees earned. The newly passed fee bill in 1959 allowed the trustees to be paid 2% on anything over $205,000, causing the fees to be paid to Bishop trustees to double. Because of the new schedule and the development boom, each Bishop trustee got about $35,000 in 1960; in 1962 about $44,000; and by early 1980s the five Bishop trustees between them were getting more than a million dollars. It was Senator Kido who lobbied for the passage of the bill which was signed into law by Governor John Burns on May 27, twenty-two days after Kido and McCormack were awarded an agreement in principle by Bishop Estate.

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names appeared in the business registration documents filed with the territorial and state governments, some did not. 61

Chickasaw scholar, Jodi Byrd, in The Transit of Empire, encourages us to “think through the syllogistic traps of participatory democracy born out of violent occupations of lands.” 62 Byrd argues that, “To read mnemonically is to connect the violences and genocides of colonization to cultural productions and political movements in order to disrupt the elisions of multicultural liberal democracy that seek to rationalize the originary historical traumas that birthed settler colonialism through inclusion.” 63

Using Byrdʻs analysis, I re-examine the political mobilization of the Nisei in Hawaiʻi to consider the ways in which the 1959 overthrow of the Hawaiʻi State legislature, by a revitalized

Democratic Party, continued the settler appropriation of Kānaka Maoli land in Hawaiʻi for development and profit. Dean Itsuji Saranillio writes:

Japanese Americans represented a new political force that gave birth to a new arrangement of power in Hawaiʻi. The emergence of various labor movements of plantation and dockworkers, changing demographics and their impact on voting, and the disenfranchisement of rights through martial law during World War II would alter Hawaiʻiʻs political landscape. 64

Thus, the political labyrinth born from the formation of the ILWU and Local 142 membership, WWII returning veterans, and other prominent locals, not only shaped Hawaiʻi’s

Democratic party, but established the powerful Democratic old boy network, whose influential members were composed of key players in the real estate and land development businesses in

61 George Cooper, and Gavan Daws, Land and Power in Hawaii: The Democratic Year (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1990) 463.

62 Jodi A. Bryd, The Transit of Empire (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011), xii. 63 Ibid. 64 Dean Itsuji Saranillio, “Colliding Histories: Hawaiʻi Statehood at the Intersection of Asians “Ineligible to Citizenship” and Hawaiians “Unfit for Self-Government,” Journal of Asian Studies 13, no. 3 (2010): 294.

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Hawaiʻi. The Heʻeia ahupuaʻa was slated as one of the numerous residential project sites on

Oʻahu selected for development.

1960 - 1969: The Long Political Hand of Development in Heʻeia

The Honolulu Star Bulletin announced a real estate opportunity with a published advertisement in 1949, listing a one and a quarter acre lot in Heʻeia with an army surplus house in place for a cost of $3,200.00. It was a Bishop Estate, 65 leasehold property with a “low yearly rental,” 66 that had a view of the ocean, a water meter, and electricity. Ten years later, Edwin P.

Murray, then vice president of the Bishop Estateʻs board of trustees, announced that Thomas F.

McCormack and George M. Hasegawa & Associates would become the developers of Bishop

Estate’s $100 million dollar project in Heʻeia with, “5,000 thousand house lots, some 200 apartment building lot sites, including a $5 million shopping center to be erected over the next 10 years.” 67

By 1960, George Hasegawa, an investor in a land hui organization from Maui, and then

Senator Mitsuyuki Kido, had formed the Heeia Development Company to develop seven- hundred acres of Bishop Estate land on the ma uka side of the Kahekili Highway, naming

George T. Miki,The cost for the homes would start at $17,000. Compared to the 1949 cost of

$3,200.00 for the house in Heʻeia Kea, the increase of $13,800.00 reflected a 431.25% increase.

Thomas F. McCormack, “who had development rights to 400 acres on the makai side of the highway, was waiting on engineering studies in order to begin work in July or August of

65 The Bishop Estate was created in 1884 by the will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop who bequeathed her estate as a financial base for the building of a private school for boys and girls, preferably of Aboriginal descent, known Kamehameha Schools.

66 Clark Reynold & Co, “Real Estate for Sale,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), Feb. 1, 1940. 67 “5,000 Homes Are Planned in Giant Heeia Project,” Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), Sep. 30, 1959. 43

1960.” George Miki was quoted as saying, “When completed, Heeia Development Companyʻs project will represent over $50 million in Windward Oahu values.” 68

The first public announcement that Bishop Estate had negotiated and reached an agreement to develop Heʻeia with Kido came in a press statement in 1960 which stated that, “a formal agreement had been reached and covered 520 acres of mauka lands at Heʻeia, in

Windward Oahu. The agreement reached between Kido and the Bishop Estate occurred coincidentally while a companion agreement with another developer, Thomas F. McCormack

(father of Mike McCormack) covering the rest of Bishopʻs lands in ma kai portion of Heeia, was negotiated with Bishop Estate.” 69

In 1961, developer Tom F. McCormack was facing opposition for his plan to construct a concrete products extrusion plant and drying yards. The land under consideration was the Bishop

Estate owned 10-acre parcel mauka of the Heʻeia Pier, now the Heʻeia Kea Small Boat Harbor.

According to McCormack, “Iʻm building a $100 million development on Bishop Estate lands. I need this plant and storage area to cut costs, adding that there would be harm done to the area and the build would be a 10-year measure to cut development costs and that he had the blessing of Bishop Estate.” 70 What McCormack was referring to, “a plan to build a $100,000 concrete products extrusion plant and drying yards to cut costs down for his proposed development, and with the intention of selling concrete products to anyone who will buy.” 71 Residents were concerned about the time limit of the operations (ten years according to McCormack), in addition

68 “Heeia’s 3,000-House Job Begins in Summer, Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), Feb. 24, 1960. 69 Cooper and Daws, Land and Power in Hawaii , pg. 50. 70 “Plans for Heeia Concrete Plant Draw Opposition from Residents,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), May 25, 1961.

71 Ibid.

44 to the devaluation of their fee simple property with the change from residential to industrial zoning being requested by McCormack for the building of his concrete plant. 72 McCormack’s request to the City Planning Commission was refused in May of 1961.

The relationship between Bishop Estate, Senator Mitsuyuki Kido (HDC), Thomas F.

McCormack, and later his son, Mike McCormack, exposes the kinds of nepotic affiliations between politicians and businessmen that occured in the early years in the Democratic take-over of the Hawaiʻi State legislature. Troubling is the entangled web which existed between Hawaiʻi’s

Democratic legislators, key politicians, land use commissioners, judges, magistrates, lawyers, consultants, contractors, and large landowners, all of whom contributed to changes in land use laws, with the aid of the newly established Land Use Commission (LUC). 73 Membership of the

LUC in the 1960s, was made up of political appointees or affiliates and, whose patronage enabled many of the land use laws that set the stage for the settler occupied state of Hawaiʻi to ramp up its encumbrance of Indigenous or ʻŌiwi lands that continues to the present day.

The Land Use Law (LUL), was adopted in 1961 to make urbanization efficient alongside the use of all types of resources, and to preserve agricultural and conservation lands. These principles garnered the name, “greenbelt law,” as the plan for urban expansion was to be

“Compact rather than scattered, with belts of green agricultural and conservation land all around.” 74

72 Ibid.

73 State of Hawaiʻi, “Role of the Commission,” Land Use Commission (LUC). Created in 1961, the LUCʻs job is to establish district boundaries for the entire State and to act on petitions for boundary changes that are submitted by private landowners, developers, and State and county agencies. The Commission is composed of nine members, who are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the State Senate. One member is appointed from each of the four counties. Five members are appointed at-large. Commissioners are non-paid volunteers who represent a cross- section of the community. http://files.hawaii.gov/luc/about.htm#PURPOSE%20OF%20THE%20LAW .

74 Ibid.

45

In 1963, the major landowners on Oʻahu were Bishop Estate, Damon and Campbell

Estates, Queen’s Hospital, and Harold K.L. Castle’s Kāneʻohe Ranch of which 66% was in leasehold. With the housing development planned for the windward side of Oʻahu, “it was

Bishop Estate lands that were used for the suburban developments of which their leased lots accounted for 40% of all new lots coming on the market.” 75 Throughout the years 1961-1974,

Bishop Estate owned 15% of Windward Oʻahu lands and the explosive urban development of

Heʻeia would afford the Bishop Estate enormous profits. The Bishop Estate, founded on the will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop, daughter of Abner Pākī and granddaughter of Kamehameha I, were certainly not benevolent land managers. Interested in profit with little concern for cultural impacts, the Bishop Estate at this time, was mainly concerned with making a profit. It was of no concern to the estate that they were dispossessing Kānaka Maoli from their homes as they planned for the development of Heʻeia.

Honolulu Advertiser writer, Gordon Morse, described the homes and families living on the Bishop Estate owned 10-acre parcel, which was to have been used as a concrete plant site as,

“Several old shacks owned mostly by Hawaiians.” 76 Morse’s statement posits the ways in which settler imperial logics and hegemonic entitlement functions as a predatory politics of erasure, one that signals a cruel disregard for the Kānaka Maoli families living on their homesteads in Heʻeia

Kea at that time and place, or any time and anywhere else. The continuing assumption of and predisposition to invasive settler encroachment on Kānaka ʻŌiwi lands are examples of how ,

“settler colonialism functions in part by making the colonial situation appear invisible. Settler

75 George Cooper and Gavan Daws, Land and Power in Hawai’i, The Democratic Years (Honolulu: Benchmark Books, 1985), 422.

76 “WOCA Tentatively Agrees To Heeia Tile Plant Zoning,” The Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), May 24, 1961.

46 colonialism presents settlement as merely part of the past. It ignores continued Indigenous presence on the land and it obfuscates the reality that both settlement and Indigenous resistance are ongoing.” 77

Hawaiian Electric Company

The story of the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) sublease from Bishop Estate and development desires for the ‘ili of Heʻeia Kea spans nearly four decades. It’s worth examining as it is illustrative of the backroom political mechanics of unbridled and relentless development desires and reveals the steadfast character of the resistance to development of the Heʻeia community. It is difficult to separate the development pressures during this time on the fishpond and the wetland from the contiguously connected ‘ili of Heʻeia Kea upon which first

McCormack, and later HECO, had set their designs on. In fact, the Heʻeia wetland and fishpond would not exist today without the protest of the Heʻeia community against the development of those two sites.

On May 26, 1961, the city planning commission turned down McCormack’s request for rezoning at Heʻeia Kea and in August of the same year construction began on McCormack’s

Kāneʻohe subdivision. The first increment of the residential subdivision of Aliʻi Shores in Heʻeia began in January, 1963 with completion slated within ten years.

By 1965, after McCormack had failed in his efforts for a cement plant for construction materials in the development of Aliʻi Shores, HECO began its efforts in acquiring Heʻeia Kea which was targeted for the construction of an electric generating plant. The Heʻeia community

77 L.K. Kawatra, “Settler Colonialism a Persevering Injustice, The Responsibility to Contest It, and Settler Allies’ Use of Media to Disseminate a Competing Discourse: The Case of Asinabka,” French Journal for Media Research 9, (2018): 3.

47 responded with a petition, “Signed by residents of the area and users of the small boat harbor objecting to the building of a power plant because the area was too beautiful and unique to spoil.” 78 Concern for the integrity of the cultural landscape, the ʻāina, it’s moʻolelo, and the kupaʻāina were voiced.

Replacing the cultural landscape would be, “A building five stories high, plus three stories of smokestacks, fuel storage units and pumps, and a base yard with set back only 50 – 100 feet.” 79 Towards this effort, by July of 1966, HECO had received a permit to build an office and storage site on two acres of the 219 acre Heʻeia Kea, 80 and in September of the same year, the

Heeia Development Company had requested residential zoning for 84 acres in Heʻeia Valley.” 81

In 1968 HECO’s response to an editorial about its development plans in the Honolulu

Advertiser 82 revealed that HECO did not actually anticipate building a power plant at Heʻeia Kea until the mid-70s and that HECO was financing studies being conducted by the University of

Hawaiʻi regarding the protection of marine life in Kāneʻohe Bay.

In the meantime, while this was happening, the same business stakeholders in proposed development of Heʻeia Kea Valley, had also turned their sights to other parts of the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa. These stakeholders were building Aliʻi Shores, Crown Terrace, and Haʻiku Plantations and stood to earn huge profits from the development of housing in these areas. The Heeia

Development Company was owned by Senator Mitsuyuki Kido and his partner, George

Hasegawa. The real estate developer was Thomas F. McCormack, and later his son, Mike

McCormack. Bishop Estate owned the land upon which the leasehold homes would be built. All

78 “City Planners Delay Vote on HECO Zoning Change,” Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), October 8, 1965. 79 Barbara Ekman, “Utility Plant at Heeia Kea?” Honolulu Advertiser Editorial (Honolulu, HI), April 25, 1966. 80 Toni Withington, “Construction at Heeia sets off alarm,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), July 29, 1966. 81 “City Planning Commission Notice.” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), September 21, 1966. 82 Barbara Ekman, “Kaneohe Bay Pollution?” Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), March 8, 1968. 48 of these new homes would need electricity and HECO’s plans were to locate that source of power in Heʻeia Kea Valley. The connections were evident and, as Cooper and Daws note,

“There were fortunes to be made in real estate in Hawaiʻi, and anyone who wanted to do any sizable business in land had to deal with the Democrats.” 83

As if the rapid escalation of residential development in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa wasnʻt enough of a concern, the City Planning Commission, in November of 1968, approved a

“Proposed light industrial park off Kahekili Highway allowing Thomas F. McCormack the ability to build a golf course flanked by a strip of medium-density apartments in Heʻeia.” 84 At a public hearing for the same request, it was to have been “single-family dwellings surrounding the golf course, even as they admitted, they might not be legally permitted to do so.” 85

One might wonder how this was possible. Again, Cooper and Daws provide an explanation that explains how the duplicitous workings of land development deals during the

1960s were made possible. They note, “When we put together the names of developers and the politically well-connected, the huis established amongst real estate lawyers, contractors, speculators, developers, and landlords contained the names of virtually the entire political power structure of Hawaiʻi that evolved out of the Democratic revolution.” 86

A new attempt by HECO to build a generating plant in 1966 elicited strong resistance from the Heʻeia community which was concerned about the beautification and scenic preservation of Kamehameha Highway, which ran through Heʻeia. The community members opposed HECO’s request to rezone 100 acres of land in Heʻeia Kea Valley to permit the

83 George Cooper and Gavan Daws, Land and Power in Hawaiʻi the Democratic Years (Honolulu: Benchmark Books, 1985), page 11.

84 Harold Hostetler, “Heeia Golf Course Plan Wins OK,” Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), 1968. 85 Ibid. 86 Cooper and Daws, Land and Power in Hawaiʻi the Democratic Years , page 12. 49 construction of the $18-$25 million-dollar power plant. In February of 1969, HECO dropped it’s plan to build a generating plant in Heʻeia Kea. According to the Honolulu Star Bulletin, “More than a dozen community organizations and individuals protested the company’s proposed route of the 136,000-volt transmission lines [over the through the Koʻolaus] and the construction of the

Heeia-Kea power plant.” 87

The community had won this battle, but it was only the beginning. In 1967, seventeen families were evicted from their rural farm-type homes in Heʻeia Uli to make way for Mike

McCormack’s development of the Aliʻi Bluffs subdivision on Bishop Estate land. They were given thirty days to move out with many of them having no affordable place to move to compared to the $100.00 per month rent they were paying at the time. Edward Sato, Assistant

Director of the Hawaiʻi Housing Authority at the time said, “The plight of the families demonstrates one of the weaknesses in Oʻahu’s low-rent housing program – lack of communication with private developers whose projects will displace renters.” He added further,

“Private developers keep their projects secret until they have everything tied up in a complete package, ready to forge ahead with construction.” 88 While consultation to the community is part of a vetting process for land use changes and developments today, the overwhelming result has not been in favor of Indigenous Peoples.

By 1970, the building boom on the Windward side of Oʻahu was unprecedented.

Subdivisions, townhouses, and high-end homes were filling in the once country and farming landscapes. There were, of course, concerns from the community. Thomas F. McCormack and his son, Mike McCormack, had built 300 single-family homes in the Aliʻi Bluffs and Aliʻi

87 “HECO plans for Heeia-Kea plant dropped,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), Feb. 26, 1969, page 5. 88 “17 Families Must Move, But Say No Place To Go,” The Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), March 10, 1967, page 4.

50

Shores developments and were now considering building a 68-unit townhouse development,

Aliʻi Clusters Park.

Roads and highways were being built as well as businesses, schools, and shopping centers, all required for a burgeoning population in both Kāneʻohe and Heʻeia. With a growing population and need for housing, infrastructure was also needed. The change in the once-idyllic setting of

Heʻeia was concerning to those living in the community.

The Outdoor Circle, Kāneʻohe branch, a prodigious group focused on conserving and protecting the fishpond at this time, were successful in, “Battling developments of four Kāneʻohe

Bay fishponds by having them declared historical sites.” 89 While having been triumphant in placing the Heʻeia loko iʻa on the National Register of Historic Places, that designation did not necessarily safeguard the fishpond from development. In 1973, “development plans by Gentry-

Hawaiʻi, Ltd., and McCormack Land Co. to construct housing units for 15,000 people in the

Heʻeia area, plus a shopping center, restaurants, parks, and other facilities,” 90 were subject to questions by the Kaneʻohe Outdoor Circle (KOC), who had sponsored the community meeting.

KOC, “took up questions relating to conservation, water quality of Kāneʻohe Bay, the floodplain, and the roads and sewers.” 91

Community members, Representative Richard H. Wasai, Senator John J. Hulten,

Councilperson, Mary George, and Albert Banner, a marine biologist, were present and the majority of those attendees supported rezoning the lands surrounding the fishpond into conservation. As a strategy for preserving the fishpond, which ultimately worked, it would make development of the area exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. Perhaps the most interesting

89 “Kaneohe feels growing pains,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), May 23, 1971, page E-4. 90 Harry Whitten, “The Heeia Fishpond Battle,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), March 5, 1973, page A-19.

91 Ibid.

51 question was by Col. William J. White, who presided over the meeting and at it’s finish asked,

“How did most of the Heeia Fishpond receive urban classification in the first place?”

The Heʻeia Landing Project

Pressures on Heʻeia land continued into the 1970s. In February of 1973, Gentry Hawaii,

Ltd. and McCormack Land Company announced development plans for Heʻeia (See Fig. 4).

According to Norman Dyer, project director for the Heeia Landing project at Gentry Hawaii,

Ltd.,

Development plans call for the pond (Heʻeia Fishpond) to be restored and used as a protected channel to Kaneohe Bay where a small marina would be constructed. An expanded lagoon in the Heeia wetland, from which small boats will be able to run under a low bridge to Kaneohe Bay, would be part of this water-oriented housing to be known as the Heeia Landing project. Developers wanted to construct 5,020 housing units, a “visitor and project center near the marina with shops and restaurants and a 34-acre regional shopping center near Kahekili Highway, all at an estimated cost of $300 million dollars. 92

92 J.F. Cunningham, “State, City Oks asked, new Kaneohe project planned,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), February 9, 1973, page B-1.

52

Figure 4. Gentry and McCormack’s rendering of the Heʻeia Landing Project , 1973, The Honolulu Advertiser. 93

In a Honolulu Advertiser interview, Mike McCormack said, “There are actually no fish in the fishpond and due to the population explosion in Hawaii, the people need this subdivision for

‘‘survival.’” 94 McCormack’s statement reflects quite clearly how the settler colonial mindset works in distorting notions of appropriation, dispossession, and desecration of Native lands, all the while purporting those acts as necessary for their own (settler) survival.

The Honolulu Advertiser reported that a 668 acre parcel was to be developed between

Bishop Estate, Foremost-McCormack Development Joint Venture, Department of Utilization and the City and County of Honolulu. 95 Concerned community members formed the “Save Heeia”

93 J. F. Cunningham, “New Kaneohe Project Planned, Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), February 9, 1973, page B-1.

94 Kent Makishi and Karlton Tomomitsu, “The fishpond dilema,” Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), February 26, 1974, page 2.

95 Harvey F. Gerwig, “Development of a 668-Acres Parcel, Heeia, Oahu, EQC Bulletin, Environmental Quality Commission , (Hononolulu, HI), December 23, 1977.

53 movement,” 96 and staged a sit-in, camping out at the city office building, where they were prepared to remain overnight, with the purpose of negotiating with the City Planning Director,

Robert Way, the agenda for a planned informational meeting regarding the Heʻeia Landing 5,000 unit project in the Heʻeia wetland.

Joy Ahn, spokesperson for the group and about twenty members of SHM, wanted the people to have a voice on the agenda for the public hearing on McCormack’s Heʻeia Landing development. Ahn said:

We want the people to be able to speak first, then the developers and then the City. A lot of times, at meetings like these, the people are kept to the end of the agenda and many of them leave early so they never get heard. We will stay until Mr. Way honors his original agreement. 97

After the three-day, two-night sit-in, the city gave in and agreed to allow the protestors to choose the moderator and set the agenda for the informational meeting. Ultimately, the city:

Withdrew its sponsorship of the public informational meeting and Mike McCormack indicated not only his concern that if the movement chaired the meeting it might get out of control, but that heʻd been working on this project for two years and that heʻd never heard of these people before this. 98

“These people,” which he spoke of, were the kupaʻāina—the ones who would be evicted from their rural homes and farm lands with no other place to go and nowhere else to live. The eviction of Indigenous Peoples from their Native lands remains a settler remove and erase tactic, and in this case, was purely motivated by capitalistic greed of settlers such as Mike McCormack,

96 “City Sets Hearing on Heeia Plan,” Honolulu Star Bulletin , (Honolulu, HI), March 20, 1975, page C-4. 97 David Pellegrin, “Sleep-in at the City building, Heeia action draws protest,” (Honolulu, HI), April 10, 1975, page F-5.

98 “City Declines to Conduct Heeia Development Meeting,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), April 11, 1975, Page 5.

54 the trustees for the Bishop Estate, and well-placed politicians like Mitsuyuki Kido, all of whom would receive outstanding profits from the development of Heʻeia and Kāneʻohe.

In “Predatory Politics: U.S. Imperialism, Settler Hegemony, and the Japanese in

Hawai’i, Eiko Kosasa writes:

Predatory value is the thread connecting American economic and political policies to each other—the interlinking of capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism. A nation born of predation produces a national culture which naturalizes the idea that seizing and confiscating other people’s land and resources is a hallmark of intelligence and entrepreneurship. Americans call this cultural value ‘‘‘healthy competition and progress,’’’ that costs human lives and results in the colonization of peoples, and the destruction of traditional societies and pristine lands. 99

The sense of disbelief at the callousness by which evictions such as those in Heʻeia Kea, and other areas on Oʻahu, were strategized and facilitated, with little or no regard for those who would become houseless, were no less exacerbated by the fact that the newly formed land use laws, permits, zoning processes and the commissions by which those policies were governed, were membered by a majority of politically positioned Asian settlers and their wealth constituents and affiliates, some of whom were part of the John Burns’ faction. Several of these men were returning WWII Nisei veterans and became part of a politically influential group whom John Burns referred to as, “the Young Turks,” of Hawaiʻi. 100 This group of political of cohorts established what would, “throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, become the new

99 Eiko Kosasa, “Predatory Politics: U.S. Imperialism, Settler Hegemony, and the Japanese in Hawai’i” (Dissertation, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, 2004), 155.

100 Roger Bell, Last Among Equals Hawaiian Statehood and American Politics (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2019. “The informal coalition largely responsible for rejuvenating the Democratic party consisted of Burns, Hall, David Benz, Mura, Kido, Aoki, and Kawano, along with a prominent member of Hawaiʻi’s Chinese community, Chuck Mau. These allies were later referred to as the Burns’ faction or group; never-the-less in the immediate postwar months Mau was the group’s unofficial political leader and Kawano its most successful union organizer, and whom John Burns referred to as his so-called “Young Turks.” According to Mitsuyuki Kido, “[We] felt that, if we got into the Democratic party, we would be able to control it, set up a machinery, and offer the people of Hawaiʻi an alternative.” 174

55 establishment in local political life,” 101 and founding members of the Democratic good-old boys’ network. Many of these newly established politicians would take advantage of their positions and power to form business partnerships and become very rich in the process.

The Honolulu Star Bulletin supported Way’s decision to withdraw support for the Heʻeia meeting, writing in the paper’s editorial section, “Let the Save Heeia Movement have their meeting, and do whatever it likes at it, but let’s not give anybody the idea that the meeting has anything to do with the government.” 102 Way’s statement, supported by the Honolulu Star

Bulletin, reeks of unconscionable impudence and the arrogance of settler colonial entrenchment in Hawai’i. The occupying state afforded colonial settlers the apparatus of bureaucratic power, by which people like Way and the Honolulu Star Bulletin, are then empowered to disenfranchise their own constituents of fair representation.

On April 24, 1975, the Save Heʻeia Movement gave a presentation in support of bringing the parties together to hear each other and clarify their positions. Nearly three-hundred people attended. Unfortunately, and tellingly, both Mike McCormack, the developer, and Bishop Estate, the land owner, declined to attend. Facilitated by well-known photographer, Ed Greevy, and

Kathryn Bartel, the attendees:

Deplored the conversion of the Heʻeia Fishpond into a 625 berth yacht marina, were concerned that the $85,000 to $100,000 cost of the new homes would price most local residents out of the market and that the new development would damage irretrievably the living patterns of present Heeia residents.” 103

101 Roger Bell, Last Among Equals Hawaiian Statehood and American Politics (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2019), 335.

102 “Wise Withdrawal,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI): April 12, 1975, page A-10.

103 Harold Morse, “Heeia Plan Foes, City Air Views,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), April 25, 1975, page A-12.

56

HECO and the Evictions at Heʻeia Kea

A new chapter in HECO’s development efforts occurred days after the Save Heeia

Movement held a second meeting, this time focused on evictions at Heʻeia Kea, “A group of

Heeia-Kea residents held a country-style press conference to announce plans to fight eviction notices received from the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO).” 104 The situation for many

Kānaka Maoli and other marginalized people rested on the changing times in Hawaiʻi. In “The

Birth of the Modern Hawaiian Movement: Kalama Valley, Oʻahu ,” Haunani-Kay Trask describes, in effect, the reality facing many kupaʻāina at that time in Heʻeia Kea. Trask explains:

Already economically exploited and culturally suppressed, rural Hawaiian communities which had been relatively untouched during the plantation period were besieged by rapid development of their agricultural areas beginning in the late 1960s. Pushed from their rural enclaves by the developer’s bulldozer, many of these Hawaiians took up residence in crowded urban highrises or in makeshift beach villages. Others moved to one of the dwindling farming valleys, such as Kalama, in hopes of staving off the end to their slow, rural lifestyle. 105

In June of 1975, thirty people sat-in 106 at the office of the Hawaiian Electric Company

(HECO) to protest eviction notices given to Heʻeia Kea families. HECO held a purchase agreement for 219 acres of land in Heʻeia Kea with the Bishop Estate in 1965 and in May of

1975, HECO filed eviction notices against eighteen tenants, giving the residents until July 15,

1975 to leave the property. The various families had been paying between $90.00, $105.00, and

$115.00 dollars a year in lease rent.

104 Leonard Lueras, “Tenants battle HECO eviction,” Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), May 8, 1975, page A-5. 105 Haunani-Kay Trask, “The Birth of the Modern Hawaiian Movement: Kalama Valley, Oʻahu ,” The Hawaiian Journal of the Pacific 21, (1987):128.

106 Sitting-in was a protest strategy of occupation wherein the protestors would gather at a particular site, in this case HECO, and sit in front of or inside the offices of the settler companies who were being protested against.

57

According to HECO, the 18 homes from which they were evicting people, were in violation of City building codes. 107 This was the strategy they chose to clear the land for their development purposes. Two residents were original tenants of Bishop Estate and the remaining tenants were on month-to-month leases. These families were asking for an extension of their leases as a condition of improving their homes. Jim Sanders, one of the residents of Heʻeia Kea who was being evicted, said, “Tenants were never notified by the building department of any violations and he and other members of an ad hoc group called “Heeiakea For Our People wanted to know what the real reasons for being evicted from their homes were.” 108 Richard

Summers, then vice president of HECO, claimed that the 18 tenants had been notified of building code violations and the impending eviction four years ago, at which time most of the tenants signed an agreement under which they would have three years to relocate. 109

At this time, HECO now turned its plans towards building a steam-powered power plant on the property, but new Federal environmental protection laws vetoed that plan, resulting in

HECO now wanting to house gas turbine-powered electrical generators. Sanders’ response was that he and the other residents who had received eviction notices would stay in their homes until,

1) long-term leases for families in the area are granted so as to allow time for make improvements on their homes, 2) residents are given a full voice in the future planning of Heʻeia

Kea, and 3) all development plans for the Heeia-Kea area are canceled and a plan is submitted to the Heʻeia-kea For Our People group. 110

107 Leonard Lueras, “Tenants battle HECO eviction.” Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), May 8, 1975, page A-5.

108 Ibid.

109 Ibid.

110 Ibid.

58

The newly enacted State Landlord-Tenant Act required HECO to communicate with the residents, and HECO was concerned about its legal liability for any injuries occurring while people were allowed to improve their substandard homes. Further, HECO, who had long been leasing the parcel from Bishop Estate, did not want to grant long-term sub-leases as it would limit their options on the use of land. 111 On July 1, 1975 HECO sent final eviction notices to the

Heʻeia Kea residents requiring the tenants to be out by August 1, 1975. Citing the landlord- tenant act, a spokesperson for HECO explained that the “City Building Dept. had found extensive housing code deficiencies in the 17 homes and told HECO to correct the code deficiencies or demolish the homes.” 112 Some of the tenants offered to make the improvements themselves, but HECO responded that under the Landlord Tenant Code, HECO cannot transfer its responsibility as landlord. 113 The situation ended in a stalemate where Heʻeia Kea residents vowed to remain in their homes and HECO was threatening to evict them.

By August of 1975, then governor of Hawaiʻi, George Ariyoshi claimed to be optimistic that a solution could be found in the plight of the Heʻeia Kea residents facing eviction, although he emphasized the complicated legal questions associated with the situation. On August

8, 1975, a suit was filed on behalf of the Heʻeia Kea residents by Legal Aid attorneys seeking judicial declaration that the Landlord-Tenant Code does not apply to their premises. Heʻeia Kea residents argued that original agreements made with Bishop Estate put some of the tenants in the position of, “Lessees who own the on-site improvements – that is to say, the houses.” 114 The

111 Ibid.

112 “Final Eviction Notices Given in Heeia Kea,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), July 1, 1975, page 14.

113 Ibid.

114 David Pelligrin, “Ariyoshi sees possible Heeia Kea compromise,” Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), August 8, 1975, page A-9. 59 residents added that, “They had the responsibility and the right to repair the houses so as to meet the building code. The suit also claims the land purchase from Bishop Estate [by HECO] was illegal because it did not have the necessary approval from the Public Utilities Commission.” 115

HECO responded by saying, “The commission was familiar with the purchase agreement but attorneys for the Heʻeia Kea residents say they can find no record of commission approval.” 116

In November of 1975, Judge Richard Y.C. Au of the 8th District Court canceled the eviction trial dates for the seventeen Heʻeia Kea residents allowing the tenants to consolidate their cases. Kathleen A. Dashiell, Legal Aid attorney representing Heʻeia Kea said the group will ask for a jury trial which means the case would be aired in Circuit Court. By this time (April

1976), five HECO stockholders were concerned about the careless disregard for the people of

Heʻeia Kea, noting that HECO was a utility company and not in the land manipulation business. 117 These stockholders were not in favor of building a power plant, favoring the preservation of Heʻeia Kea. The stockholders assigned their proxies (representing 250 or more shares of HECO stock) to the residents so that they could attend HECOʻs annual board meeting and make a presentation, however, the Heʻeia Kea residents were not allowed to enter the boardroom and the police were called.

It wasn’t only the residents of Heʻeia Kea that were protesting HECO’s actions. In April of 1976, two HECO stockholders, Robert and Helen Hopkins, protested the company’s plans for the development of the Heʻeia Kea Valley property, seeking to submit proposals of their own to the board of directors at the annual stockholder meeting to be held the following week. When

115 Ibid.

116 Ibid.

117 “Stockholders Hit HECO Plan for Heeia Kea,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), April 13, 1976, page B-3.

60 they were prevented from attending the meeting to submit their proposals to the board, they chose an alternative choice of action, placing the issue in the courts of Hawai’i. HECO’s response was to try and stop the court hearing. However, on June 17, 1976 Circuit Judge Norito

Kawakami refused to stop a court hearing involving the eviction of the residents. The five stockholders attempted to block the hearing by bringing a suit challenging the legality of the

HECO April 20th board meeting, saying their legal proxies were prevented from attending the meeting and voting on the eviction question, in violation of HECOʻs bylaws and statutory authority. 118

HECO recorded 3.9 million votes for eviction and 100,000 against. Judge Kawakami ruled that the plaintiffs failed to show sufficient facts to warrant issuance of a preliminary injunction to block the company from proceeding with the eviction hearing and HECOʻs attorney, David Fairbanks, said the vote was locked up before the meeting began. 119

On November 11, 1976, Judge Kawakami ruled in favor of the Hawaiian Electric

Company and against the Heʻeia Kea residents, who appealed the ruling and obtained a stay of order. 120 Judge Kawakami’s ruling was later reversed by Associate Justice Herman Lum, saying that the eviction date set in the first letter was amended by the second letter of eviction, and that

HECO was obligated to send another 90-day notice because of the second letter. 121 Kathleen

Dashiell, who was the attorney for the residents said that, “HECO must start over and send new

118 Ibid.

119 Ibid.

120 Ken Kobayashi, “Heeia-Kea eviction okayed,” Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), November 11, 1975, page 17.

121 Ken Kobayashi, “Heeia-Kea families win eviction stay,” Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), January 3, 1981, page A-5.

61 eviction notices if it still wants to oust the 50 people of 13 families living on the property, noting that the ruling comes five years after the first eviction notices were issued.” 122

This type of legal maneuvering on the part of development companies in their so-called

“relationships” with the communities, in which a development was being proposed, is a well- known settler-occupier strategy that is continues to be deployed in the ongoing expropriation of

Indigenous lands. It is intended to wear down resistance to the loss of lands, and is an example that reveals how 1) exhausting, 2) long, 3) time consuming, 4) expensive, 5) and knowledge- support demanding, the fight to remain on the land was, and still is, for Kānaka Maoli fighting against a foreign imposed system to which they were never trained to navigate.

Heʻeia Kea residents were not the only group appealing their evictions in court (see Fig.

5). Residents in Chinatown and tenants in Waiahole-Waikāne were also appealing evictions. In the Waiahole-Waikāne case, the appeals were based on similar demands by residents, long-term leases at fair and reasonable rents, expansion of agriculture, integrity and lifestyle of the community, and community involvement in regional planning. 123

The mobilization efforts were grass-roots but included other organized groups like Kōkua

Hawaiʻi, students from the University of Hawaiʻi, and other groups and coalitions (see fig. 5), who had earlier coalesced around anti-eviction protests in Kālama Valley. 124 Looking like the evictions were going to manifest, the residents used a blockade strategy.

122 Ibid.

123 Jacqueline Lasky, “Waiāhole-Waikāne,” A Nation Rising, Hawaiian Movements for Life, Land, and Sovereignty , eds. Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua, Ikaika Hussey, and Erin Kahunawaikaʻala Wright (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014), 54.

124 Ibid., 56.

62

In 1976, when it was apparent that the police were on their way to Waiāhole-Waikāne

(sentries had been posted), to evict the residents, the community and fellow-protesters stood in the road to defend their homes, empowering themselves in a collective show of willful force and strength. In doing so, Elizabeth Marks, land owner, was forced to meet the demands of the residents allowing the Waiāhole-Waikāne community the ability to live as they always have and without fear of forced removal from their ʻāina. 125

Figure 5. Stop All evictions Now March Begins , Ed Greevy, 1976, Ed Greevyʻs Photo Collection. 126

As for Heʻeia Kea, in 1980, Leialoha “Rocky” Kaluhiwa, a Heʻeia lineal descendant of the Komomua lineage (McCabe, Jones, Hewett), and resident of Heʻeia Kea, was hoping to arrange a meeting with HECO executives to discuss alternative plans that would be more compatible with the environment and resonate with the community at large. Her request was delivered and the company responded in print acknowledging her request but indicating that the

125 Ibid., 60.

126 Ed Greevy’s Photo Collection, accessed March, 2020, http://ulukau.org/apo/cgi-bin/edgreevy?e=d-0edgreevy--0- 0--010---4---Doc-text---0-1l--1en-Zz-1---10-about---00031-00110escapewin- 00&a=d&c=edgreevy&cl=CL3.12&d=D254 .

63

Heʻeia Kea’s case, appealed to the Supreme Court, was scheduled to be heard within the next week. 127

One strategy of the Heʻeia Kea community was to question HECO’s legal standing as an owner of the property they were living on. In January of 1982, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Hawaiian Electric Co. entering into a lease agreement with the Bishop

Estate seventeen years prior. In the same month, the State Public Utilities Commission’s decision dismissing a complaint brought by the Heʻeia Kea residents opposed to the acquisition of 219 acres of land at Heʻeia Kea from Bishop Estate was affirmed by Justice Herman Lum, who ruled against the residents on all issues raised in their appeal. 128

HECO, in their lease agreement with the Bishop Estate, was still obligated to buy the

Heʻeia Kea land within thirty years from the start of their lease agreement. HECO attempted to revive its controversial plans for the construction of a residential subdivision on 87 acres of land.

In the meantime, the City Council was conducting a public hearing on the proposed downzoning for Windward properties, of which 87 acres in Heʻeia Kea would be down zoned from residential to agricultural. HECO wanted the land to remain in residential zoning in order to build the proposed subdivision. HECO then proposed to build 15 percent of the units for low and moderate income buyers and to convey lots in fee simple to the 12 current residents, donate land for a park and contribute $1.1 million dollars for a sewer line. 129 Leialoha “Rocky” Kaluhiwa, who was the spokesperson at the time for Heʻeia Kea and Meadow Lands Community Association, initially

127 Beverly Futa, “Heeia-Kea Residents Battle HECO Project,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), July 1, 1980, page A-2.

128 Pat Guy, “Court Confirms PUC’s Decision,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), January 26, 1982, page A- 18.

129 “Downzoning Is Opposed,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI). November 17, 1983, page A-17.

64 supported the proposed changes, as she understood that those changes would promote negotiations between the Heʻeia Kea residents and HECO who had for the past ten years had been trying to evict them. 130

Heʻeia Kea residents were now being subjected to a settler-mediated co-optation strategy.

It wasn’t enough that the eviction battle with HECO absorbed ten years of the residents’ lives.

The ultimate slap in the face was the quid-pro-quo extraction attempt by HECO of the eleven

Heʻeia Kea families being relocated. HECO was willing to relocate the eleven families within the Heʻeia Kea subdivision being planned but there was a cost attached to the relocation.

A public hearing was called by then State Representative Robert Nakata and then City

Council Chairwoman, Patsy Mink. In that hearing, HECO was accused of blackmail and abuse of power. According to one resident, “Those who agreed to be relocated by Hawaiian Electric also had to pledge to testify in favor of the company’s plans at all public hearings on the development.” 131 Jerry Kaluhiwa, Rocky’s husband and a key member of the association, said an agreement had been signed by all but one of the families. He was opposed to the agreement, saying that he might be risking immediate eviction for speaking out but that he wouldn’t be bought off. 132

According to Peter Lewis, HECO’s vice president for administration, “What the agreement amounts to is that we are giving the families 9,000 to 12,000 square-foot lots free. If that’s abuse of power, so be it.” 133 The next day, HECO’s spokesperson Doug Carlson, told the

130 Ibid.

131 Phil Mayer, “Heeia Kea-Heco Dispute Gets Hot,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), April 6, 1984, page A- 3.

132 Ibid.

133 Ibid. 65

Honolulu Advertiser that “HECO decided “‘very positively’” to work with beachfront tenants at

Heeia Kea to avoid the prospects of renewed confrontation that hung over the project through much of the 1970s.” 134 He explained that ten of the eleven tenants supported the HECO proposal and that as part of the agreement, HECO would provide the families homes within the subdivision and that the lots would be conveyed to members of the Heeia Kea Community

Association in fee simple for $10.00. 135 Of course, agreement to the plan was predicated on

HECO getting its own development plan approved. Under review for a zoning change, HECO expected that tenants would be in full public support of any changes to the plan and in exchange, the tenants who had signed the agreement would receive land to live on.

One of the results of the public hearing was the initiation of a plan, by then City Council

Chairwoman Patsy Mink, to look into the possibility of buying the Heʻeia Kea land using federal

Community Development Block funding. 136

In May of 1988, HECO vice president, Peter C. Lewis announced that an agreement had been reached to sell the 219 acre Heeia Kea land, which had been the subject of controversy and litigation since 1975. 137

Two interesting things to note in the Honolulu Star Bulletin article at the time. First,

Malama Pacific Corp., a HECO subsidiary, held 50 percent interest in the property in joint venture with the Gentry Company. Second, the joint venture described the Heʻeia Kea tenants as

134 Gerald Kato, “No coercion against tenants in Heeia Kea, HECO says,” Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), April 7, 1984, page B-3.

135 Ibid.

136 “Council to study Heeia Kea housing plan,” Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), April 26, 1984, page A-6.

137 Peter Wagner, “Hawaiian Electric abandons housing plan,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), May 6, 1988, page A-3.

66

“squatters.” Squatter is defined as a person who settles on land or occupies property without title, right, or payment of rent. In the thirteen years of controversy between HECO and the Heʻeia Kea residents, it had never been reported that the tenants were squatters or that they were not paying rent. Now, on the brink of losing the battle for Heʻeia Kea, disparaging remarks, such as

“squatters,” were cast out to discredit the residents.

The next major turn of events, in February 1989, occured when the Japanese firm

Nanatomi Hawaiʻi Inc. purchased the 220-acre Heʻeia Kea parcel with plans to develop only thirty homes and a sports complex. 138 By November of the same year, Nanatomi disclosed plans for a private golf course and three-dozen high-priced homes in Heʻeia Kea. 139 It certainly sounded like a private, gated community, with their own golf course, was being planned for the

220-acre parcel.

Heʻeia Kea and Heʻeia Uli as Sites for Golf Courses

As Nanatomi was making plans for Heʻeia Kea, Bishop Estate was in talks behind the scenes to sell the Heʻeia wetlands for a golf course. The Honolulu Star Bulletin reported that the

Bishop Estate was in negotiation with a Japanese investor who wanted to purchase the 422-acre wetland. 140 Out of concern for the preservation of the wetland, the state was being urged to

138 Herb Lee, a well-known Kanaka Maoli community member was the project consultant and would go on to become one of the founders of the Waikalua Loko Fishpond Preservation Society.

139 Andy Yamaguchi, “Homeowner golf-course eyed,” Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), Oct. 4, 1989, page D-2.

140 Llewellyn K. Young Jr. “Our island culture erodes as foreign dollars take over,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), November 7, 1989.

67 acquire the Heʻeia wetland. 141 Golf courses were money-making investments and the Heʻeia wetland was looking like the kind of profit-making opportunity that investors and the Bishop

Estate had been interested in since 1959.

There is no mistaking here, the invasive reach of settler-owned development and realty corporations and their duplicitous relations with the Bishop Estate. Almost all of the land deals negotiated in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa required the solicitation of, and/or a partnership with the land owner, Bishop Estate. The reason for the proposed sale of the Heʻeia wetland was made clear by

Bishop Estate trustee, Henry Peters at a community meeting as “A straight up business transaction meant to generate the cash necessary to operate the Kamehameha Schools, though he would not disclose who the buyer was or the sale price, he said, because of confidentiality.” 142

He added, “This is a business transaction, weʻre getting a good deal for selling that property.” 143

Obviously any notions of cultural sustainability and preservation of ‘Ōiwi ʻāina was not on the mind of trustee Peters, and was reflective of the profit-oriented mission of the estate, as related by Peters when he said, “Cold cash is what it takes,” in reference to management of the

Kamehameha Schools. When reminded by Haunani-Kay Trask, member of Kupaʻa Heʻeia, a group dedicated to preserving the wetland, that, “The estate was a charitable trust, created to educate children and not build golf courses, hotels or residential units for profit,” 144 Peters responded by asking, “How do you propose to pay the salaries of the estateʻs more than 1,000

141 Lucy Young, “State Urged to buy Heeia meadowlands to head off golf course, Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), April 14, 1988, page A-3.

142 David Oshiro, “Peters defends Bishop Estate’s sale of Heeia wetlands,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), January 11, 1990, page A-4.

143 Ibid.

144 Ibid.

68 employees- the bulk of them teachers?” 145 Peters failed to mention how much money each trustee would potentially make from the sale of Heʻeia Uli.

This is how the empire works. In From A Native Daughter, Colonialism Sovereignty in

Hawaiʻi Trask argues that:

Modern Hawai‘i, like its colonial parent the United States, is a settler society; that is, Hawai‘i is a society in which the indigenous culture and people have been murdered, suppressed, or marginalized for the benefit of settlers who now dominate our islands. In settler societies, the issue of civil rights is primarily an issue about how to protect settlers against each other and against the state. Injustices done against Native people, such as genocide, land dispossession, language banning, family disintegration, and cultural exploitation, are not part of this intrasettler discussion and are therefore not within the parameters of civil rights. 146

Trask’s words here, give focus to the main point of the three to four decades-long story of the attempt to take the lands at Heʻeia and turn them into modern money making vehicles.

Trask’s remarks are concise, clear, true and powerful. It is really what the whole story is saying as developers returned to this land again and again, and the community remained steadfast in the forefront of development.

International Pacific Development, Inc. and the Heʻeia Wetland

In the case of the sale of the Heʻeia wetland and Heʻeia Kea, secret deals and negotiations were in the works. In trying to track down the buyer for the Heʻeia wetland, the labyrinth of connections became clearer. While Henry Peters would not disclose the name of the potential buyer for the wetland, the Honolulu Advertiser was connecting the International Pacific

145 Ibid.

146 Haunani-Kay Trask, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai‘i . Revised ed. (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1999), 25.

69

Development, Inc. (IPDI), “A Hawaiʻi company with a Japanese investor to the sale of the wetland. The attorney representing the potential buyer, Keith Kiuchi, declined to identify

them. 147

Kiuchi was also the personal attorney of Clarence M. “Mits” Okura, a contractor- developer affiliated with IPDI who had been convicted in 1984 of seventeen counts of felony theft related to an investment scheme he operated in 1977-81. 148 Kiuchi and Okura were long- time friends. IPDI marketing consultant, Brad Denis, revealed that IPDI had talked with federal conservation officials about the possibility of building a golf course on the Heʻeia wetland site but said he could not disclose details of the company’s plans. Keith Kiuchi, who had represented

IPDI in a suit brought against Okura, said that IPDI was not the buyer of the wetland. State business records show that while Okura was in jail in 1988, his wife and son were officers and directors of IPDI. 149

When asked about Okura’s involvement with the Heʻeia wetland proposal, Kiuchi indicated the need to clear any release of information through his client first. Bishop Estate would not comment on the pending sale of the Heʻeia property, however it was revealed that, “Two Japanese businessmen, Takeshi Yamazaki and Hisao Hayakawa, had invested $720,000 in cash to IPDI, according to state record. 150 Yamazaki denied any involvement or knowledge of the Heʻeia deal but admitted to knowing Clarence Okura and investing in IPDI, which he

147 Stu Glauberman, “Isle firm linked to Heeia golf course,” Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu: HI), January 12, 1990, page A-14.

148 James Dooley, “Land Swindler linked to Heeia wetlands project,” Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), January 21, 1990, page A-1.

149 Ibid.

150 Ibid.

70 claimed he was no longer involved in. Hayakawa also said that he had no knowledge of the Heʻeia deal. 151

Governor John Waiheʻe, and a Bishop Estate Land Exchange

In the fight to save the Heʻeia nenelu from development, community members took positions of support in the effort. 152 One of them was Karen Mitsuda, a member of a grassroots group that gathered 2,500 signatures in three weekends to protest the possible sale of the wetland. Little did she know that support would also come from then governor, John Waiheʻe.

John Waiheʻe was the first Kanaka Maoli elected as governor of Hawaiʻi. At the end of his 1990 State-of-the-State address, Waiheʻe pledged to save Heʻeia saying, “We are not Oahu without Heeia. If we lose Heeia today, we lose part of ourselves forever.” 153

Harold Matsumoto, then director of the Office of Planning, indicated that the state may try to buy the land, swap it, or deny permits through the regulatory process to stop development.

Bishop Estate trustee, Henry Peters, said that if the sale of the Heʻeia wetland fell through, the estate would consider a land swap with the state. 154 According to Matsumoto, Bishop had expressed interest in exchanging the Heʻeia property for state land in Kakaʻako. Kupaʻa Heʻeia was pleased that Waiheʻe went on record supporting the preservation of Heʻeia, as did John

Reppun, also a member of Kupaʻa Heʻeia. At this time there were only two leases out on the wetland, by two cattle and horse ranchers. One of those ranchers was David Costa, who had

151 Ibid.

152 Linda Hosek, “Governor’s support gives boost to efforts to protect Heeia area,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), January 23, 1990, page A-4.

153 Ibid.

154 Ibid.

71 lived in the wetlands for twenty-seven years on a month-to-month lease from Bishop Estate raising cattle, horses and pigs. Costa was in favor of preservation. 155 In 1990, serious discussions began between the state and Bishop Estate on a Heʻeia-Kakaʻako land exchange. At this time

Neil Hannahs was the property manager for the estate and by January of 1991, the state acquired the 420-acre wetland and a key parcel for its planned Kakaʻako waterfront park from the Bishop

Estate. Bishop Estate got a 137,562-square-foot parcel of state land at Ala Moana and Ahui

Streets valued at $43,466,000 with commercial development allowed. The state waived the

$11,291,500 in public-facility dedication fees owed by the Bishop Estate to the Hawaiʻi

Community Development Authority, which oversees Kakaʻako redevelopment. It was also revealed at this time that indeed, International Pacific Development, Inc. had been the potential buyer of the Heʻeia wetland.

Heʻeia Kea

In August of 1992, Nanatomi abandoned its plan to develop a golf course and residential development in Heʻeia Kea valley and sold the 220-acre Heʻeia Kea to a California firm, M.K.

Pacific Realty. By 1993, amendments to the city’s development plan to redesignate Heʻeia Kea for preservation from park, golf courses and residential use. In 1994, M.K. Pacific Realty and the community were meeting with each other with a lawyer acting as mediator. 156 The company had agreed to limit housing development to 45 homes on 17.5 acres of land at the north end of the plot. The remaining land would be placed in a public trust.

155 Ibid.

156 Honolulu Star Bulletin, “Heeia Keaʻs future,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), March 30, 1994, page A- 18.

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Center for a Sustainable Future

The Center for a Sustainable Future (CFS) was a private non-profit corporation affiliated with the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. The institute was made up of a conglomerate of scientists, engineers, and economists, whose goals were to, “Address long-range technological issues arriving from the need to achieve sustainable development, CFS was focused on Hawaiʻi, the tropical Pacific and the Pacific Rim.” 157 The president of CFS was C. Barry Raleigh, then

Dean of the School of Ocean and Earth Science Technology at the University of Hawaiʻi (UH).

Founded by Kenneth Brown, Tommy Holmes, and James Gaines, then director of Materials

Science Program at UH, CFS chief scientists were Professors Ed Laws and Fred Mackenzie of

UH. The CFS was established with funding from the H.K. Castle Foundation. 158 CFS would come to play a role in the establishment of ARCH as a community organization whose compatible goals were the restoration of the Heʻeia Ahupuaʻa.

In November of 1998, C. Barry Raleigh sent letters to the Bishop Museum, Castle

Foundation, Community Trust, Department of Education, Department of Land and Natural

Resources (DLNR), Friends of Heʻeia, Hawaiʻi Community Foundation, Kailua Bay Advisory

Committee, Kāneʻohe Neighborhood Board, Mālama Hawaiʻi, Nature Conservancy, Polynesian

Voyaging Society, Queen Liliʻuokalani Children’s Center and the Queen’s Health Center letting these entities know that, “Efforts by several community groups on the windward side to

157 Brook Bays, “CFS Center For A Sustainable Future,” CFS, School of Ocean Earth and Earth Science Technology, 2003, http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/csf/csf_center.html .

158 Ibid.

73 reconstruct the ahupuaʻa at Heʻeia was gathering momentum and that he wanted to broaden the coalition to be sure that everyone with interests in the project could participate.” 159

Raleigh’s presumptuous correspondence stated, “We are proposing to various private and public funding sources to support the reconstruction of an ahupuaʻa that includes Heʻeia pond and the undeveloped land of the valley extending about 1.5 miles mauka and 1 mile north of the pond.” 160 The letter went on to state a “desire for community involvement (important in policing and enforcing kapu)” 161 while spelling out a vision of collaboration with the DLNR and

Kāneʻohe Bay Regional Council, 162 scientists at the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology

(HIMB), and students of Kamehameha Schools whose goal would be, “The education of the next generation of Hawaiʻi’s adult inhabitants in the reverential stewardship of their special environment.” 163

At first glance Raleigh’s letter sounds impressive, but a closer inspection of the proposal proved a bit bold and arrogant, particularly a section regarding the acquisition of ʻāina in the

Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, mainly the Heʻeia wetland and fishpond, and how that effort would commence.

The letter implied that conversations were being had within the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

159 C. Barry Raleigh, “Letter to Carole McLean, Executive Director of the Friends of the “Friends of Heʻeia State Park” SOEST, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Honolulu, 1998, correspondence, page 1.

160 Ibid. 161 Ibid. 162 The Kāneʻohe Bay Regional Council was created by a statute established by the 1993 State of Hawaiʻi legislature and administered by the Department of Land and Natural Resources. Their operative was to create a master plan for ocean use activities in Kaneʻohe Bay, facilitate communication between users of the bay and the general public, advise and make recommendations to the State and county on matters regarding the use of Kāneʻohe Bay,establish a fishing panel, to monitor fishing activities in the bay, initiate and maintain contact with public, private, county, and state organizations and individuals engaging in activities in Kāneʻohe Bay and to hold quarterly meetings on the status of the implementation of the master plan. KBRC was essentially a kiaʻi or guardian of Kāneʻohe Bay. http://dlnr.hawaii.gov/dar/kaneohe-bay-regional-council/ .

163 C. Barry Raleigh, “Letter to Carole McLean, Executive Director of the Friends of the “Friends of Heʻeia State Park” (SOEST, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Honolulu,1998), pages 2-3.

74 initiated by SOEST about the wish to “Replicate the practices of the pre-contact Hawaiians who place coastal areas off-limits to fishing for a time needed for the fishery to recover.” 164 The letter included the following statement:

The project will be managed by a full time executive director from the local community with experience in ecosystem management. A management council composed of the active participants from the consortium of organizations involved will be responsible for the annual plans and budget. The Board responsible for the general policy, approval of budget, funding proposals over $50,000 and final resolution of disputes will be the Board of Directors of the Center for a Sustainable Future (CFS). The executive director will be appointed by and report to that board. The land, including the Heʻeia pond, will need to be held under a long-term lease from DLNR and Bishop Estates. A few privately owned parcels will remain held by their owners but they are small enough that their use will not interfere with the project. The project will require 15 years until completion. Until the land is secured, it will not be reasonable to seek funding for the project. The lessee will be the Center for a Sustainable Future, Inc. (CSF). 165

The letter ended with a roster of CFS board members, an impressive list of scholars, educators, scientists, a developer and politician, and most importantly, funders. Included on that list were two well-known and prestigious Kanaka ʻŌiwi men, Kenneth F. Brown, an architect and at the time, Chairman of the Queen Emma Foundation, and Myron B. Thompson, former trustee of the

Bishop Estate and then President of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.

Others included J. B. McIntosh, investor, and then chairman of both Kāneʻohe Ranch and

H. K. Castle Foundation; Duncan McNaughton, a Honolulu developer for the McCormack

Corporation at the time; and Hawaiʻi State representative, Jerry Chang. Other significant members of the CFS board included physician Stephen Pauley (Edwin W. Pauley Foundation) and his wife, Marylyn Pauley (Board of Trustees at Pomona College); Amar Bose, Ph.D., chief executive at Bose Corporation; James Gaines, Ph.D., Chair of the Physics Department at UH

164 Ibid.

165 Ibid., 3-4. 75

Mānoa; C. Barry Raleigh, Ph.D., Dean of SOEST at UH Mānoa; and Dean O. Smith, Ph.D.,

Senior Vice President and Vice Chancellor of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. It was a powerhouse of a corporate board; its members erudite and with influential connections who could potentially fund the vision of reconstructing the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, but who was CFS and who were these people?

Ideas of Restoration in Heʻeia

The public meeting that took place at Windward Community College in 1998 became, for me, a personal juncture at the crossroads of Heʻeia. It was at this community meeting, my first, that I met members of my own Heʻeia community; unknown extended family members who were lineal descendants of Heʻeia, educators, scientists, lay persons, and generally concerned members of the public. Little did I know that many of those people who I had met on that day would continue to gather as founding members of a grass-roots hui or community organization, initially known as the Community Restoration Association of Heʻeia, and later, after a revised name change, the Ahupuaʻa Restoration Council of Heʻeia (ARCH). In retrospect, notions of restoring the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa were borne from this community meeting that was sparked by a letter from CFS looking to build collaboration for such an endeavor, something no one thought possible in Heʻeia at the time.

By March of 1999, planning for the restoration project was needed. According to

Raleigh, “The lease of the Heʻeia pond with KSBE and CFS has been concluded and access to the wetlands is under negotiation but appears promising.” 166 A master plan was needed to guide the restoration project. More critically, consulting the public was necessary in order to insure any

166 C. Barry Raleigh, correspondence from Center for a Sustainable Future, March 30, 1999. 76 kind of success in the project. A public meeting was scheduled for establishing masterplanning groundwork for the project with a presentation by principals, George Atta and Francis Oda, of the highly successful planning and architectural firm Group 70 International of Honolulu. This meeting took place on April 12th, 1999 at Windward Community College and led to the formation of a strong community-based organization that gave rise to a continuing restoration of the ahupuaʻa.

The Ahupuaʻa Restoration Council of Heʻeia

The Ahupuaʻa Restoration Council of Heʻeia (ARCH) was organized in 1998 as a response to a public community meeting that CSF called at Windward Community College. By

1999 ARCH was formed as a community organization whose goals were to restore the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, beginning with the loko iʻa and the Heʻeia nenelu, to build community capacity for those activities, to facilitate community meetings between HIMB, CFS, and the Heʻeia community, to implement an ʻōiwi systematizing structure (representation by ʻili), and formally establish ARCH as a 501c 3 nonprofit organization (NPO) to raise funds and develop expertise for the restoration activities.

Ideas of reconstructing the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, or any ahupuaʻa, had not really been on anybody’s radar at that time. The aftermath of statehood in 1959 had brought devastating economic, socio-cultural, political, and health impacts for Kanaka Maoli. Settler entrenchment continued, installation of the military industrial complex, tourism, and the development of

Waikīkī as a tourist mecca, all served to sever Kānaka Maoli from their lands and their culture.

The late 1960s and early 1970s Native Hawaiian political movement was triggered by the economic disenfranchisement of the marginalized in Hawaiʻi, particularly Kānaka Maoli, and 77 commenced with events having directly to do with residential land evictions and desecration of

ʻāina. The physical removal and evictions of the residents in the community of Kalama Valley and the bombing of Kanaloa Kahoʻolawe would serve, as Trask wrote, “A lesson in the need for community resistance against the onslaught of land development.” 167

The grassroots organization, ARCH, was composed of members who were active in the community: kupa ʻāina, lineal descendants from the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, community organizers, and concerned citizens. Among them were Rocky and Jerry Kaluhiwa, kahu of Heʻeia Kea who were still fighting eviction by the city; Mary Brooks, kahu of the Heʻeia loko iʻa; Josephine “Jo”

Patacsil; Bud Henry; Marion Kelly; Stephen Kubota of the Ahupuaʻa Action Alliance;

Kawaikapuokalani Hewett, kumu hula from Heʻeia and his alakaʻi, Mapuana Ringler, and haumana, Pat Gooch; Carole McLean from Friends of Heʻeia State Park; Florence Kelly;

Lahilahi Powell; Lono Correa; Damien Gilding; Ron Walker; (myself) and Wali Camvel; Donald

Gentzler; and others.

The mission statement for ARCH, vetted with full community engagement and support in

1999 was to preserve, protect and restore the natural, cultural, ecological, and spiritual integrity of the ahupuaʻa of Heʻeia. The board structure for ARCH was composed of the following officers and directors as illustrated in Table 1, on the following page.

Table 1. Founding Governance Board for ARCH.

Directors Haʻikū Valley Resident Director Wali Camvel Cultural Practitioner ʻIolekaʻa Valley Donald Gentzler Resident Director Donna Camvel Cultural Practitioner ‘Āhuimanu Valley Damien Gilding Resident Director Pat Gooch Cultural Practitioner

167 Haunani-Kay Trask, “The Birth of the Modern Hawaiian Movement: Kalama Valley, Oʻahu,” The Hawaiian Journal of the Pacific , 21, (1987): 21. 78

Heʻeia Hema Charla Jones Resident Director Jerry Kaluhiwa Cultural Practitioner Heʻeia Uli Florence Kelly Resident Director Jo Patacsil Cultural Practitioner Heʻeia Kea Rocky Kaluhiwa Resident Director Mapuana Ringler Cultural Practitioner Heʻeia Makai Bud Henry Resident Director Cultural Practitioner Source: ARCH archives.

From its inception, the community organization was inclusive, holding bimonthly meetings advertised in the paper, welcoming all residents, stakeholders, and anybody interested in restoration. Also, from the outset, governance of the organization set out to achieve congruence between Western style non-profit management models of operation and Hawaiian cultural values. One of the ways this was accomplished was to structure the fourteen member board with two members from each of the seven ʻili of the ahupuaʻa—with one member representing residents from that ʻili and the other member a cultural practitioner from that ʻili. It was an attempt to stay away from Western dominated forms of meeting procedures such as

Robertʻs Rules, choosing instead to use consensus as a method of decision making.

The historical actions taken by the Heʻeia community in the 1960s to preserve Heʻeia

Kea, the Heʻeia wetland and fishpond, led to academic (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa) interest in Heʻeia as a site for ahupuaʻa restoration with community participation and collaborative partnerships during the early 1990s. Those actions became the impetus in the formation of

ARCH, whose work was the foundational building block leading to the restoration of the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa today. In part, and as a result of that fulcrum, the restoration taking place today at the three case study sites of this research, is articulated as a moʻolelo, one that writes back against the dominant colonial settler narrative, rehabilitates ʻŌiwi narratives, positing the Kanaka Maoli voice as principal as opposed to historically subordinate. 79

80

CHAPTER 3: ʻIOLEKAʻA, RETURNING TO ʻĀINA

We are the Land, and the Land is Ancestor

“My veins are carrying the blood of a people who understand the sacredness of land and water. This is my culture and no matter how remote the past is, it does not make my culture extinct.”

George Helm

The quote above, stated by the late and revered Kanaka ʻŌiwi political activist George

Helm, argues Hawaiian identity as inseparable from the Hawaiian environment. Kānaka ʻŌiwi identity is symbiotic with ʻāina. Kānaka Maoli might describe that relationship as a synergistic bond grounded in a reciprocal relationship with all living (tangible and intangible) entities

(human and non-human) and their environments. In other words, the continuum of Kānaka Maoli ea, or life breath, is maintained through the movement of life throughout time and dimension, over the generations, and is underpinned primarily by relationships to and with ʻāina.

This chapter focuses on the the first of three case studies within the single ahupua‘a, the first of three sites of restoration, mauka to makai, at Heʻeia—founded on the relationship between the Līhuʻe, Kahanu, Paoa, Kea, Lono ʻOhana and their ʻāina kuleana, located in

ʻIolekaʻa on the windward side of Oʻahu. The family currently residing on and restoring this land is descendant from the original land claim awardee and have maintained presence on the ʻāina kuleana since 1839.

The chapter begins with a description of ʻIolekaʻa followed by a review of the kuleana’s land tenure. In the case of ʻIolekaʻa, its land tenure is made up of the ancestral lineage of the

ʻohana. It is uncommon today to find an unbroken chain of ancestral tenure or presence still living on ʻāina kuleana that was awarded in 1848. The study will reveal keys to how the ‘ohana 81 has accomplished this, and thus having preserved title and laid a foundation for restoration, how it is now able to carry the culture forward on the land.

The chapter proceeds to examine three kahu of this land, one of which is the author of this research study. The lived experiences of the kahus provides a background over the last fifty years, and contextualizes mālama ʻāina or resource and land management strategies used by the family. The stories impart a tactual component to this research, bringing actions to the words written across these pages.

The chapter concludes with discussion on state government and jurisdictional difficulties in managing ʻāina kuleana under the occupying settler state, interfacing strategies for land use and food production, challenges and successes, succession planning, and plans for the future.

ʻIolekaʻa

The ʻili of ʻIolekaʻa is located in the ahupuaʻa of Heʻeia on the island of Oʻahu. It is bounded in the north by the ʻili of Paʻaukiʻi, the ʻili of Waipao in Haʻikū Valley to the south, the

ʻili of Hoi to the east and over the ridge of the valley mountain, to the west by Hālawa valley.

ʻIolekaʻa is enveloped within a lush and verdantly forested valley. Upon entering this land, one is impressed by three main characteristics of the place: it is stunningly situated at the base of the mountain, it is very wet, and it is relatively remote when compared to the other sites in this study, as it is non-contiguous with the settler-designed environments further ma kai. In other words, though all three sites are cultural kīpuka, this place is a literal kīpuka in addition to a metaphorical one.

The geological features of the ʻili itself consist of numerous gulches and ravines, some which rise from the valley floor, its sheer palis reaching nearly one thousand feet in elevation to 82 the clouds above it. Under the upper forested canopies are trails, ahu, heiau, habitation sites, terraces, ʻauwai and streams (fig. 6).

The kumuwai or fresh water source, comes from a cavity at the base of ʻIolekaʻa waterfall, providing water for the stream called by the same name. A second source of wai comes from a waterfall known as Kaiwikeʻe. 168 These bodies of water (Kaiwikeʻe and ʻIolekaʻa), converge and flow, eventually joining Haʻikū stream near the entrance to Haʻikū Plantations and becoming Heʻeia stream once it crosses into Makaweliweli ma kai of Kahekili Highway in the

ʻili of Hoi. The Heʻeia stream is one of the main water sources for the entire Heʻeia ahupua’a, bringing life-sustaining freshwaters to the fishpond and contributing to the balanced ecology of the bay.

Fig. 6, ‘Ioleka’a, Donna Camvel, 2016, private collection. 169

The upper reaches of ʻIolekaʻa are filled with the legacy of Hawaiian forebears. Many foundations for hale, small ahu, and heiau are hidden within a thick forest of introduced bamboo.

168 Handy notes (1991, p. 197), “A small stream named Kaiwikeʻe flows into ʻIolekaʻa from southwestward in the Koʻolau range. Up all those valleys are old loʻi, now abandoned.”

169 Donna Camvel, ‘Iolekaʻa, 2016, private collection. 83

Remnants of walled terraces are evident all about when traveling ma uka on the ala or trail to the kumuwai of ʻIolekaʻa. These terraces are indicative of either māla, loʻi, or hale foundations. The main path leading ma uka from the ʻāina kuleana is bordered by ʻIolekaʻa stream. The interfluve, or land area that separates the adjacent streams of ʻIolekaʻa and Kaiwikeʻe, also serves as a directional landmark when traveling further up into the valleys of ʻIolekaʻa or Kaiwikeʻe. When rainfall reaches its maximum peak during pulse events, magnificent cascading waterfalls flow, engorging the streams to full and sometimes beyond capacity in their wake, leaving the small gulches and valleys engulfed with swiftly flowing flood waters quickly moving downstream.

When this happens, nearly every one of the ten waterfalls of ʻIolekaʻa are fully flowing, offering a spectacular sight of the power of wai.

Flora and Fauna

The first step in the restoration of a place is to observe and be able to describe the place.

Years of observations, research, and in time simply coming to know in intimate ways the lay of the land is how one begins to see ʻāina beyond its first appearance. Years of weeding, clearing, planting, mowing, chopping, whacking, harvesting, hiking into the upper reaches of the valley, site visits, immersing, crying, bleeding, laughing, compiling inventories of the flora, fauna, and historical sites, and the maintenance of ʻIolekaʻa stream over the last twenty-five years have been the way the ʻāina has taught us how to know and love her.

Living in the environment has culminated in years of attentive examinations of the various flora located in the valley. The following list is by no means an exhaustive list, as we have never traversed up to the ridgeline, however our collection of data is more than sufficient at this time. 84

The interior of ʻIolekaʻa valley is filled predominantly with Chinese ʻohe, or bamboo

(Bambusa vulgaris ), hau ( Hibiscus tiliaceus ), hala ( Pandanus tectorius, screwpine ), mountain apple or ʻōhiʻa ʻai ( Syzygium malaccense ), manakō or mango ( Mangifera indica ), kukui

(Aleurites moluccana), rose apple ( Syzygium jambos ), ʻulu or breadfruit ( Artocarpus altilis ), kī or tī leaf plant ( Cordyline fruticosa ), hōʻio fern ( Diplazium athyriaceae ), birdnest fern ( Asplenium nidus ), lauaʻe ( Phymatosorus scolopendria ), and uluhe ( Dicranopteris linearis ). Other ferns abundant in ʻIolekaʻa are the palaʻā or lace fern (Sphenomeris chinesis), palapalai ( Microlepia strigosa ), kupukupu ( Nephrolepis cordifolia ), maidenhair ( Adiantum capillus-veneris ), swordfern ( Nephrolepis multiflora ), and mule foot fern ( Angiopteris evecta ). In general, the

Pteris genus of ferns, of which there are about three hundred species located in the tropical or temperate parts of the world with a large amount located in Hawaiʻi. Some of these genera of ferns have been observed in the forest of ʻIolekaʻa.

A few varieties of maiʻa or banana ( Musa acuminate ) are planted. Many of the original planted stands of maiʻa (apple, Williams, cooking) have given way over the last twenty-five years to what is known as the Babuvirus or, the banana bunchy top virus which continues to plague the remaining banana trees. While the bananas grown from these trees can remain edible, treating bunchy top is ongoing and often requires a complete removal of the stands of maiʻa with no guarantee that the host of the disease, the banana aphid ( Pentalonia nigronervosa Coquerel ) is not left behind. 170 As a result, constant observation is needed for both treatment and harvest of banana.

170 “Plants infected early with BBTV do not bear fruit, and fruit of later-infected plants is typically stunted and unmarketable. Additionally, the virus spreads to suckers via the rhizome; thus, the entire banana mat eventually becomes infected (Dale and Harding 1998). Infected banana plants in abandoned fields or residential backyards serve as an infection reservoir, making the battle against BBTV more challenging for actively engaged commercial farmers. Early detection followed by prompt destruction of the diseased plants is the key to the successful mitigation of BBTD.” College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources. https://cms.ctahr.hawaii.edu/wangkh/Research- and-Extension/Banana-IPM/Guidebook/CHPT2-BBTV. 85

Java plum ( Syzygium cumini) , Brazilian cherry tree, false Eucalyptus ( Eucalyptus goniocalyx ), ficus ( Ficus benjamina ), strawberry guava ( Psidium cattleianum Sabine ), gunpowder tree ( Trema orientalis), and a few African tulip ( Spathodea campanulata ) trees are also scattered within the kuleana. Throughout the valley, high up in the elevated palis, the heʻe or octopus tree ( Schefflera actinophylla ) continues its sweep into the ʻili nearly reaching the ridgeline of the mountain. Journeys into the higher elevated spheres of the valley reveal Native plants, i.e., maile ( Alyxia stellata ), swaths of ʻōhiʻa lehua ( Metrosideros polymorpha ) ʻēkaha

(Asplenium antiquum ), ʻieʻie ( Freycinetia arborea), and pāpala kēpau ( Pisonia umbellifera), known as the “bird catching tree.” 171 These can be seen when traveling into the waokele or upland forest.

Some of the more invasive or challenging introduced plant species proliferating in

ʻIolekaʻa are the Kosterʻs curse ( Clidemia hirta ), Spanish needle, or sticky weed ( Bidens pilosa

L. ), Honohono ( Commelina diffusa N.L. ), Hilahila or sleeping grass ( Mimosa pudica L. ), maile pilau ( Paederia scandens ), torpedo grass or wainaku grass ( Panicum repens L. ), lilikoʻi or passion fruit ( Passifloraceae ), highbush blackberry ( Rubus argutus ), thimbleberry ( Rubus rosifolius Sm. ), Wedelia ( Sphagneticola trilobata ), Oī or blue rattail ( Stachytarpheta dichotoma ), and cane tibouchina ( Tibouchina herbacea ).

A variety of tropical flowers also grow in ʻIolekaʻa. ʻAwaphui melemele or yellow ginger

(Hedychium flavescens ), ʻawapuhi kea or white ginger ( Hedychium coronarium ), shell ginger

(Alpinia zerumbet), yellow and white kāhili ginger ( Hedychium garnerianu ), ʻawapuhi kuahiwi

171 “Even though the fruits of the pāpala kēpau are extremely sticky and the adhesive stong enough to trap small birds, when touching the fruits, not sticky residue is left on a personʻs fingers!” “Native Pants Hawaiʻi, Pisonia umbellifera. http://nativeplants.hawaii.edu/plant/view/Pisonia_umbellifera . 86 or shampoo ginger ( Zingiber zerumbet ), and a variety of heleconia ( Heleconiaceae ). Analytically speaking, nearly all of the flora in the area is non-native.

Inventory of fauna begins with feral pigs ( Sus scrofa ), rats ( Rattus exulans ), and mongoose ( Herpestes javanicus ) who all live and forage in the ʻili. Resident birds are a mix of the common myna ( Acridotheres tristis ), doves ( Columba chinensis ), northern cardinals

(Cardinalis cardinalis ), red-crested cardinals ( Paroaria coronata ), red-vented bulbul ( P. Cafer bengalensis ), common waxbill ( Estrilda astrild ), the beautiful singing shama ( Copsychus malabaricus ), cattle egret ( Bubulcus ibis ) and the mallard duck ( (Anas platyrhyncho s).

There are the annual visits by the kōlea, or Pacific golden plovers ( Pluvialis fulva ), four of which return to ʻIolekaʻa year after year and are something that is not only looked forward to, but also indicative of seasonal changes as they return to vigorously defend their same winter feeding grounds year after year. 172

The streams are filled with small fish, green swordtails ( Xiphophorus helleri ), and discovered about five years ago, fresh-water shrimp ( Atyoida bisulcata ). Crayfish ( Cambarus sp. ), and Tahitian black prawns ( Macrobrachium lar ) are spotted in the stream every now and then, however, heavy rainfall events or stream surges sweep them beyond the kuleana’s borders downstream. We have yet to see ʻoʻopu but we have seen a few Chinese catfish ( Clarias fuscus) in the stream, which we immediately dispose of as they are known to proliferate and eat Native species of freshwater fish.

From the trail is a road that goes down the middle of the ʻāina; on the right is my uncle’s hale, and on the left is my hale (fig. 7). I inherited my mother’s hale when she passed on. With

172 Michael Shapiro, “Flight of the Navigators,” Hana Hou Magazine Issue 7.6 (December 2004/January 2005). https://hanahou.com/7.6/flight-of-the-navigators.

87 this event, my life changed forever, as I became the living kahu of an extraordinarily beautiful, productive, challenging, historical and deeply Hawaiian kuleana.

Fig. 7, The Middle Road , Wali Camvel, 2018, private collection. 173

On each side of the middle road are ancestrally-built stone-terraced loʻi, eight on the right, and seven on the left. More loʻi can be seen as one travels ma uka. The amount of terraces is another indication that large amounts of kalo were grown in the ʻili. Prior to the making of the road to accommodate the golf cart and ATV—used to facilitate passage on the quarter-mile trail from the end of the public road through the forest to the house—all of the loʻi were connected.

The loʻi were forty-feet in length and about seven to eight feet wide, which indicates a great extent of kalo. Water from the stream flows through pvc pipes placed in the original ʻauwai to water the loʻi and the management of that water is paramount.

173 Wali Camvel, The Middle Road , Wali Camvel, 2018, private collection. 88

Ancestral Land Tenure of ʻIolekaʻa

In order to know what one must do, one must know what was done before. In order to know what was done in the past, one needs to know one’s genealogy. Land tenure, in this chapter, is reflective of the ancestral genealogy of the Līhuʻe, Kahanu, Pāoa, Kea, Lono ʻohana and therefore establishes both tenure of the land and the source for ʻIke Kupuna for this ʻohana.

The Līhuʻe kuleana in ʻIolekaʻa, originally included three ʻāpana, a moʻo ʻāina ma uka, loʻi in

Heʻeia Uli and a pahale in Kalimaloa.

The two and a half acre ʻāina kuleana located in the ʻili of ʻIolekaʻa was registered in

1846 by Līhuʻe. Aside from the Māhele land claim awards, one census record and a reference to him in an article, 174 little information is available regarding the personage of Līhuʻe. What is known is that Līhuʻe received his land from Kalauwalu in 1839. 175 In 1878, Liʻikapeka, identified as daughter and heir of Līhuʻe, receives the kuleana parcel when her father dies.

Liʻikapeka and her husband are both identified as grantors (sellers) to Keola, the grantee or buyer. In 1906, Keola sold the kuleana to Helena Kea, Malia Kea, and Kamehaʻikū Kea.

A bit of genealogy and moʻolelo is required to understand the land tenure of ʻIolekaʻa by the Līhuʻe, Kahanu, Pāoa, Kea, Lono ʻohana. The moʻolelo of the ʻohana is that the women of the family are the ones who made sure that the ʻāina taxes were always paid, and the ʻāina kuleana was cared for.

Here is the genealogy that represents the way the ʻāina was passed down through the family

174 May Leinani Parker Au, “History of the Latter-Day Saint Church in Kāneʻohe Hawaiʻi,” Morman Pacific Historical Society , (1993).

175 In registering of his claim for the kuleana, Līhuʻe affirms, “Na Kalauwalu mai loaa i ka M.H. 1839. Aole mea keakea, or I received this land from Kalauwalu in the year 1839, no one objects.” Mahoe, a witness for Lihue, swears, “Ua ike au i kona aina ma ka ili [sic] o Iolekaa [sic], Heeia [sic], “I have seen his land in the ili of Iolekaa, Heeia.” Unihepa also swears, “Ua like no ka maua ike me Mahoe i hai ae nei,” “Our knowledge, myself and Mahoe, is the same as has been expressed. 89

Līhuʻe (k) + Unknown (w) = Keola (k) and Liʻikapeka (w)

Keola (k) + Kahanu Pāoa (w) = Helena Kea (w) Malia (Mary) Kea (w) Kamehaʻiku Kea (w)

Kamehaʻikū Kea (w) + Samuel Hoʻopiʻi Lono II (k) = Evelyn Domitilla Lono (w)

Evelyn Domitilla Lono (w) + Raymond Gouveia Jr. (k) = Anita Kahanupāoa Gouveia (w)

Anita Kahanupāoa Gouveia (w) + Donald Eugene Gentzler Jr. (k) = Kamehaʻikū Camvel

In 1906, Keola sold the land to Helena Kea, Malia Kea, and Kamehaʻikū Kea for $40.00.

The three Kea sisters were the daughters of Kahanupāoa who was hānai by Keola according to family moʻolelo. Kahanupāoa was mother to Kamehaʻikū Kea, who married Samuel Hoʻopiʻi

Lono Jr. Their daughter, Domitilla Evelyn Lono, was the mother of Anita Kahanupāoa Gouveia, my late mother. Thus has the land has passed down through the generations.

The Kea sisters, Malia, Helena, and Kamehaʻikū, sold the Crown Terrace and Aliʻi

Shores ʻāpana to Bishop Estate, who wanted to develop those lands for housing subdivisions.

Once the ʻāpana were sold, the only ‘apana left that belonged to the family was the moʻo ʻāina in the ʻili of ʻIolekaʻa. The family maintained tenure on the ʻāina kuleana until Kahanupāoa was forced to leave ʻIolekaʻa when the military used the land as a jungle warfare training site in preparation for WWII. The story of the current agri-cultural and socio-cultural restoration in the mauka lands of He‘eia begins in earnest with the post WWII story of the three most recent kahu of this land. 90

Samuel Hoʻopiʻi Lono III

According to the 1930 census, Samuel Hoʻopiʻi Lono III 176 was born in 1918 to Sam

Lono Jr. and Kamehaʻikū Kea Lono. He was the grandson of Kahanupāoa. Little is known about his childhood except that he received knowledge from his tutu from the age of 8. I remember him working at Windys Drive-In as a cook, where Burger King in Kāneʻohe is now.

A biography, furnished by his haumāna stated that, from 1973 to 1979, “Sam Lono taught classes on Hawaiian culture and religion at ʻIolekaʻa when he lost his sight and mobility. He has lectured at the University of Hawaiʻi, Community Colleges, and several high schools and intermediate schools throughout the state.” 177 Much of what I know about uncle’s time in the valley from the years of about 1970 to 1985, is a reflection of the notes left by his haumāna, chance encounters with him and those who knew him, and family information. 178 He moved onto the ʻāina kuleana in the late 1960s. By the time Sam Lono returned to the kuleana, the ʻili of

ʻIolekaʻa itself had been developed and a high-end gated community been built. The Haʻikū

Road entrance into the ʻili and ʻāina kuleana itself, or right of way, had been paved over by asphalt for the roadway into Haʻikū Plantations.

Haʻikū Plantations, Bishop Estate, and Sam Lono III

In the ensuing years after returning to the family kuleana in ʻIolekaʻa, the relationship between Bishop Estate, Haʻikū Plantations Association, and Samuel Lono III proved to be a contentious one. This gated and exclusive upscale community was built during the 1960s and

176 After researching the moʻokūʻauhau of Sam Lono, it was discovered that his father was Samuel Hoʻopiʻi Lono Jr., from Kohala, which made his son, Samuel Hoʻopiʻi Lono III.

177 Taken from the personal letters of Sam Lono’s haumāna.

178 Donna Ann Kamehaʻiku Camvel, “Land and Genealogy of ʻIolekaʻa: Mapping an Indigenous Identity” (masterʻs thesis, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, 2012), 65. 91 nearly sold out by the mid 1970s. The elites who had moved into the private and restricted

Haʻikū Plantations did not take too kindly to the idea that a Hawaiian kahuna, Sam Lono, lived in their coveted gated community, passing through it on his way to his ancestral lands in the mountain. It wasn’t long before access into the ʻāina kuleana and parking at the top of the trail for access into the valley became issues that would require a legal remedy.

Elitism, prejudice, and differing epistemological beliefs were at the crux of the community’s discontent. The political, social, and cultural environment during the 1960s and 70s were rife with anti-Hawaiian racism and discrimination, and in the privately gated community of

Haʻikū Plantations, Kahuna Samuel Hoʻopiʻi Lono III was at the receiving end of those prejudices (fig. 8).

Issues associated with access, right of way, and the presence of a Kanaka ʻŌiwi kahuna in the valley made everyone nervous. It didn’t really matter that the family had the right to access and live on the kuleana. Those facts were irrelevant to the home owners in Haʻikū Plantations.

Their reasoning was that “those people,” meaning the Līhuʻe, Kahanu, Pāoa, Kea, Lono ʻOhana, had no right to be there in the valley in what was, for those with a settler mentality, psychologically entitled and sociologically expected to be for them exclusively. The following statement taken from an article in the Huli, an activist newspaper, is a good description of the contentious relationship between the community members of Haʻikū Plantations and my uncle,

Sam Lono III. It stated:

The plight of Sam Lono, a kuleana landowner and kahuna in Haiku Valley was reported by a newspaper out of the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. In response to Lono’s repeated complaints of harassment by Haʻikū Plantations subdivision, the developer Ken Smith charged Lono with trespassing on subdivision roads in his effort to reach his kuleana deep in the valley. By law, Lono had the legal right of access through the subdivision. Residents also harassed Lono’s visitors, including school children, who came to learn about Hawaiian medicinal herbs. Lono, in turn, rightly argued that subdivision residents were trespassing on his land to reach trailheads 92

deep in the valley (Huli November 1972:10). But the cause for the harassment of Lono stemmed from the fact that the subdivision itself was built on Bishop Estate land. 179

Fig.8, Sam Lono puts his own gate on the jungle path, 1971, Honolulu Star Bulletin. 180

Challenges were long-running between Samuel Hoʻopiʻi Lono III and his neighbors and stemmed from the development of the exclusive subdivision (fig. 8). When Haʻikū Plantations was built, the right of way to ʻIolekaʻa was paved over when the asphalt road leading into the gated community was constructed. “In 1966, Bishop Estate sought to re-align the easement over

Haʻikū Plantations Drive. The Land Court decree of 1966, 181 realigned the right of way over the

179 Najita was credited for this article, which was printed in the Huli newspaper, a protest newspaper for the group, Kokua Hawai’i.

180 Bob Krauss, “Kahuna vs. rich neighbors “witchcraft” brewing up a feud,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), January 31, 1971, page A-8.

181 HAIKU PLANTATIONS ASSOCIATION et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Samuel LONO et al., Defendants- Appellants, and Frank Midkiff et al., Defendants-Appellees, and Hawaiian Electric Co., Inc., et al., Defendants. Upon its development of the Haiku Plantations subdivision in 1966, Bishop Estate sought an Order for Re- Alignment of the easement over Haiku Plantations Drive its privately-owned and maintained roadway through Haʻikū Plantations. Haʻikū Plantations Drive was by then an 18-feet wide paved road with approximately 19-feet wide shoulders on either side. Its maintenance is the responsibility of the Haʻikū Plantations Association. The opening of Kahekili Highway by the City and County of Honolulu in the mid-1960s effectively extinguished Road Right of Way No. 22 as a means of access to the mauka kuleanas. The Land Court decree of 1966 realigned the old Road Right of Way No. 23 over the newly established and privately-maintained Haʻikū Plantations Drive. 93 newly established and privately maintained Haiku Plantations Drive. The Immediate Court of

Appeals of Hawaiʻi decided that the kuleana had ingress and egress rights but did not have the right to park vehicles.” 182 A subsequent appeal to the judgement by the Hāʻikū Plantations

Association failed when the prior judgment of the trial court was affirmed.

Land abutting the ingress through the trailhead is owned by the State of Hawaiʻi. Some of that land was made available for the family to use as a parking area for themselves and their guests. Since that time, there has been little objection from the community members.

Lono at Kalama Valley

Sam Lono’s involvement in the modern movement for Kānaka Maoli defense of their

Indigenous lands began during the fight against evictions taking place at Kalama Valley. At the time of the forced evictions of the remaining families from that valley, The Huli (a pro-Native

Hawaiian rights newspaper) reported that:

Trustee William van Allen refused to have Lono arrested along with his fellow protestors. Lono, being a kahuna, put a curse on the four remaining Bishop Estate trustees (one died recently). “Lono said that they would be sick for a long time and not know why” (Huli May 1971:5). In 1971 police arrested Lono and some of his relatives for initiating a control burn on his property in order to plant medicinal herbs and taro. Lono viewed this action as harassment that prevented the practice and maintenance of culture; “Every time we try to do something to preserve our Hawaiian culture, these rich people make complaints against us. This kind of harassment from people like the Homeowner’s Association, the Bishop Estate, the State and the rich developers, has been going on for seven years. If they think we going to give in, they’re wrong! Cause we going fight. 183

182 HAIKU PLANTATIONS ASSOCIATION et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Samuel LONO et al., Defendants- Appellants, and Frank Midkiff et al., Defendants-Appellees, and Hawaiian Electric Co., Inc., et al., Defendants. 618 P.2d 312 (1980). No. 664, October 16, 1980. In the Intermediate Court of Appeals of Hawaiʻi, the judgement of the trial court was reaffirmed. In other words the standing decision remains.

183 Huli , (Honolulu, HI): October, 1972, page 6. 94

The problems associated with the development of land for subdivisions, in particular after statehood, created burgeoning laws which constricted access and use of kuleana and other ʻaina.

As more lands were bought or leased for urban development, more Native Hawaiians and minorities were being pushed to the fringes of society. These impacts became the nucleus of the resistance movement in the face of neo-colonial control of lands and access to those lands.

Anita Kahanupāoa Gouveia

My mother, Anita Kahanupāoa was the daughter of Domitilla Evelyn Lono Yang, who was the sister of Samuel Hoʻopiʻi Lono III. Anita had been living on the island of Hawaiʻi at

Kukuihaele in the mid-1970s. By late 1970, she had returned to the island of Oʻahu, asking her mother if she could go up and live in the mountain. With her mother’s blessing and by virtue of the fact that she had nowhere else to go, she moved onto the ʻāina kuleana. Newly divorced, owning no home of her own, and nearly broke, the ʻāina seemed like the best option.

When my mother arrived at the ʻāina kuleana, she was quite aware of its mana. She had grown up with all kinds of what she called “spooky stuff” happening around her as a child and into adulthood. She knew about and grew up with “Hawaiian kine stuff,” those strange things that occurred in the family’s first hale in Heʻeia, between the ‘ili of Kalimaloa and

Kikiwelawela. Those incidents occurred at her mother’s second home on Koʻolau View Drive, and the ma uka ʻāina kuleana.

My mother told us the story of what happened to her when she arrived to the ʻāina. For her first night there, she had pitched her small pup tent across the stream, climbing to the rise under the mango trees just below Heiau Lāʻau Lapaʻau. It was late, about 8:30 p.m. as she recalls, when all of a sudden: 95

I heard this big BOOM! It was loud, from behind, from the back of the tent. Sounded like one giant was walking, this boom...boom...boom, coming toward the tent. I was scared shitless, I didn’t know what to do. I started shaking! This thing, came around the side of the tent, booming, loud, and all of a sudden, the thing stopped, right in the front of my tent. I was eating Vienna sausage and soda cracker, so I went crouch down, cupped my hands together and put the sausage and cracker in my cupped hands. My hands was shaking. I crawled to the opening of my small tent, head down, and extended the sausage and the cracker and I said, I’m so sorry, this is all that I have, but I offer it to you, I mean no harm here. I lay this offering of my dinner right outside the tent, on the ground, and as soon as I did that, the thing was gone. Just like that! 184

That was her introduction to the ʻāina. I often wondered how my mother knew to kūlou or bow her head low, whether it was instinctive or something she saw my grandmother do.

In the early 1980ʻs, my mother built a small A-frame shelter out of bamboo. She set it up close to the stream and covered it with tarps for protection from the rain. It was big enough for her to stand and sleep in and it was her first home on the ʻāina. The area is still there, as are the pōhaku which she placed around that hale. Those pōhaku resound with the mana of my mother and her spirit reverberates at that spot.

She bathed and washed dishes in the stream right across from her hale. For her toilet, she would use buckets with composting liquid to keep the kūkae from smelling. Once they filled up, she would bury the contents. At the time it was not a problem as she was the only one living there and there would be times when she would go out of the mountain and spend a week or two outside. What to do with human waste is a serious maintenance issue when living off grid. Today we use composting methods but we still have to take it out. In the very early days, one had to relieve oneʻs self in a plastic bag with newspapers. That’s what I had to do when I first moved to the ʻāina before we built the composting toilets that we now use.

184 Anita Kahanupāoa, story related to author, 1989.

96

What my mother learned from the ʻāina, she taught to us and our children who were all below six or seven years old. We learned how to safely drink water from the stream, sipping up the fresh, cold water only where it was bubbling as that meant it was oxygenated. We gathered water, washed dishes, and bathed in the stream. We learned how to build and tend a fire. My mother taught my children and their cousins how to grow Mānoa lettuce and tomatoes and use shoyu and lemon as salad dressing. Our children swam in the stream naked, played in the bamboo forest, fished in the stream, and helped their tutu in whatever she needed to be done becoming very pili to her and, by extension, the ʻāina.

I remember an episode that took place during that time when an elderly haole man walked down the trail with what looked like his grandson. No trespassing, or kapu signs were posted on the trailhead and he was quite aware that he was transgressing as he made his way down our trail. He stopped at the point where the trail extends into the cleared kulena, just at the top and began to yell at us saying, “You people donʻt belong here, why don’t you get out!” This trespassing Haʻikū Plantations community member felt compelled to intrude on privately owned land in order to verbalize, erroneously, that the family were not the legal owners of the land and thus, should get out. My mother responded, “You’re trespassing; can’t you read the kapu signs?

At least we own our land you lessee! Get the hell out of here! How dare you come down here!” 185

The trespasser’s verbalization is an example of a settler colonial mindset in which

“Dispossession is a structural relationship where the destruction of Indigenous bodies takes place to remove us from our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual relationships to land primarily

185 At the time of this occurrence, Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate had not yet converted their leases in Haʻikū Plantations to fee simple.

97 so the land can be exploited for natural resources.” 186 I refer to Veracini’s statement, “The colonial ʻʻ‘encounter’’’ is mirrored by what I have theorized as a settler colonial ʻʻʻnon- encounter,’’’ a circumstance fundamentally shaped by a recurring need to disavow the presence of Indigenous others.” 187

The outrageous conduct of the trespasser is symptomatic of how dominant narratives of settler colonialism are embedded in and lived by the settler. Native people did not meet the manifest destiny predicted for them by the colonizer and colonizing settlers. Kānaka Maoli did not die, and instead persist and perservere. For this family, that pertinacity is the holding on to the ʻāina, is the returning to the ʻāina kuleana, is remaining

Anita’s Early Days on the ʻĀina

About one acre and a half of the kuleana was covered in Chinese bamboo when my mother first arrived. The work required to clear the bamboo was extremely laborious and intense.

Anita’s brother Raymond, and her sister Pamai, would often come up on the weekends to help with the hard work of clearing bamboo. The process entailed cutting the bamboo all the way to the ground and then shortening the bamboo poles into manageable lengths for transport to an area especially cleared for burning them. Only diesel gas was used to start the fire at that time because it was the safest. Today, no gasoline of any kind is used to start our fires when doing overgrowth clearing. 188

186 Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, “Indigenous Research and Co-resistance,” Critical Ethnic Studies 2, no. 2 (206): 22.

187 Lorenzo Veracini, “Introducing Settler Colonial Studies,” Settler Colonial Studies 1 (2011): 2. DOI: 10.1080/2201473X.2011.10648799, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/2201473X.2011.10648799?needAccess=true .

188 Today in order to burn, the family must apply for an agricultural burning permit from the State of Hawaiʻi Department of Health, Clean Air Branch. The permit must be reapplied for yearly and an inspection must be 98

Because the bamboo was so thick, the initial work of clearing took a long time. The bamboo forest is a virtual patchwork of criss-crossing poles, young and mature (indicative by the variations in color from green to yellow), and poles with roots inches away from each other.

Bamboo grows very close to one another and it is not unusual to have a four foot square area contain twenty five bamboo poles. Much of the initial clearing had to be done by hand.

We experimented with weed trimmers that had blades, but the blades wore down after only an hour of use. Chainsaws were very useful once an initial clearing was made in the bamboo patch, but chainsaw blades were also prone to dulling quickly. Of all the work done on the ʻāina in the last fifty years, clearing the bamboo from the area where the loʻi and hale are today, was the most difficult and arduous undertaking.

Although we all became very adept in the use of chainsaws, cane knives, handsaws, and lopers, we did not escape physical injury along the way. Bamboo can slice you like a knife on butter, and the hard-learned lessons are, always wear gloves, no matter what. When operating a chainsaw, always wear safety glasses and never work alone. Be pono in mind and intent, rest when tired (that’s when accidents occur) and stay hydrated. This is the way we learned to hana the ʻāina in ʻIolekaʻa, as taught to us by our mother.

The clearing of that acre and a half of bamboo from the ʻāina kuleana took nearly fifteen years. In the process, nearly fourteen original loʻi were uncovered as well as the original house site of my great-great grandmother, Kahanu Pāoa. During that time, my uncle built, for my mother, a small 10 x 12 foot one-room house that we called a shelter. The small house had an overhang which extended the covered area by about 5 feet on two sides of the house. The overhang provided dry areas under which to store tools, equipment, weed trimmers, gas cans,

conducted. The price of the burning permit is $50.00. Once issued, we must call the fire department when we are conducting a burn. 99 and other supplies. It also provided shelter from the rain, an ever-present element of Lono in this environment. It was however, an unpermitted structure on land that was zoned as conservation and at the highest preservation code of P4 (more on this in a later section).

It wasn’t long before my motherʻs brother, Raymond or Uncle Jr. as we call him, decided that he too, wanted to live on the ʻāina kuleana. Like my mother, he roughed it until he could build his own hale. He too, lived in a tent until he completed his house, which he moved into once it was completed. The family has designated his hale as the one dwelling allowed under conservation district use, as provided for kuleana lands.

Once the land was cleared, Anita decided to plant dry-land kalo in the exposed terraces.

There was no water flowing at the time from the ʻauwai into the loʻi. She used a pickaxe to break up the ground. She then planted about two or three rows of Chinese kalo, often referred to as table top kalo. It was really gratifying for her even though it was “break da back kine” hard work. We enjoyed eating that kalo boiled. It was the best! Later Uncle Jr. reopened the original

ʻauwai enabling the wai to flow from the stream to the kalo patches on the ʻāina kuleana using polyvinyl chloride pipes (pvc) as the means of getting water into the loʻi. The terraces he had opened were ready for water and he was ready to plant kalo.

Anita’s life changed as she adapted to living off the grid. It wasn’t easy. There was no plumbing or electricity. No refrigerator, no toilet, and no lights. Propane lanterns, propane stove, coolers and ice for refrigeration to keep perishable items from spoiling were necessities.

Flashlights, batteries, rubber boots, umbrellas, mosquito punk or repellant, and candles became essential items for living day to day in the mountain. It also meant changing the way one buys food. 100

My mother bought her food a little at a time. She ate fresh food as often as she could. She made weekly trips to Nanko, a small fishing store in Heʻeia to buy blocks of ice in order to keep things cold in her cooler. The storage of foodstuffs was then and continues to be for us even now, problematic. The environment of the ʻāina kuleana is often more damp and wet than dry due to the abundance of rain. As such, mediating the mold and mildew that are ever-present is constant and foodstuffs can readily become unhealthy if left unattended for too long. Every thing, and every structure, is susceptible to mold. The longer a thing goes unused, the more permeable to mold it becomes. This includes the packaging and containers in which foodstuffs, flatware, and paper goods are kept.

Glass containers with metal covers for storage are essential in keeping rats and other bugs and insects from getting into the foodstuffs. Rats can easily gnaw through plastic, books, paper, bins and boxes, and leave their excrement everywhere. This is another fact of life and a maintenance issue, particular to living in the upper reaches of the mountain forest in open space.

The best remedy in an open area? Victor rat traps, large size. Cats are an option of course, except that we have dogs to keep the pua’a at a distance.

My mother worked hard. She was physically strong and capable and she turned the ʻāina kuleana into the beautiful place it is today.

She had wonderful cutting-edge ideas, like building a 20 x 20 platform out of the bamboo and putting her tent on it before her house was built. She wanted to make hair combs out of bamboo, and craft kadomatsu during the holidays to make a little extra money. One Christmas, she used huge leaves that had been dried as the backing for Christmas arrangements she had created during the holidays. Her question was how could we use what was grown on the ʻāina to derive an income? 101

One answer lay in the flowering tropical heleconia, gardenias, white gingers, kāhili gingers and torch gingers that she had planted. These flowers, in addition to the edible Hawaiian fern known as hōʻiʻo ( Diplazium esculentum ), became products that she sold weekly.

Anita maintained the natural hōʻiʻo patches so that they grew abundantly, keeping the large patches no more than three or four feet high so that the fern shoots would grow well and be easy to pick. When there was a lot of rain, she was usually able to pick 40 to 60 pounds a week in order to sell it at the swap meet. This was how she made her money. This was mountain economics. When there wasn’t much rain in the summer, the harvesting of hōʻiʻo might reach only 20 to 30 pounds a week and so to augment her sales, she also gathered bamboo shoots when they were in season, yellow ginger, and bananas. People like to buy yellow ginger because of its

“waft mai nei” or permeating fragrance. She got up each Wednesday and Saturday at 4:00 a.m.to prepare for the swap meet. She would place all of the fern and bamboo shoots, and sometimes bananas, in plastic garbage bags, fling those bags over her back and walk them all up the trail to put into her car. Sometimes it would take three or four trips to get all of her produce to the car.

Those were the days when there was only the walking trail, a 2-3 feet wide ala, extending over twisted and curled roots of the mango trees, pōhaku, and undergrowth. Later, the family would clear a road of about five feet across to allow for easier walking passage and an all terrain three- wheeled vehicle.

When I think of resiliency, I harken back to the early days of my mother’s living on the

ʻāina kuleana and I think of her strength and how hard it was. Even in the hardest of times when unexpected situations (car troubles, no hōʻiʻo, no money) sorely tested her will, she nonetheless prevailed. When I think of endurance, I think of her, so out of the box, so generous, so 102 intelligent, and most of all, so funny. She was a warrioress. She wore her Haumea (warriorness) unabashedly when she protested too, and when she was arrested at Hālawa Valley.

She was the Oʻahu island poʻo for Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi and supported their efforts, being absolutely committed to the cause of Kānaka Maoli self-determination. In the mornings, when I was home, we would share cups of warming hot coffee. What I miss the most is hearing her voice in the morning calling out to me from her room, as I made my way into the kitchen, “Baby, can you turn on the hot water for mommie?”

I think back to my memories of my mother and I grow even closer to her when I recall the many stories she told as she prepared her hōʻiʻo every Tuesday and Friday nights to sell at the Kam swap meet on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Sheʻd play her jazz music, sometimes friends would come over, and we would all enjoy the evenings. The discussions that took place on those nights when my mother was preparing her hōʻiʻo were funny, insightful, debatable, political, and always informative. We were privileged to be able to receive her kūhohonu (profound insight) on many different subjects. On many occasions when we listened to her moʻolelo and joined in conversations, what we received in her words were revelations of the ways in which she had come to understand what living on the ʻāina kuleana meant for her, the spiritual integrity of the

ʻāina, what being a warrioress was, and how her own life was transformed as she began to understand what her own kuleana was. As I spent more time with her, I watched the land turn my mother into who she truly was meant to be. It worked the other way as well; I watched my mother reveal the beauty and the meaning of the ‘āina, for in truth she was, and now remains, the land. 103

Fig. 9, ‘Ioleka’a , Wali Camvel, 2017, private collection. 189

Anita Kahanupāoa Gouveia passed away in 1998. My sister and I would spend the next four years in utter grief at her loss.Yet, the essence of my mother is everywhere on the ʻāina (fig.

9). Her mana resonates and vibrates, she speaks to me in the wind and kisses me with the breeze, just as she promised she would. The loss of this incredibly loving and brilliant woman in her physical body, has now transcended to quintessence. She, like the ancestors before her, are now embodied in the ʻāina, and spiritually guide the current generation of moʻo living there now.

Anita comes and visits us sometimes in her ʻaumakua forms, the soaring manu koaʻekea, the manu ʻiwa, the wind, and the breeze are always signs of her greetings or presence and we always pane to her kāhea.

189 Wali Camvel, ʻIolekaʻa, 2017, private collection. 104

Upon the death of the family’s matriarch, an ahu was built in her memory. Located about ten minutes walk from the manowai of ʻIolekaʻa, it had been her wish to have her ashes scattered as close to the mountain’s source of the water as possible. It is here where we conducted an ʻaha waimaka on the first anniversary of her death. It is this place also, where we buried her faithful companion, her ʻīlio named Enei, to hold space and memory of them both at this spot. Here is where we visit every year, with the ʻohana, to honor my motherʻs life, to reconnect with her, to maintain the area and to share in the mana of this special place. In this location, family connections are renewed, shared or newly established with the telling of stories of Anita

Kahanupāoa Gouveia and the celebration of her life.

Kamehaʻikū Camvel

In 1995-96, I moved up onto the ʻāina kuleana following my divorce. Like my mother I too, had no place else to go. I took my youngest son with me, and the transition from Hawaiʻi

Kai to ʻIolekaʻa, was tough. I had to rough it in a tent as well, but I refused to be uncomfortable.

I saved enough money to buy lumber for a 20 x 20 wooden foundation. I put a tent on the foundation and a 20 x 20 tent over the whole thing to keep the tent sheltered from the rain. I put whatever belongings I had, books, pictures, my bed, a small digital piano, a dresser in the tent.

Many of the things I had brought with me, including the furniture (bed, desk, dresser, piano) perished within that first year. Succumbing to mold, dampness and the elements I learned that you cannot live in a tent in a wet forested valley and expect that it would be like living in

Hawaiʻi Kai.

Within that first winter, I experienced what the hoʻoilo weather was capable of. Piercing winds tore at my tent, the flapping of the ez corner tarp threatening to fly off at any moment, 105 making my tent vulnerable to the heavy rains and wind. It was a valuable but extremely rude awakening to what my life would be like living on the ʻāina kuleana. The tent had to be secure, there were no shortcuts to keeping the tent safeguarded from the elements and anchored to the ground. After that first year, I had to burn much of what I had brought up and restructure the way that I lived both inside the ʻāina and out of it.

I began to earnestly help my mother with maintaining the ʻāina. Before moving to the

ʻāina permanently, it had just been visits, short stays, weekends. There was no end to the work that was required on the ʻāina. Stream maintenance, clearing, weeding, planting, cutting, weed whacking, weed whacking, and more weed whacking. Using a weed trimmer became my specialty and I excelled at it. Grass covered much of the open area that had previously been under bamboo and I would weed whack from early morning, break for a short lunch, and be right at it again. I wouldnʻt stop until it was nearly dark, and many times after it was dark. I was manic about this chore because the work had to get done. Often my mother would call out as it was getting dark, “Nuff already baby, do the rest tomorrow!”

At the same time, I was attending college and was a self-employed business owner running a small janitorial company. I started each weekday morning at 5:00 a.m., gathering all of the needed ʻukana and mea (bags and stuff) and walked to the top of the trail where my car was parked. Driving to Kahala, I would drop my son off at Star of the Sea, head to Kapiʻolani

Community College, finish classes, pick up my son from school, do my cleaning accounts (with my son in tow), grab food in between or on the way home from work, and start all over again the next day. This was my weekday schedule all the way through Friday. Many times, I wouldnʻt finish work until midnight, so my son and I would go to the Shower Tree near the airport to bathe and then go to one of my clients’ locations, to park the car and grab a couple of hours of 106 sleep. My son thought it was a great adventure and I wasnʻt sure how long I could keep up with this kind of schedule before something in our lives gave way.

As I reflect on those times and the difficult challenges we experienced, I am reminded once more, of the ways in which my wāhine ancestors, who faced similar challenges, managed to make it work, to pull through despite the odds, no matter what, and to survive. I now know that I embody the ēwe (traits) of my kūpuna wāhine. My ʻiwikuamoʻo (backbone), like theirs, comes from a strength and perseverance that cannot be broken. My mother and my wāhine ancestors are the embodiment of Haumea, powerful, brave, strong, and tough. It is because of that moʻokūʻauhau that I have been able to weather the storms that I have faced.

A year after the hala of my mother in 1998, I moved from the ʻāina to my kāneʻs hale.

My kāne, Wali, had known my mother since the days of Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi. He was a close friend of my cousin, Guy, who was the son of Uncle Jr. He, too, had come into the mountain to live, and on Thursday nights, Wali would come to the ʻāina to get together with Uncle Jr., and

Guy. Sometimes they would be joined by friends.

Wali was very close to my mother, Anita. They forged a deep friendship when both joined Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi. Wali became the personal kiaʻi with others for the Kiaʻāina or governor of Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi, Mililani Trask. He also became a kiaʻi or guardian of Anita, making sure she didn’t need anything, always offering to help, and they spent many days and nights in political discussions. Wali helped to take of my mother when she was stricken with cancer and it was Wali who, in the form of a hoʻopāpā, challenged the mortuary attendant who had come down the trail with a stretcher to pick up my motherʻs body after her death. Wali led the family, following behind our mother up the trail, and upon reaching the trailhead sounded an 107 uē that was piercing to the heart. Such a love for Anita, such respect, his uē was like reliving the old days of grieving.

Wali and I married in 2001 and have been living in two differing environments or worlds.

We spend much time in the modern world, where we work at our jobs to derive an income and live in an on-grid house in nearby Kāne‘ohe. In this contemporary life, we enjoy all the amenities

(washer, dryer, plumbing, electricity), running hot and cold water, television, and other comforts in life. I spend almost every weekend on the ʻāina kuleana. Our challenges are the same for many

Kānaka Maoli today, how to straddle two different worlds while attempting a decolonized approach to living. More and more I am becoming compelled to live full-time on the ‘āina kuleana. The kuleana is my kumu. I learn things about myself, the ‘āina, this life and beyond, about what it means to be Kanaka ʻŌiwi and what is the true meaning of this āina, things that I could learn in no other school. Things I can put into words, but that I know with my whole body.

What is this but a transformative, embodied experience of relations with ʻāina?

ʻIke Kupuna

Cherokee scholar, Clint Carroll writes, “Attachments with the nonhuman world arise largely through lived experience.” 190 ʻIke kupuna is a anti-colonial counter-narrative that shatters the foundation of imperialism by insisting on non-assimilation. In other words, ʻIke Kupuna is inherently Maoli for Maoli. ʻIke kupuna as operative on the ʻāina kuleana can be exemplified by the following story:

In 2006, Wali planted two ʻulu trees on the ʻāina. In the winter of that year, one ʻulu was broken by the intense wind during a gusty storm. The other ʻulu tree was used by the puaʻa of the

190 Clint Carroll, Roots of Our Renewal Ethnobotany and Cherokee Environmental Governance , (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015): 141. 108

ʻāina to scratch themselves. Wali had seen, a few times, the black puaʻa that would come in close to the area and he tried shooting them with a bow and arrow. He was not able to dispatch them.

That ʻulu tree as well broke and we were disheartened to think that we would lose it. It did not die. No, as a matter of fact it grew, and continued to grow into two separate trunks coming out of one planting. I consecrated that ʻulu tree in honor of my mother, and I named that ʻulu tree

Haumea (fig. 10). I chanted to Haumea everytime I went up to the ʻāina kuleana. The fruit of

Haumea, was and is, sweet and ʻono. The pikos of my two kaikamahine moʻos are buried under the roots of Haumea’s first two keiki. My eldest moʻo, who was two at the time we placed her

ʻiewe and piko in the ground and then planted the ʻulu tree in that place, lay right where we were planting, and by the time we were finished, she lay there sleeping peacefully, right on the ground next to her ʻulu, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. We now enjoy a robust supply of three ʻulu trees that generationally connect our ancestors from the past, to us today, and have now forged a relationship with the future generations through our moʻopuna.

The story is reflective of lessons we learned throughout our lives and the way those stories are inscribed by ʻike kupuna. Stories and experiences shared, instructions given for important events like births and deaths. I knew what to do with the ʻiewe of my moʻopuna, my mother told me, as hers did her, and so on and so forth. That “so forth” is the essence of ʻike in the ipu of the kupuna. That burying of my moʻo’s piko and ʻiewe in the ground of their ancestors assured their connection to the ʻāina forever, as did the ancestors with the ʻiewe and piko of their children. In this way, the Indigenous customary practices are assured generationally and thus are the ʻike of the kūpuna. The story above is but one small example of how ʻike kupuna functions. Other examples are pule, oli, mele, and hula. Embedded in those prayers, chants, songs, and dance are ʻike kupuna, or wisdom chronicled over time in those forms for us. 109

Fig. 10. The Ulu Tree Haumea , Donna Camvel, 2019, private collection. 191

Food Security and Food Self-Sufficiency

Food security and food self-sufficiency has come to mean, for this ʻohana, the ability to cultivate kalo, ʻuala, ʻulu, and fish for a continuous supply of food for the ʻohana. This has entailed trial and error, loss of kalo, research, re-evaluating and relearning traditional and non- traditional farming systems, water resource management and utilization, and alternative ways of learning supported by ‘ike kūpuna. It has been extremely laborious and magnificently rewarding.

While we are still working on the “continuous” part of food production, we are able to harvest

ʻulu, fish, banana, hōʻiʻo, lemons, some kalo and some ʻuala. It is a shared and personal social, political, and economic journey. ʻIke Kupuna has provided the historical connections of land and

191 Donna Camvel, The Ulu Tree Haumea , Donna Camvel, 2019, private collection. 110 land use however the actual knowledge of mahiʻai or planting has been informed, over the last thirty years, by on-the-ground adaptive management or observation.

ʻIolekaʻa Today

The term “hoʻomāhuahua” alludes to the idea of growing strength, to increase, to be productive. Hoʻomāhuahua is the spiritual and physical production of food, i.e., the physical aspects of relationship with land that results in the cultivation and harvest of food. The management of the wai and ʻauwai, of stream banks and loʻi, of fishponds. As we produce food, so too do we grow in strength and are empowered. There is nothing more satisfying than growing your own food, preparing it, and enjoying the deliciousness of that effort. More critical is the realization that you just might be able to produce food to sustain yourself. One of the goals of restoration framed by ʻike kupuna is in the transformative experiences embodied by Kānaka on the ʻāina. What follows is an example of such an experience.

It is the feeling you get after a hard day’s work, all dirty and stink, bones and body sore and then, as you sit down, you stop and look around. At that moment, you breathe in akua

ʻāina. 192 You are embraced as you breathe in with your eyes, the profound beauty of the land.

You feel, and sometimes, hear, the resonance of the ʻāina’s tangible and intangible residents, murmuring in the slight shifting of the wind. The resonant and melodious sound of the kahawai soothes you, and you are content.

Your eyes drink in the thousands of shades of ʻōmaʻomaʻo, the life-providing green color of the nahele, the forest. The day is beginning to close and nā manu of ʻIolekaʻa are making their way ma uka for the evening after a busy day. The beautiful mele of the manu shama, who are the

192 I use the term “akua ʻāina,” to mean, ke akua, ʻāina, nā kūpuna, nā aumakua, nā ʻuhane, and all other seen and unseen life forms on the ʻāina kuleana.

111 first to awaken in the early morning, and the last to go into the forest at dusk, entreats the ears as they begin to make their way into the forest for the evening and we are more than happy to be serenaded by these people-friendly manu before the ending of the day. Our eyes lift to the heights of the palis above us where we are privileged to observe the shadows as they gently sweep across the mountain, seemingly desiring to participate in the daily dance between the makani and the ʻōpua ʻohu as the day begins to move from ao to pō. This is hoʻomāhuahua (fig.

11).

Fig. 11. Kalo and Uala in ʻIolekaʻa, Donna Camvel, 2015, private collection. 193

193 Donna Camvel, Kalo and Uala in “Iolekaʻa, 2015, private collection. 112

Settler State Governance & Jurisdiction

A person who wants to mālama land might think it sufficient to learn how to plant and care for kalo or fish or any myriad of things to know about the natural world. But they would be mistaken. Today, in order to mālama, one must pass through the barriers to mālama set in place by government. A turn through the investigation of land use law is required here because the law stood in the way of Sam Lono III, who had to fight the settler community for access onto his own land that had been there before any of those settlers were born or the community existed. And it stood in the way of Anita Kahanupāoa Gouveia was subjected to trespassing settlers telling her she had no right to be on her own land, and the family lives today subject at anytime to colonial settler processes like quiet title, as exemplified by the Mark Zuckerberg case in Kauaʻi. 194

According to the Guardian:

On 22 December 2016, a retired professor of Hawaiian studies named Carlos Andrade sent a letter to dozens of his relatives informing them that he was about to sue them. The relatives were among hundreds of partial owners of four small parcels of land on the island of Kauai, the legacy of a shared ancestor named Manuel Rapozo. A neighboring landowner, Northshore Kalo LLC, was willing to pay the legal fees to clear up the title on the property – enabling Andrade to take full ownership and compensate his fellow descendants for their shares. It wasn’t until nearly a month later that the Honolulu Star- Advertiser broke the news that Northshore Kalo LLC was not a taro farm, as some had assumed (“kalo” means “taro” in Hawaiian), but a shell corporation controlled by Mark Zuckerberg. The Facebook founder was pursuing eight separate lawsuits related to parcels of land that, like the Rapozo parcels, were surrounded by his 700-acre Kauai estate. Those who had been sued had a choice: they could sell their partial shares or try to outbid a billionaire in a public auction. If they lost, they could be forced to pay Zuckerberg’s legal fees. A media firestorm ensued, with some Native Hawaiians declaring Zuckerberg the “face of neocolonialism” and local politicians demanding reform to the state law that created the “quiet title and partition” process. Within days, Zuckerberg published an op-ed in the local paper apologizing for his ham-fisted approach

194 “In 2017, Mark withdrew as a plaintiff from the quiet title actions regarding the kuleana lands adjacent to his property. Neither Mark nor anyone representing him will bid in the auction. Following the completion of the auction, Mark will not own any interest in any of the kuleana involved in the quiet title action. Nor will Northshore Kalo or any entity associated with him.“As Mark stated in his 2017 op-ed in The Garden Island, he supports Dr. Andrade’s claim to the property because Dr. Andrade is the only member of the Rapozo family to have cared for, lived on and paid taxes on this land and he did so over the course of 40 years.” https://gizmodo.com/it-s-a-travesty- mark-zuckerberg-gets-what-he-wants-i-1835283868.

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and promising to drop the lawsuits. But beneath the headline, Zuckerberg’s mea culpa included one major caveat: he would continue to support Andrade’s claim to his family’s parcels. Now, two years later, the quiet title process initiated by Andrade is drawing to a close and a judge has ordered a public auction of the parcels. 195

Many kuleana land owners can and have been subjected to quiet title actions brought against them by voracious settlers with proclivities of acquiring Kānaka Maoli land. Many times, these kuleana parcels are located in lush valleys, forests, and beachfronts areas. ʻŌiwi lands are the paradise settlers continue to desire, even if it means dispossession of the Native peoples.

Quiet title is one of the ways those desires get fulfilled.

In Hawaiʻi, the Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands (OCCL), under present administrator Samuel J. Lemmo, is responsible for overseeing two million acres of private and public lands that lie within the State Land Use Conservation District. 196 The Conservation

District has five subzones: Protective, Limited, Resource, General and Special. The first four subzones are arranged in a hierarchy of environmental sensitivity, ranging from the most environmentally sensitive (Protective) to least sensitive (General). The Special subzone defines a unique land use on a specific site. 197 DLNR is the branch of government that reviews conservation district use applications (CDUA), manages permitting processes, and ultimately

195 “A Blemish in his sanctuary: the battle behind Mark Zuckerberg’s Hawaii estate,” The Guardian, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/17/mark-zuckerberg-hawaii-estate-kauai-land-rights-dispute .

196 Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands, “Divisions and Offices,” Department of Land and Natural Resources, Hawaii.gov., 2019, https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/division-offices/ .

Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes (HRS) and Hawaiʻi Administrative Rules (HAR), in particular, HAR Title 13 Chapter and HAR Chapter 183C, are the statutory and regulatory provisions enforced by OCCL under the Department of Land and Natural Resources in the state of Hawaiʻi. According to the OCCL website, Act 187 defines conservation as meaning the protection of watersheds and water supplies; preserving scenic areas; providing park lands, wilderness and beach reserves; conserving endemic plants, fish, and wildlife; preventing floods and soil erosion; forestry; and other related activities.

197 Ibid.

114 approves site plans and management plans submitted by landowners in accordance with Title 13,

Chapter 5 regulations.

The OCCL’s job is to

Regulate land-use in the conservation district for the purpose of conserving, protecting, and preserving important natural and cultural resources of the State through appropriate management and use to promote their long-term sustainability and public health, safety, and welfare. 198

In 1988, my mother, Anita Kahanupāoa Gouveia, testified before the Legislative

House Committee on Planning, Energy, and Environmental Protection and the Committee on

Water, Land Use, Development and Hawaiian Affairs on S.B. 3328 S.D.1. As the kuleana land owner of ʻIolekaʻa, Anita found that her kuleana, which had been arbitrarily zoned as

Conservation, was now subject to Conservation District Use laws that prevented her from having more than one dwelling on her two and a half acres of kuleana land, subjecting her to paternalistic oversight and approval for nearly every aspect of the management of her kuleana.

This is nothing short of the experience suffered by Indigenous Peoples as subjugation by an imperial occupier state. In that hearing she stated:

The creation of the now nationally famous “Green Belt Law” placed our last remaining parcel of land into the Conservation District. So far as I can find, no notice was sent to kuleana land owners when these lands were placed in that category.

The state required from her, a Conservation District Use Application (CDUA) for almost everything she needed to do to restore the ʻāina kuleana. In that hearing, she stated further:

I wish to make clear that I have no argument with the need to regulate land use, but kuleanas like mine, under 10 acres, are treated as non-conforming. While the state allows for residential and agricultural uses, certain restrictions and the costly and time consuming process of Conservation District Use

198 Department of Land and Natural Resources, “Hawaiʻi Administrative Rules, Title 13, Subtitle 1 Administration, Chapter 5, Conservation District.” Subchapter 1, General Provisions, 5-2. Honolulu, 2011.

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Applications has denied me the full use and enjoyment of the only land that I own.” 199

What my mother, the kahu of the kuleana at the time, is referring to is Act 187 of 1961 that established Hawaiʻi’s Land Use Commission (LUC). 200 The Land Use Law establishes an overall framework for land use management whereby all lands in the State of Hawaiʻi are classified into one of four land use districts: urban, rural, agricultural, or conservation. 201

According to the State LUC website,

The role of the LUC is to address state concerns in the land use decision-making process, act on petitions for boundary changes submitted by private landowners, land developers and State and country agencies, and requests for special use permits within agricultural and rural districts. 202

The Līhuʻe, Kahanu, Pāoa, Kea, Lono parcel is eligible for a property tax exemption as a kuleana. However, more importantly, as it is on conservation land it is ineligible for ʻohana zoning which would permit a lifestyle appropriate to Hawaiians on Hawaiian land. As a result of the uninformed and arbitrary designation of the family’s kuleana into the highest zone and sub- zone of conservation, the ʻohana’s use of their own land is severely restrained by the severity of imposed zoning constrictions which require a CDUA for nearly all major work required to maintain two and a half acres of land and stream. The governing jurisdictional bodies have

199 Donna Camvel, “Land and Genealogy in ʻIolekaʻa: Mapping an Indigenous Identity” (masterʻs thesis, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, 2012. Pg. 113.

200 Land Use Commission is composed of nine members who are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the State Senate. Commissioners are non-paid volunteers and are selected from each of the four counties, and five members who are appointed at-large.

201 State of Hawaiʻi, “Land Use Commission,” Department of Land and Natural Resources, Hawaii.gov., 2019, https://luc.hawaii.gov/about/history-3/ .

202 Ibid.

116 different timelines for varied requirements that must be conducted over a sequence of time in which the bureaucratic burden falls on the kuleana land owner.

The current dilemma for many kuleana land owners, who have rightful ownership to their lands, is not unlike 1850, when the requirements for those makaʻāinana to make claims for their kuleana were egregiously restrictive. For those Kānaka Maoli who maintained tenure on their kuleana lands from 1848 until today, their right to enjoy or maintain what is otherwise the right to their ea on their own land, is again impeded by the state.

The State of Hawaiʻi’s bureaucratic and onerous oversight, and the Hawaiʻi State

Legislatures refusal to pass legislation 203 that would make kuleana lands safe from speculative or other furtive attempts to acquire kuleana lands have not been successful. Many kuleana land owners are unable financially to respond legally against quiet title or partition suits as exemplified by the Mark Zuckerberg case in Kauaʻi. 204

One way to begin to address the quiet titling of Kānaka Maoli kuleana lands is to recognize kuleana land owners as a unique group with a land designation created specifically for kuleanas. There are very few kuleana land owners left that have maintained tenancy on their kuleana since 1848. I argue by that description alone, a special land use designation should be granted to kuleana owners. This show of good faith would address some of historical injustices

203 House Bill 60 provided that, “Where a quiet title action involves kuleana land, at the request of a defendant or defendants, the court shall order mandatory mediation or consolidation of separate actions, respectively; defendant's access to the land for native Hawaiian cultural and traditional practices shall not be extinguished or alienated; and plaintiff shall not recover cost, expenses, or attorney's fees. (HB860 HD1). https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/Archives/measure_indiv_Archives.aspx?billtype=HB&billnumber=860&year=2017

204 “In 2017, Mark withdrew as a plaintiff from the quiet title actions regarding the kuleana lands adjacent to his property. Neither Mark nor anyone representing him will bid in the auction. Following the completion of the auction, Mark will not own any interest in any of the kuleana involved in the quiet title action. Nor will Northshore Kalo or any entity associated with him.“As Mark stated in his 2017 op-ed in The Garden Island, he supports Dr. Andrade’s claim to the property because Dr. Andrade is the only member of the Rapozo family to have cared for, lived on and paid taxes on this land and he did so over the course of 40 years.” https://gizmodo.com/it-s-a-travesty- mark-zuckerberg-gets-what-he-wants-i-1835283868

117 associated with Hawaiian dispossession from their lands while lessening the jurisdictional burden and what are often insurmountable impediments for Kānaka Maoli to simply hold on to their land.

I have learned, from both my mother and uncles’ tribulations, that negotiation with the ever-present settler community and occupying state is a double-edged sword. On one side of the sword is a constant attempt by settlers to slice away at Kānaka ʻŌiwi connection to ʻāina, and on the other side of the sword, the ever-present predicament of being forced to negotiate with the settler community and the occupying state in order to remain on the ʻāina kuleana.

In discussing how Kanaka Maoli are returning to ʻāina today, having title to one’s kuleana land is no guarantee that it is safe from being quiet titled or subjected to a partition suit. Returning to ʻāina requires legal understanding of what the state or private parties can do to obtain kuleana parcels if they so desired. While striving to be pono, one must always be ready, faithfully pay the taxes on the land, and in the case of kuleanas located in conservation districts, be aware of what the permitted activities are and aren’t allowed while working towards change in the settler system in order to find justice and parity.

Fig. 12. Uala Harvest at ʻIolekaʻa, 2015, private collection 205 .

The Līhuʻe, Kahanu, Pāoa, Kea, Lono ʻohana remains steadfast and looks to the production of food as an everyday act of resurgence that continues to have restorative powers in light of the difficulties and the mana of our ancestors and kūpuna to guide and provide the

205 Donna Camvel, Uala Harvest at ʻIolekaʻa, 2015, private collection. 118 pathway to resilience. We live, we learn, and hardship should not be a requirement to mālama pono.

Fig. 13. Anita Kahanupāoa Gouveia and Kamehaʻikū Camvel , 1997. 206

206 Private collection of Donna Camvel. 119

Chapter 4: Heʻeia Uli: the Heʻeia Wetland

As context for the current restoration of the wetlands of He‘eia, this chapter begins with an examination of the historical land tenure of Heʻeia Uli from 1830 to 2019. The research is specifically focused on the ‘ilis of Heʻeia Uli, Pahele, Punawai, Puʻulani, Hanaweke, and

Kaualaukī, where restoration is currently taking place. I divide the discussion into two periods,

1830-1923, a time when land was still understood within a Hawaiian context and 1924-2019, when social conditions had changed so much that land was now primarily understood as a commodity framed by the context of capitalism.

This chapter considers the fate of lands determined by the choices made by chiefly land owners in the giving and awarding of ʻāina in Heʻeia Uli. Land claim awards (LCAs) are examined in the ʻili prior to, during, and after the Māhele (1830-1885) in order to establish a historical sequence of land exchange events. Accordingly, chronological tables are presented that are useful in examining how land in Heʻeia Uli was given, awarded, bought, sold, leased, and exchanged between 1830 and 2010.

A survey of land use in the Heʻeia nenelu is undertaken to reveal what was cultivated in the wetland from 1830 until statehood in 1959. I also review the contemporary history of land management by the former land owner, Bishop Estate, and the current landowner, Hawaiʻi

Community Development Authority (State of Hawaiʻi), to illustrate how political activism underpinned community involvement as the foundation to ʻŌiwi resurgence in Heʻeia Uli.

Finally, an examination of what management by Kānaka Maoli at the Heʻeia nenelu looks like today and more critically, how Kānaka ʻŌiwi are faring in that capacity toward the production of food. 120

The Heʻeia Nenelu (Wetland)

In this section, I offer a brief exploration into the names, Heʻeia and Heʻeia Uli. This makawalu excursion provides the foundation for an ʻŌiwi reframing of ʻāina and geography, addressing what Alfred and Corntassel refer to as, “the colonial eradication of Indigenous peoples’ histories and geographies that provide the foundation for Indigenous cultural identities and sense of self.” 207

Place names are essential as carriers of Hawaiian moʻolelo. Indigenous landscapes can be said to bear the historical tracings of our kupunas’ footsteps across the ʻāina over time since the

Kumlipo. Such can be said about the Heʻeia nenelu or wetland area that is now commonly referred to as Heʻeia Uli. Expanding on the scholarship of Rose-Redwood, who offers a framework of “reclaim, rename, reoccupy,” I argue that reclamation is exercised in the renaming of ʻāina, deconstructing colonial spatial geographies by revalorizing Heʻeia Uli alongside the restoration (reoccupation) of ʻāina. 208

Where is Heʻeia Uli? In The Epic Tale of Hiʻiakaikapoliopele, 209 Hoʻoulumāhiehie identifies the location and boundaries of both Heʻeia Kea and Heʻeia Uli. In it he writes:

Friendly reader, if you are a stranger to Heʻeia Kea, you should come to know that this Heʻeia Kea is right below the hill named Māʻeliʻeli, being the sandy flats that you will come upon when you go from this side of Heʻeia and reach right above Keʻalohi Point. This Heʻeia Kea will be the first sandy stretch the visitor reaches after leaving Heʻeia Uli. Hoʻoulumāhiehie adds, “Heʻeia Uli is the first area of the ahupuaʻa of Heʻeia the visitor

207 Alfred Taiaiake and Jeff Corntassel, Being Indigenous: Resurgences against Contemporary Colonialism , Government and Opposition, Ltd. (2005): 597.

208 Reuben Rose-Redwood, “Reclaim, Rename, Reoccupy:” Decolonizing Place and the Reclaiming of PKOLS.” ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 15, no. 1 (2016): 187. 187-206

209 Hoʻoulumāhiehie, The Epic Tale of Hiʻiakaikapoliopele, woman of the sunrise, lightning-skirted beauty of Halemaʻumaʻu, translated by M. Puakea Nogelmeier (Honolulu: Awaiaulu Press, 2006), 148.

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comes upon when departing Kāneʻohe, that being the land of Heʻeia where the Catholic Church stands, along with the sugar mill of the old Heʻeia plantation. (148)

Heʻeia Uli and Heʻeia Kea are separated by a ridge, its name unknown, but the top of its mound is referred to as Kealohi 2 in the 1913 Map of Heʻeia 210 which is clearly a place name for the center top of the ridge. Heʻeia Uli can mean the dark Heʻeia, and Heʻeia Kea, can be construed to mean the white Heʻeia but there is no doubt to the connection between the two places. It is a great probability that the ridge where the top of the mauna, Keʻalohi is located, also had a name.

The wetlands have long played a critical role in the social, cultural, ecological, and agricultural systems in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa. Clearly, this food producing land, along with its adjacent large in-shore tidal fishpond are what has long given Heʻeia its famous reputation as

‘āina momona.

The Heʻeia nenelu or wetland plays a key component in the provision and distribution of water, energy, and nutrient management. Wetlands are the epitome of what is described as ʻāina momona, or a land that is rich and fat with an extraordinary abundance of fresh water. The fresh water from the ma uka or upland forests flows down and courses through the wetlands, or in the case of the Heʻeia nenelu, toward the mouth of the kai or near-shore coastline. Where those two waters meet is called the muliwai or estuary. I proffer that the muliwai, as an area of transition from land to sea, 211 or vice versa, accommodates the elements of Kāne (freshwater) and Kanaloa

210 Alexander & Baldwin. Survey Map of Heʻeia Koʻolaupoko Oahu. Scale 400 Ft. to an Inch. Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, 1913.

211 According to the National Estuary Program (NEP), An estuary is a partially enclosed, coastal water body where freshwater from rivers and streams mixes with salt water from the ocean. Estuaries, and their surrounding lands, are places of transition from land to sea. Estuarine environments are among the most productive on earth, creating more organic matter each year than comparably sized areas of forest, grassland or agricultural land. The sheltered waters 122

(salt water) to create a pūnana, a nest, one that not only embraces the duality of wai and kai, but provides, in the mixing of those waters, the spawning environment that certain species of fish

(ʻawa, ʻamaʻama, and ʻoʻopu) require in order to procreate, thrive and survive.

In the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, the fresh wai from ma uka streams’ flowing waters can be

figuratively seen to represent the piko, 212 which connects the three case study research sites

(ʻIolekaʻa, Heʻeia nenelu, and the Heʻeia Loko Iʻa) of this dissertation. By this observation, the

wai flowing through the sites mentioned above, is the life-giving piko or connection between

those ʻāina. Those vital waters enrich the nenelu with biota and provide the nourishment needed

for the cultivation of food and support of wetland biodiversity.

The importance of kalo, in particular wetland kalo, is indicated by the various references

to it in moʻolelo, moʻokūʻauhau, and ʻōlelo noʻeau.213 The reciprocal relationship between

Kānaka and Hāloa 214 is reinforced in the physical cultivation, harvest, and eating of kalo. The

contemporary farming of kalo today can be seen as an embodied and transformative experience

that attends to a resurgent paradigm from which modern-day Kānaka Maoli experience cultural,

of estuaries also support unique communities of plants and animals specially adapted for life at the margin of the sea.

212 Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert, Hawaiian Dictionary (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1986), 328. Piko, navel string, umbilical cord. Fig., blood relative, genitals. In this study, the piko as wai is what connects the case sites of this study.

213 Mary Kawena Pukui, ʻŌlelo Noʻeau Hawaiian Proverbs & Poetical Sayings, (Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1983): 33. An example of an ʻōlelo noʻeau related to kalo. E ʻao lūʻau a kualima,” or “Offer young taro leaves to the gods five times.” “Advice to one who has erred and wishes to rectify his mistake. Young taro leaves often were substituted for pigs when making an offering to the gods. To remove sickness of mind or body, one can make five separate offerings of young taro leaves.” This is an example of how taro and its parts, were embedded in the traditional practices of Kānaka Maoli.

214 In the mo’olelo of Papahānaumoku and Wākea (Earth Mother & Sky Father), Hāloanakalaukapalili is the fetus conceived and miscarried (ʻaluʻalu). This keiki ʻaluʻalu is planted in the earth and from that sprouts the first kalo or taro plant to become the elder sibling of Kanaka Maoli. This moʻolelo fortifies the relationship between elder and younger siblings thereby substantiating the symbiotic paradigm which underpins ʻŌiwi foundational beliefs and cultural values.

123 social, educational, and political revivification. In the Heʻeia wetland, Indigenous resurgence has taken form in the cultural evolution of Hāloa, 215 by bringing both Kānaka and kalo out of obscurity while recentering Indigenous agency in the production of food and Indigenous management of land.

The Heʻeia wetland was a place where kalo once flourished (fig. 14). Located in the ahupuaʻa of Heʻeia ma waena or between the ma uka uplands and ma kai fisheries, it is a low tract of land mostly inundated with fresh water. The streams of Haʻikū, ʻIolekaʻa, and Kaiwikeʻe merge with Haʻikū Stream to form the Heʻeia Stream. This is the main waterway through the

Heʻeia wetland. Pūʻolena Stream enters the wetland from the ili ʻāina of Hanaweke and joins

Heʻeia Stream in the nenelu.

Fig. 14. Taro Loʻi on Flatlands at Heeia , 1930, BPBM Coll. 216

The nenelu serves as a sieve, capturing, filtering, and distributing water through the

ʻauwai system. The ʻauwai or ditch waters, conjoining Heʻeia stream, push ahead toward the mouth of that stream where its current meets the sea once it passes under the Heʻeia bridge. The place where the mixing of that fresh and salt water occurs is the muliwai or estuary. The muliwai

215 The re-emergence of Hāloa is an analogy to the present-day resurrection of mahaiʻai kalo, or the cultivation and harvesting of kalo. The physical acts of huli, huki, and kuʻi ʻai (planting, pulling, and pounding), is mālama ʻāina in the nurturing and caring for Hāloa as elder sibling, who in turn feeds and nourishes us.

216 Kāneʻohe History of Change, 1982, accessed January, 2019. 124 is located in the ʻili of Heʻeia Uli between Lae ʻo Keʻalohi and Loko Iʻa ʻo Heʻeia and functions as a biological resource zone, serving as a juvenile nursery for certain spawning species of fish and shrimps, both Native and non-Native.

The kahakai or coastal zone includes the fishpond, Loko Iʻa ʻo Heʻeia, and Moku o Loʻe.

The near-shore fisheries and outer reefs of Kāneʻohe Bay are also included in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa as well as the military occupied ʻili of Mōkapu, the Indigenous name for what is referred to today as Kāneʻohe Marine Corp Base. Restoration efforts in the Heʻeia nenelu today are being implemented in the ʻili of Heʻeia Uli, Pahele, Punawai, Puʻulani, Hanaweke and

Kaualaukī, as this dissertation discusses.

Historical Land Tenure of the Heʻeia Wetland

This section draws from existing compilations of land tenure records for the Heʻeia wetland (Kelly 1975, Gouveia 1980, Klieger et al. 2005, Peluso 2010, Gentz et al. 2012). Those resources, Gouveia, Klieger et al., Peluso, and Gentz et al., document a chain of title for the parcels listed in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa that demand a more critical investigation into land exchanges and into the Heʻeia Agricultural Company, aka Heʻeia Sugar Company. The chain of titles for the Heʻeia nenelu is not the primary subject of this dissertation, but my findings on this issue provide context for my discussion of restoration efforts in the area and demonstrate the need for future researchers to conduct more focused research on the chain of titles.

125

Aliʻi in the Heʻeia Ahupuaʻa

In 1775, Kamehameha I defeated Kalanikūpule at Nuʻuanu to become the sole ruler of

Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, Maui, and Hawaiʻi. When the kālaiʻāina, or dividing up of the conquered lands, was conducted for the island of Oʻahu, Kamehameha retained the ahupuaʻa of

Heʻeia as his own personal property. 217 Affiliations made from the conquest of land and the political power afforded to certain retainers through the kālaiʻāina of Oʻahu by Kamehameha I, placed chiefs and chiefesses in positions of power. Of these were Boki, who under the reign of

Kamehameha I served as the kiaʻāina of Oʻahu from 1816 – 1829. Bokiʻs wife was Chiefess

Kuini Liliha.

A review of LCAs and records of land exchanges from 1830 to 1943 establishes how

ʻāina in Heʻeia was awarded, leased, bought, sold, and subsumed throughout the remainder of the

1800s and into the early 1900s. Records show that beginning prior and up to the Māhele in 1848, lands were “given” 218 to certain individuals in Heʻeia Uli (see Table 2). In some instances, awards of lands were given to persons directly in the time of Kamehameha III, Kuini Liliha, and

Pākī. Lands were also given by the konohiki and lunas.

217 Joseph H. Gentz, et al., “Ka Moʻolelo o Heʻeia Kamehameha Schools Ethnohistorical Study of Heʻeia Ahupuaʻa, Koʻolaupoko District, Oʻahu Island Volume I: Compilation of Resources.” Cultural Surveys Hawaiʻi, Inc. Job Code: Heeia 16 (December 2012): 68.

218 Marion Kelly, Loko Iʻa O Heʻeia (Honolulu: Bishop Museum, 2000), 9. According to Kelly, “These “given” lands indicate the relationship between a chief and the king where the chief receives land in return for his service to the king. In other words, land to live and cultivate on but not to own in the Western sense. 126

Table 2. LCA Index of the Heʻeia Wetland, Koʻolaupoko, Oʻahu (Land Commission Awards 1848) for the ʻili of Heʻeia Uli, Pahele, Punawai, Hanaweke, Puʻulani and Kaualauki.

LCA- RP- CLAIMAN ACRES/ ʻILI RECEIVED BK/PG BK/PG T APANA FROM/YEAR

2162-4/673 990-4/639 Kalei 1.07/3 Puahele [Pahele] Pākī/1832

2163-6/593 1558-5/693 Kawahine 1.25/2 Paheleloa [Pahele] Puhiki in the time of Liholiho, to Kawahine, then his widow, Pahihi, upon his death. 2608-4/659 1016-4/691 Puhiki 1.15/3 Pahele Claimant had the land since the time of Liliha 2608B-4/668 1568-5/713 Puahiki/Puhiki 3.28/3 Pahele 2310-10/221 2946 Nakiaha Puulani [Pulani]/Pahele NOT AWARDED 2947 Kaawa Pahale [Pahele NOT AWARDED 3570-4/671 1578-5/733 Kaauamoa 0.32/1 Pahele Wiwi until Kaauamoaʻs death and land is returned to the konohiki. 3570-7/295 2366-10/445 Kaauamoa 0.25/1 Pahele 4467-4/670 1015-4/689 Keawe 0.89/2 Pahele Wiwi/1843 4468-4/668 995-4/649 Kana 1.67/2 Pahele 6062-6/531 3802-16/363 Uhuuhu 3.92/4 Pākī/1830 6040-8/276 1557-5/691 Ehu 1.47/2 Punawai Kamohoalii/1843 2930 6101B Nakoko Pahele NOT AWARDED 7165-6/539 1580-5/737 Kahaku 1.22/2 Kaniloa (Moʻo ,āina) Uhuuhu/1845 7241-6/647 3627-16/13 Papa 1.00/2 Uhuuhu/1843 7271-4/667 6596- Hooulu 1.15/1 Uhuuhu and claimantʻs 24/565 ancestors/1840ʻs 7526-6/763 1012-4/683 Kamohoalii 1.62/1 Puuawai [Punawai] Pākī/1839 7527-6/532 1556/5/689 Kupalii 1.22/2 Puulani Pākī/1843 7529-6/535 1579-5/735 Kalaauhina 2.60/1 Puulani Pākī/183 7736-6/535 2404-10/597 Wahahee 1.85/2 Kanaweke [Hanaweke] 8143-4/662 2021-8/369 Hoa 0.40/1 8193-6/647 1416-5/403 Hina (w) 0.67/2 Punawai/Pahelepoko Uhuuhu/1834 8194-6/528 1011-4/681 Hoka 1.76/2 Uhuuhu/1832 10192-4/667 1570-5/717 Manuahi 0.54/1 Pahele Uhuuhu/1844 Uhuuhu swears claimant is dead, grandchild is heir, (Keopuhiwa). 10423-4/659 1557-5/731 Napua 2.31/2 Puulani [Pulani] Pākī/1839 6182-23/531 10613-10/285 16646/263 Paki 1/ahp. Heeia Ahupuaa Kamehameha III/Liliha 10713-9/363 6158-23/483 Poohiwi 1.38/2 Paahele [Pahele] Puahiki [Puhiki]/1838 10713-4/660 1.15/2 10977-4/666 1567-5/711 Wiwi 2.15/2 Pahele Pākī/1843 This table was compiled by the author from the following sources; Klieger, et al., 2005; Gentz, et al., 2012; Helber Hastert & Fee, 2007; Wilson Okamoto Corporation Engineers & Planners, 2007; and Kelly, 2000.

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Population of Heʻeia (1800s)

Documentation derived from Native testimonies during the Māhele contain at least twenty names of individuals that were either luna or konohiki in Heʻeia. While a comprehensive and complete chain of titles for the Heʻeia nenelu is beyond the scope of this project, it is interesting to note how land exchanged hands in Heʻeia, particularly between 1830 and 1888 alongside the proportionally immense decrease in the population during those years.

According to Devaney et al., between the years 1831-1832, the total population of

Heʻeia, Koʻolaupoko was 505. By 1835-1836, the population decreased to 483. In 1862, the populace in Heʻeia was 232. 219 As Kanaka Maoli were dying by the hundreds from foreign diseases which plagued them, so too did the Native population suffer from low birthrates. In

1849 the Parker Mission Station reported that there had been, “368 deaths, as compared to 51 births for all of Koʻolaupoko.” 220 In 1854, 600 people died from smallpox. The lament of

Reverend Benjamin Parker, a Kāneʻohe Protestant missionary, is hauntingly telling when he writes, “Many houses were left without an inhabitant, and of those who survived, many of them had relapsed into a state of indifference and stupidity, from which there seemed to be little hope that they would ever be recovered.” 221 While Parker’s lamentations help to illustrate the condition in which the land was being abruptly left, his description was none-the-less racist and xenophobic.

219 Dennis M. Devaney et al., Kaneʻohe History of Change (Honolulu: The Bess Press, 1982), pg. 9.

220 Ibid.

221 Ibid., 11.

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Unattended due to the death of so many, makaʻāinana and aliʻi alike, loʻi and māla went uncultivated. With hundreds of Kānaka Maoli dying, much of the ʻāina went barren and left to fallow. ʻAuwai, once flowing with fresh water supplying loʻi with their requirements, became neglected and overgrown as there were less hands to work the ʻāina. Many of the hale were empty of Kānaka, and for small villages such as Heʻeia, population loss at that scale was disastrous in terms of the cultivation of land and resources. Throughout the 1800s, the continuing demise of Kānaka ʻŌiwi from diseases, dispossesion from ʻāina, the Māhele, and the catastrophic imposition of cultural genocide and religious conversion, brought about great emotional turmoil and political changes.

Abenera (Abner) Kūhoʻoheiheipahu Pākī, Boki, and Kuini Liliha

Chief Abner Kūhoʻoheiheipahu Pākī was the son of Kalanihelemaiiluna and his mother, Kawao. In Loko Iʻa O Heʻeia, Marion Kelly writes:

High chief Kamehamehanui was the elder brother of Kahekili (the ruler of Maui). Kalaniulumoku. Kalaniulumoku was the brother of Kalaniulu and Kalanihelemaiiluna (Pākīʻs father), were brothers. Kalaniulumoku was reported to have been one of the warriors who lived at Heʻeia after Kahekili defeated Kahahana the ruler of Oʻahu at bout 1785.who went to Oʻahu and after the defeat of Kahahana on Oʻahu by Kahekili, lived at Heʻeia for a time. Kekumanoha was half-brother to Kamehamehanui and father of Boki. Kuini Liliha was the wife of Boki who became governor of Oʻahu in 1816 until 1829 when he was presumed to have died having never returned from that ill-fated voyage to the New Hebrides. (4-5)

Pākīʻs moʻokūʻauhau suggests that his konohiki assignment of the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa prior to the Māhele was due to his allegiance to the Kamehamehas, his intimate kinship with the chiefess Kuini Liliha (having once been his wife), and his relationship with Boki, governor of

Oʻahu and husband of Kuini Liliha. All three of these aliʻi were linked through their aliʻi and warrior ancestors. 129

In 1831, Pākī joined Liliha in what is referred to as the Pahikaua, 222 a rebellion against the Queen Regent Kaʻahumanu, a converted Christian who supported the religious conversion of her people. That rebellion famously failed. As a result of that attempt, Liliha was removed as the kiaʻaina of Oʻahu and stripped of her previously royal caretakership of Kamehameha III and his lands as punishment for her rebellion against Kaʻahumanu. While Liliha lost her position as kiaʻāina of Oʻahu, her lands and caretaker of Kamehameha III, Pākī himself suffered no serious repercussions for his involvement in the Pahikaua. Liliha, in spite of losing much of her control and land on Oʻahu, still maintained some influence in the moku of Koʻolaupoko. Gentz (2012,

70) writes:

By 1832 he [Pākī] was acting as the konohiki of Heʻeia. Further, given the present record of Pākī’s connection with Liliha, Liliha’s role as governess of Oʻahu, and her continued role as a person of some influence in Koʻolaupoko even after 1832, it could be assumed that his claim to Heʻeia might lay in Liliha having appointed Pākī konohiki of that land for the king previous to 1832. Others say that Pākī was konohiki of the land of Heʻeia by Kamehameha III because he was one of the kingʻs favorites: he was a hulumanu. 223

Pākī continued in the capacity of konohiki of Heʻeia and was awarded the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa in the

Māhele of 1848.

222 Lorrin Andrews, A Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language , 2nd. Ed. (Honolulu: Island Heritage Publishing, 2003), 443. Pahikaua literally means “A sword and a war knife.” The figurative meaning is power, oppressive power.

223 Pākī was part of a particular group of men who were favorites of Kamehameha III and referred to as the Hulumanu, meaning bird feathers and figuratively alluding to birds of a feather that flock together.

130

Uhuuhu

Between the years 1832 to 1848, Uhuuhu was the appointed resident luna or overseer of

Heʻeia by Abner Pākī who allotted him 3.29 acres of ʻāina in the Heʻeia nenelu. 224 “Uhuuhu was descended from Keawepaikamaka, a lower chief whose brothers, Palena, Paia and Luahine, were senior line chiefs and members of an elite group of warriors who fought for Kalaniʻōpuʻu against the Maui chiefs.” 225 Uhuuhuʻs responsibilities as Pākīʻs resident luna (overseer and agent) was to, “Apportion land to others and to be sure that the people were working the land and that the

ʻāina continued to be productive.” 226 One of the most important kuleana of both konohiki and luna was the allocation of wai throughout the ahupuaʻa.

Land transactions were occurring prior to the Māhele of 1848. As an example, Gentz et al. notes:

LCA claims also provide information on settlement patterns in Heʻeia prior to Pākīʻs service as konohiki. Some awards were made “in the time Liholiho was living” (Native Testimony 14:90, LCA 2163 to Kawahine), “in the time of Kamehameha I” (Foreign Testimony 14:403, LCA 3573 to Kailaa; Native Register 5:491, LCA 8145 to Hoopiha), and as far back as “from the ancestors” (Native Register 3:380, Native Register 14:89, LCA 2161 to Kaiwenena). 227

In 1848, Kamehameha III promulgated the Māhele, allowing for the fee simple ownership of land for the first time in Hawaiʻi. The Kuleana Land Act of 1850 granted fee simple titles to makaʻāinana enabling them to make claims for the ʻāina that they occupied and

224 Marion Kelly, Loko Iʻa O Heʻeia (Honolulu: Bishop Museum, 2000): 9

225 Marion Kelly, Loko Iʻa O Heʻeia (Honolulu: Bishop Museum, 2000): 8-9.

226 Ibid.

227 Joseph H. Genz et al., “Ka Moʻolelo o Heʻeia, Kamehameha Schools Ethnohistorical Study of Heʻeia Ahupuaʻa, Koʻolaupoko District, Oʻahu Island,” Cultural Surveys Hawaiʻi, Inc. (2012): 71.

131

had improved. 228 The Māhele and the kuleana land act opened the way for aliʻi, foreigners, and

makaʻāinana alike to purchase and secure ownership of land by title.

Between 1848 and 1855, when Pākī died, lands in Heʻeia were bought, sold, leased,

mortgaged or passed down through inheritance. Many of the chiefs sold their lands to foreigners.

These outsiders, “Consolidated their holdings by purchasing many of the kuleana parcels

abutting their purchased or leased lands.” 229

In 1866, Bernice Pauahi Bishop and her husband, Charles Reed Bishop, leased a large majority of land in Heʻeia Uli to the Heʻeia Sugar Company, also operating as the Heʻeia

Agricultural Company, and owned by sugar planter, John McKeague. The lease consisted of

2,500 acres of land for a length of fifteen years. Others inherited the original land awards or acquired these parcels through sale. 230 Table 3, on the next page, indicates who the LCAs were sold or leased to by ʻili.

228 Kelly Cua, “Māhele Timeline,” Kamehameha Schools Distance Learning , Kamehameha Schools, 2007. https://apps.ksbe.edu/olelo/sites/apps.ksbe.edu.olelo/files/Māhele_timeline.pdf .

229 Marion Kelly, Loko I’a O Heʻeia , 29.

230 An interesting discovery in reviewing notes and a limited chain of title reveals how a few parcels of land, in particular those connected with Heʻeia Sugar Company (HSC), were subsumed by lease renewal or extensions of original leases negotiated with HSC. In many cases, these titles proved to be colored. Color of title means ownership of property by a person in possession, without being regular, such as not having one or more of the memorials or documents registered, or not properly registered. Color of title is where the claimed owner has some piece of paper claiming to transfer title to him or her, and that paper has defects for some reason. Color of title refers to a claim based on a land right, land warrant, land scrip or an irregular chain of title. Color of title is often raised in adverse possession claims. If a person claims adverse possession under claim of title, they get only what they actually possessed. If adverse possession is claimed under color of title, a person may have only cleared two acres of the entire five acres, but they will get the full five acres. (USLegal, https://definitions.uslegal.com/c/color-of-title/)

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Table 3. LCAs of the Heʻeia Wetland by ʻIli and who those lands were initially sold to, taken from the 1913 Map of Portion of Heeia Koolaupoko, Oahu. Survey Map of Baldwin & Alexander, Tracing by W.H. Sith, 1921.

ʻIli Claimant LCA BK/PG RP BK/PG Acres/Apana Initially Sold or Leased To

Heʻeia Uli Hoa 8143 4/662 2021 8/369 0.40/1 H.A. Co. Hooulu 7271 4/667 6596 24/565 1.15/1 H.A. Co. Kahaku 7165 (Ap. 6/539 7165 5/737 1.22 1) [1508] Kahinu Kealiiwahinenui 5537 (Ap. 2412 H.A. Co. Listed in the LCA 1) Book as Keliiwahanui Papa 7341.1 3627 H.A. Co. Listed in This parcel sits in the LCA the ʻili of both Heeia Book as Uli and Punawai 7241 Poohiwi 10713 6158 Est. B.P. Bishop Kekuamanaole 7515:1 1013 H.A. Co. [7515] Puahiki 1 2608:2 1016 Wm. Henry Puahiki 2 2608:1 Puhene 3883 1572 H.A. Co. (Ap. 1) 5958 Uhuuhu 6062 3802 Est. B.P. Bishop (Ap. 4) Punawai Ehu 6040 2020 H.A. Co. 1564 2930 1557 Hina 8193 1416 Kalei 2162:1 990 H.A. Co. Kana Kapakai 5828 5959 Kawahine 2163 1558 H.A. Co. Puhiki 2608B, 1568 H.A. Co. Ap. 2 2310 Puʻulani Hina 8193 1416 Hoka 8194 6/528 1011 1.76/2 H.A. Co. (Ap. 1) Kailaa 3573 996 (Ap. 1) Kalaau 7523 1415 Heirs/Pahia Kalaauhina 7529 1579 Kupalii 7257:1 2534 1556 Napua 10423 1577 Wing Wo Tai Co. (Ap. 1) 6182 Wong Wo Tai Co. 10423 (Ap. 2) Pa 10711 1022 H.A. Co. Wahahee 7736 2404 F. Pahia (Ap. 1) 133

7736 (Ap. 2) Wahine 6047 992 Pahele Kauamoa 3570 7/295 2366 10/45 This table was compiled by the author from the following sources; Klieger, et al., 2005; Gentz, et al., 2012; Helber Hastert & Fee, 2007; Wilson Okamoto Corporation Engineers & Planners, 2007; and Kelly, 2000.

Bernice Pauahi Bishop

In 1857, Bernice Pauahi Bishop, daughter of Abenera Pākī and the Chiefess Konia, inherited the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, 4,712 acres of ʻāina, which included the Heʻeia fishpond. As an aliʻi, it was her kuleana to mālama the lands that she had inherited that were now under her care.

Pauahi’s landed inheritance came at a time of disconcerting political and cultural upheaval in

Hawaiʻi. 231 While afforded the economic opportunities of her aliʻi position, Pauahi was known to be a benevolent haku ʻāina or landlord. In 1858 she “Signed an agreement to lease Heʻeia to ninety-seven individuals, many of them Native tenants who had been in the ahupuaʻa for many years, with the condition that if the land was not cared for, Pauahi had the legal right to evict those tenants.” 232

Heʻeia Sugar Company (The Heʻeia Agricultural Company)

The Heʻeia Sugar Company completed the construction of its sugar mill in 1878. By

1880, the Heʻeia Sugar Company, also known as the Heʻeia Agricultural Company had 2,500 acres of land, 650 acres of sugarcane land, and 250 acres under cultivation, 233 all leased from

Pauahi and Charles R. Bishop in 1886. The leases Pauahi and her husband signed for the

231 Jonathan Osorio, Dismembering Lāhui (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2002), 30.

232 George Huʻeu Sanford Kanahele, Pauahi The Kamehameha Legacy (Honolulu:Kamehameha Schools Press, 2002): 84.

233 George Bowser, Polk Hawaiian Kingdom Statistical Commercial Directory and Toursitsʻ Guide 1880-1881, (Honolulu: George Bowser & Co., 1880), 40.

134 production of sugar and rice in Heʻeia were business transactions which set the course for entrepreneurial capitalistic enterprises in which those she leased to, mostly foreigners, profited quite nicely. It also contributed to the dispossession of Kānaka Maoli from their ancestral ʻāina by foreign settlers. The last lease she signed was in 1883 with the Heʻeia Sugar Plantation

Company. In 1903, Heʻeia Sugar Company ceased operations.

Kalo, Sugar, and Rice in the Heʻeia Nenelu

The demise of kalo in the Heʻeia wetland was the result of social, cultural, political, and economic drivers. As Klieger writes,

A new system of wage labor and a cash economy encouraged Kānaka to abandon their ʻāina, and the continuing death of the population left countless ancestral lands with no heirs. Old boundaries were often forgotten, making it difficult for surviving Kānaka Maoli to locate, much less claim, their lost lands. Plantations either leased, mortgaged, or purchased kuleanas, or simply absorbed abandoned ones accreted to the largest land owner. 234

In the twenty-seven years (1848-1875) between the Māhele and the Reciprocity Treaty between the Kingdom and the United States (in support of sugar plantations), 235 the factors listed above can be said to have catapulted Hawaiʻi into systems of free enterprise enabling the formation of many companies, most owned by aliʻi and foreigners. Fortunes were made particularly in the sugar, rice, and pineapple industries. According to Hawkins (2006, 64), The

Reciprocity Treaty benefitted sugar companies by:

234 Paul Christiaan Klieger et al., Hū Ka Ipu O Oʻahu, A History of Central Koʻolau Poko, Oʻahu, (Honolulu: Bishop Museum, 2005), 78.

235 The Reciprocity Treaty of 1875, which allowed free-trade between the Hawaiian Kingdom and the United States and guaranteed a duty-free market for Hawaiian sugar, catapulted in exchange for special economic privileges for the United States that were denied to other countries.

135

Effectively removing the duty on Hawaiian produced raw sugar cane, resulting in an enormous expansion of sugar exports by both value and volume, and the Hawaiian sugar industry was transformed from a million-dollar enterprise into a multi-million-dollar enterprise. The number of plantations rose from some 30 just before the treaty to 46 by the end of 1877 and 57 in 1882. (64)

As death and land dispossession continued, its egregious pall cast devastation over the

Native Hawaiian lāhui. Changes in governance and haole ways of acquiring and managing land were buttressed by new land laws that made the procurement of those lands much easier for those in monied positions of power and who understood the new laws. These laws further disenfranchised Kānaka ʻŌiwi from their ancestral ʻāina. Countless land claims were in effect, purloined in the transfers of land to foreigners or their companies. Klieger describes one of those legal instruments, adverse possession. He writes:

Adverse possession laws allowed regional land owners to claim unused land and incorporate it into larger and larger estates. It is recognized that throughout the general and rapid decline of Native Hawaiian population, much land, even if it had received an LCA and Royal Patent, was abandoned for lack of legal heir.The Torren Land System (known as Land Court – introduced in 1903) provided a mechanism whereby legal title could be permanently established upon lands of questionable heritage. (78)

The Torrens system allowed for the pillage of Indigenous lands by colonial settlers in Hawai’i. In 1903, the land court, land agents, the registrars, court clerks and commissioners were, for the most part, haoles. The Māhele of 1848 had not only changed land tenure, it facilitated a physical dispossession of makaʻāinana from their ʻāina that resulted in cultural upheaval and social confusion. The disorder was taken advantage of by unscrupulous settlers who wanted Native lands for themselves, and used the Torrens system, which had newly codified land registration and acquisition of title for land in Hawaiʻi. This allowed for much of the land in Heʻeia Uli to be bought and sold for the impending sugar, rice, and pineapple plantations.

According to the Kaneʻohe Business Group: 136

By 1880, there were five sugar plantations in Kāneʻohe and a plantation and mill in Heʻeia. In the 1890s, the Heʻeia mill had its own railroad. By 1903 the growing of rice took over the production of sugar which had declined in Koʻolaupoko. Rice was grown in the Heʻeia wetland until the early 1920s.

The historical chronology of events from 1775 to 2010 (see Table 4), provides a comprehensive survey of significant events, land tenure exchanges, and the development of sugar, rice, and pineapple plantations predominantly in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa. In 1871, Bernice

Pauahi Bishop leased land in Heʻeia to Chinese rice planters (Aikau & Camvel, 2016). The wetland was suited to the growing of rice, in addition to some kalo.

Table 4. Chronology of Events from 1775 – 2010 in Koʻolaupoko.

1775 King Kamehameha I unites all the islands except Kauaʻi under his rule.

1819 Kamehameha I dies, Kamehameha II (Liholiho) becomes king.and Kaʻahumanu becomes Kuhina Nui or co-regent. 1819 Boki Kamaʻuleʻule becomes Governor of Oʻahu. 1824 Liholiho and his wife die in Great Britain from the measles. 1825 Boki appoints Kaniani/Keanini as district chief of Koʻolaupoko. 1825 Kamehameha III (Kauikeaouli) becomes king with Kaʻahumanu serving as regent. Boki is kahu to KIII. Boki appoints Kaniani/Keanini as Koʻolau moku chief. 1829 Boki leaves for New Hebrides and disappears, his wife, Liliha, becomes Governess of Oʻahu and appoints Kaiakoʻili as the konohiki for the Koʻolaupoko district. 1831 Liliha is deposed after planning a rebellion against Kaʻahumanu. 1848 Māhele land division. Paki receives the ahupuaʻa of Heʻeia. Abner Pākī receives 3,737 acres. Victoria Kamamalu receives 140 acres. The Catholic Mission receives 216.50 acres. Makekehau receives 14.65 acres. 1850 Bernice Pauahi marries Charles Reed Bishop. 1854 Kamehameha III dies. 1855 Kamehameha IV becomes king. Abernera Pākī dies, his widow dowager Konia, receives 3,737 acres of Heʻeia among other lands. 1858 Bernice Pauahi and Charles R. Bishop signs an agreement to lease portions of the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa to 97 individuals. 1857 Konia dies and Bernice Pauahi (daughter of Pākī and Konia) inherits Heʻeia which totaled 4,712 acres, including the Heʻeia fishpond. 1863 Kamehameha IV dies and Kamehameha V succeeds him. 137

1864 Pauahi sells 772 acres “From the top of Maʻeliʻeli peak” to Catholic Bishop Maigret for $970.00. 1865 Queen Kalama and Charles Coffin become partners and form the Kāneʻohe Sugar Company. 1866 Pauahi leases 2,500 acres in Heʻeia for 15 years to John McKeague for growing sugar cane. McKeague forms the Heʻeia Sugar Company (Heʻeia Agricultural Company) and extends the lease in 1869 for an additional 13 years. 1866 McKeague mortgages his lease to Hackfield and Co. and deeds half-interest in his lease to Alexander Kennedy, his partner in the Heʻeia Sugar Plantation Co. 1871 Bernice Pauahi Bishop leases land to Wing Wo Tai Company, Chinese rice farmers. 1872 Kamehemeha V dies. 1875 Reciprocity Treaty is signed allowing the export of raw sugar cane duty free. 1878 Heʻeia Sugar Company (Heʻeia Agricultural Company, Ltd. 1880 Rice mill built on leased Bishop land. 1880 The Heʻeia Rice Plantation under the operation of Ma Ah Kau. 1882 McKeague sells all of his interest in the Heʻeia lease to Heʻeia Sugar Plantation Co. (HSPC) for $1.00 and a new lease is written between HSPC, Ltd. and Charles Reed Bishp for much of the land in Heʻeia. 1883 The lease (the last lease signed by Pauahi) is augmented for the lands already had, and grants the company all traditional konohiki rights to fisheries and seas appertaining to Heʻeia, including the Heʻeia fishpond, Moku o Loʻe (Coconut Island), and Haʻikū Valley.

A railroad is installed in Heʻeia. 1884 Bernice Pauhi Bishop dies, leaving the bulk of her estate to be held in trust for the establishment of Kamehameha Schools. 1890 Cultivation of pineapple begins. 1893 The illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. 1898 Hawaiʻi is illegally annexed to the United States of America 1903 Heʻeia Sugar Plantation ceases operations. 1909 The Koʻolau Fruit Company at Heʻeia plants 200 acres in pineapple with an option to lease 300 more acres. 1910 Libby, McNeill, & Libby acquires the Hawaiian Cannery Company on Windward Oʻahu to grow pineapple. 1911 Libby builds a model plantation village and cannery in Kahaluʻu which became known as Libbyville. James B. Castle purchases the Koʻolau Fruit Company and all its interests. 1910- Libby acquires over 1,600 acres of land in Heʻeia, Kāneʻohe, Kailua, Waiahole, and 1912 Waikāne mostly under lease from Kāneʻohe Ranch Company and Heʻeia Agriculture Co., Ltd. 1917 Libby purchases Koʻolau Fruit Company acquiring its 500 acres of leased land in Heʻeia. 1920 Taro makes a comeback coinciding with the decline of rice. 1923 Libby reduces its plantings and sub-leases large areas to independent growers. Libby withdraws from Windward Oʻahu and dismantles its cannery. 1943 Many Kāneʻohe properties belonging to Queen Kalama are sold to H.K.L. Castle. 138

1969 100-year flood occurs on the Windward coast, the wetland goes fallow at this time. 1959 Hawaiʻi becomes the 50th State of the United States of America. 1980 Bishop Estate considers selling the Heʻeia meadowlands (wetland) for $25 million dollars to a Japanese investor whose intent was to build a golf course and which was stopped by community outrage. 1991 Kamehameha Schools swaps 420 acres of the Heʻeia wetland for land in Kakaʻako. 2010 Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority signs a 36-year lease with Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi. This table was compiled by the author from the following sources; Klieger, et al., 2005; Gentz, et al., 2012; Helber Hastert & Fee, 2007; Wilson Okamoto Corporation Engineers & Planners, 2007; and Kelly, 2000.

The 1898 annexation of Hawaiʻi to the United States contributed, in part, to the decline in rice production. “Many Chinese who worked on rice farms at the time of annexation and within the years afterward returned to China.” 236 In the early 1920s to the 1930s, competition with

California in the production of rice, in addition to problems in controlling both the rice bird and the rice borer insect, were contributing factors to the decline in the production of rice.

Pineapple was not cultivated in Heʻeia Uli to the extent that it was in Kāneʻohe and

Kahaluʻu, being grown mostly in ʻĀhuimanu. “Pineapples are typically grown in large fairly flat tracts of well-drained inter-mountain land that is composed of red dirt.” 237 Heʻeia was identified as one of the lands of which was leased by Libby, McNeill & Libby (fig. 15) from Kaneʻohe

Ranch and the Heʻeia Agricultural Company. According to Kelly, “Libby, McNeill & Libby had leased nearly 3,000 acres of land in Kāneʻohe, Heʻeia, and all the valleys on out to Hakipuʻu for growing pineapples.” 238

236 Klieger et al. Hū Ka Ipu O Oʻahu , pg. 111. According to Klieger, between 1902 and 1904 more than 6000 Chinese men went back to China and were subject to stringent rules if they wanted re-entrance into Hawaiʻi.

237 Dr. Ken Rubin, Professor, Dept. of Geology and Geophysics, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, “Ask An Earth Scientist,” 2019. https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/ASK/pineapples.html.

238 Marion Kelly, “The Impact of Land Use on Kāneʻohe Bay, (Symposium on Maritime Archaeology and History of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific, Hawaiʻi Maritime Center, Honolulu, February 14-16, 1998, page 6.

139

Fig. 15. Libby, McNeill & Libby Pineapple Cannery, R.W. Perkins, 1913. 239

Libby, McNeill & Libby Cannery

The Libby, McNeill & Libby Cannery had been built in Wailau, an ʻili in the ahupuaʻa of

Kahaluʻu where much of the company’s pineapples and those of other companies were brought in for canning. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser listed realty transactions between Heeia

Agriculture Co., Ltd. to Koolau Fruit Co., identifying “A land in Heeia.” 240 There is insufficient evidence to substantiate the cultivation of pineapple in the ‘ilis of Heʻeia Uli, Punawai,

Hanaweke, or Puʻulani. Interestingly enough, what is listed as one of the sites destroyed during the pineapple era, is Kalaeʻulaʻula Heiau at Lae ʻO Keʻalohi, once situated where Heʻeia State

239 R.W. Perkins, Crossroads of the Pacific , 1913, accessed March, 2020.

240 Realty Transactions Recorded January 31, 1913, The Pacific Commercial Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), Feb. 24, 1913.

140

Park is now located. It is said to have been destroyed by pineapple growers in their attempt to cultivate the region. 241

Heʻeia Uli In Transition

In the ensuing years between 1923, Libby, McNeill & Libby closed their operations in

Wailau and 1943, and much of Queen Kalamaʻs Kāneʻohe lands were sold to H.K. Castle.

Bishop Estate re-consolidated their Heʻeia Uli land holdings, and with the exception of a few kuleanas and leases, the wetland was mostly unencumbered (fig. 16).

Fig. 16. Portion of the Heeia Meadowlands , 1922, Municipal Reference and Records Center .242

Beginning in 1923 more than 200,000 Japanese immigrants arrived to the shores of

Hawaiʻi primarily to work on the sugar plantations, and on their heels, over the decades to follow, came Filipinos, Portuguese, Chinese, Koreans and others. This would not only change

241 Devaney et al., Kāneʻohe A History of Change , (Honolulu: Bess Press, 1982), 63.

242 Municipal Reference and Records Center, Archives, Honolulu, Kāneʻohe A History of Change , (Honolulu: Bess Press, 1982), accessed March 2020. 141 the ethnic composition of Hawaiʻi but cast the assimilation of those immigrants as another structure of settler colonialism.

During the next fifteen years, Hawaiʻi’s trajectory into modernity was buttressed by a growing non-Native population, tourism, industrialization, land development, and military operations in the islands after Japan’s invasion of China in 1937.

The end of World War II changed the political, social, economic and cultural dynamics of

Hawaiʻi. The increasing population needed to be housed and that demand was readily met by entrepreneurial opportunists, politicians and newly formed businesses in the sale and development of land for the construction boom that was eminent. Heʻeia Uli, Heʻeia Kea, Lae ʻO

Keʻalohi, and Loko Iʻa ʻO Heʻeia would have succumbed to development had not the kupaʻāina and community activists protested and continued to do so in order that those lands not be developed upon (see Chapter 2).

As for Heʻeia Uli, with the exception of cattle grazing and the raising of pigs, the most severe impact to this once productive nenelu was the 100-year flood in 1965 and resulting fallow condition over the next 50 years. David Costa and his family, some of the last ranchers who had been raising cattle, horses, and pigs in the Heʻeia wetland, had a month-to-month lease with the land owners for twenty-seven years, including when that flood occurred. This is the same flood that blew out the ma kai wall of the Heʻeia lokoʻ iʻa.

Due to the many years of laying uncultivated, the effects of both non-use and misuse in what had come to be known as the meadow lands of Heʻeia has been the extensive proliferation of non-native species of plants, grasses, shrubs, and weeds that severely impacted waterways in the wetland. The proliferation of red mangrove ( Rhizophora mangle ) made its way inside the 142

Heʻeia fish pond, through the muliwai, and up to about a quarter of an acre into the wetland on the other side of the Heʻeia Bridge (known as “The Long Bridge”). As the mangrove spread further ma uka of the muliwai it wreaked havoc on the once pristine eco-environment that sustained Native Hawaiian species of life (fig. 17). As the mangroves grew tall and thick, it became almost impossible to see the fishpond or the wetland when driving across the Heʻeia long bridge.

Fig. 17. Mangrove at the Heʻeia Bridge , Douglas Herman, Pacific Worlds. 243

In summary, the events that led to the Māhele in 1848 and the impacts of land tenure after it, tore the cultural fabric of Hawaiʻi, in particular for the makaʻāinana. The illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 and subsequent annexation in 1898 ripped through the naʻau of

Kanaka Maoli and would be a harbinger of cultural, social, political, and economical collapse for

Native Hawaiians.

Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority (HCDA)

243 Douglas Herman, Pacific Worlds, accessed April, 2020, http://www.pacificworlds.com/heeia/stories/story1.htm . 143

The Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority (HCDA) is a State Agency that was

established to supplement traditional community renewal methods by promoting and

coordinating public and private sector community development. 244

Created by the Hawaiʻi State Legislature in 1976, the objective of the HCDA focused on future development of “severely underdeveloped and underutilized” 245 land for potential economic gain once those areas were re-developed. Kakaʻako, an urban district within the

Honolulu metropolitan, became the first Community Development District opening the way to development opportunities for “housing, parks, open areas, as well as new commercial and industrial space near the downtown core.” 246

In 1976, HCDA “assumed the role of redeveloping the 3,700-acre Kalaeloa Community

Development District (Kalaeloa). The 2002 State Legislature voted to transfer that kuleana from the Barbers Point Naval Air Station Redevelopment Commission to HCDA approved the addition of new HCDA board members to represent the Kalaeloa District.” 247 In 2019 via Act

268, HCDA undertook the development of all state property in the new Stadium Development

District along with the Department of General Service.

HCDA gained ownership of Heʻeia Uli in 1991 when the Estate of Bernice Pauahi

Bishop exchanged four hundred plus acres of the Heʻeia wetland for land in Kakaʻako district and in 2011, Act 210 was signed into law creating the Heʻeia Community Development District

(HCDD). HCDA’s goal is to restore Heʻeia Uli into a cultural and agricultural community.

244 Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority, Department of Business, Economic Development Authority, 3/2/2019, http://dbedt.hawaii.gov/hcda/about-hcda/ .

245 Ibid.

246 Ibid.

247 Ibid. 144

The Heʻeia wetland was unlike any other real estate in HCDA’s portfolio. Its expertise was urban development, yet the wetland was about as rural as one could get and still be on

Oʻahu. Therefore, the wetland just sat in their inventory basically unattended. Along comes the

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

The Center for a Sustainable Future, Inc.

On May 4th 1999, a short piece written by Jerry Tune in the Honolulu Star Bulletin announced that, “The Center for a Sustainable Future, Inc. (CFS), a non-profit organization, was interested in creating an educational farming project that was framed by an ahupuaʻa lifestyle.” 248 The group had already received a lease with Bishop Estate for the Heʻeia fish pond, and was negotiating a lease for the Heʻeia wetlands with HCDA’s executive director, Jan

Yokota. CFS was successful in obtaining an approval for a two-year lease at $1.00 a year for 405 acres of the wetland. CFS was interested in recreating the Heʻeia Ahupuaʻa noting that, “A restored ahupuaʻa in the 21st century would provide a viable model for a different way of “doing business” based on the principles of sustainability and community cooperation.” 249

The lease was brokered and arrangements were made to have rancher David Costa relocate his 100 head of cattle, 100 pigs, 12 horses, 6 dogs, numerous chickens and tons of equipment. 250 Costa had leased 170 acres of land and in the thirty years of his tenure upon the

ʻāina, many of his bulls roamed freely in the wetland, as did his pigs, making the area unsafe to enter. Costa was able to avoid eviction by the Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority

248 Jerry Tune, “Group seeks Heeia meadowlands lease,” Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI), May 4, 1999.

249 Center for a Sustainable Future, Inc. “Action to Approve Lease to CFS,” Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority (May 5, 1999): 1-21. “Private collection of the author.”

250 Eloise Aguiar, “Wetland eviction averted for Heeia rancher,” Kāneʻohe Sun Press XL, no. 31 (Kāneʻohe, HI), July 30-August 5, 1999. 145 through the intervention of then Senators Bob Nakata and Marshall Ige, and HCDA gave Costa time to relocate.

CFS was affiliated with the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) and the School of Ocean, Earth, Science, and Technology. CFS was initially housed at Moku ʻO Loʻe (Coconut

Island), home of HIMB. Principal stakeholders involved with CFS were Barry Raleigh, then dean of SOEST at the University of Hawaiʻi and Gordon Grau, director of HIMB. The intended collaborative community effort initiated by CFS can be said to have spawned the formation of the Ahupuaʻa Restoration Council of Heʻeia (ARCH). Both were successful in building community capacity toward the restoration of the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa. Both of these stakeholders would be critical, with Piʻikea Miller from the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation, in providing funding for Mary Brooks’ position as co-community coordinator.

CFS maintained their two-year lease of the wetland and worked with the Heʻeia kupaʻāina and community members, who were now collaborative partners as ARCH members in the effort toward restoration of the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa. CFS did not renew the Heʻeia nenelu lease with HCDA as their efforts toward restoration in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa were subsumed with

ARCH. ARCH became the leading organization of the restorative effort, continuing to create a viable administering structure to achieve their vision and mission. CFS’s corporation was formally dissolved in 2009.

Ahupuaʻa Restoration Council of Heʻeia

The formation of ARCH in 1999 was the impetus for the synergistic efforts within the

Heʻeia community to restore the Heʻeia Ahupuaʻa. Many of the founding board members of

ARCH are kupaʻāina, lineal descendents from the ahupuaʻa of Heʻeia. Other community 146 members concerned with further development, a common historical concern, also helped to direct the visioning and mission for the newly established community organization, ARCH. The vision for restoring Heʻeia Uli, or the Heʻeia wetland into the production of food and medicine was one of the organization’s objectives. In order to accomplish that vision, an initial permit of entry into the wetland and the possibility of leasing the wetland from HCDA was on the task list of ARCH.

The scope of the initial project, in collaboration with Windward Community College

(Angela Meixell & Dave Krupp), Kailua Bay Advisory Council (Maile Bay), and HCDA (Jan

Yokota) as land owner, was to conduct an ecological inventory of the wetland, identify and re- establish property boundaries, initiate a joint (multi-jurisdictional and multi-disciplined) stream reconnaissance in order complete a baseline assessment of the nenelu. Quite an ambitious task but certainly doable with the above mentioned stakeholders. Unfortunately, the proposal was not accepted in its entirety, with concerns and revisions stated, the project did not move on. In 2004, the organization’s diminishing numbers, internal administrative, and personnel issues led to the dismantling of ARCH as an organization. Many of its members however, would move forward in the restoration and protection of the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa in the establishment of organizations such as the Koʻolaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club (KHCC), a club whose members are kupaʻaina of

Heʻeia and in general, the moku of Koʻolaupoko.

Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi: A Community-Based Restoration Organization

We now turn to the latest stakeholder in this long line of historical players in the middle reaches of the He‘eia ahupua‘a and the current restoration efforts in the second of three case study sites examined in this dissertation. 147

The Koʻolaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club, whose members make up many of the lineal descendant families of the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, is the organization that re-energized efforts to bring life back to Heʻeia Uli. In 2009, invigorated by the partnerships between Nature Conservancy of

Hawaiʻi, the Koʻolau Foundation, KHCC, and HCDA, Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi, an existing but inactive non-profit educational corporation, was re-formed with a new executive director, a contemporary

ʻŌiwi vision and mission and a fresh new board of directors, and established its own “Kūpuna

Council.” 251

The new board of directors were made up of the late Jerry Kaluhiwa, Mahealani Cypher,

Alice Hewett, Leialoha “Rocky” Kaluhiwa, Christiane Kaui Lucas, Jon

MuranakaKamakawiwoʻole Osorio, and David Henkin. The Kupuna Council was made up of

Alice Hewett, Carol Halualani Bright, Jerry and Leialoha “Rocky” Kaluhiwa, Mahealani Cypher,

Mr. Sadamu Muranaka, Fred Takabayashi, and Naea Kanae, all kūpuna of Heʻeia and Kāneʻohe.

In August of 2010, Māhuahua ʻAi O Hoi (MAH) released a fact sheet about the Heʻeia nenelu. Focused on the restoration of the Heʻeia wetland MAH, a project under the auspices of

Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi (KO), they listed their goals as, “The restoration of the wetlands’ once abundant kalo through organic farming alongside the cultivation of sustainable food crops, laʻau lapaʻau, reforestation of Native Indigenous plants and trees, tropical flowers and environmental aquaculture was the goal of the project.” 252

251 The Kūpuna in this case were lineal descendents from the Heʻeia Ahupuaʻa that had connection and tenure to Heʻeia Uli. In the framing of this community-based Heʻeia Uli effort, Kūpuna are a paramount part of the hierarchy in terms of ʻike, manaʻo, moʻolelo, and customary cultural practices, thus the initial board of directors reflected the intent of the collaborative project to remain true to what and how an Indigenous restoration that is reflective of community-based management should look like.

252 Townscape, Inc. “ Mahuahua ʻAi o Hoi, Heʻeia Wetland Restoration, Strategic Plan 2-10-2015 (Heʻeia: Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi),” Townscape, Inc. (2018): 3.

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The Strategic Plan 2010-2015 for Māhuahua ‘Ai o Hoi drafted by Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi articulated the following as their vision for the Heʻeia nenelu:

Heʻeia is an abundant food-producing land: Forests, loʻi kalo, organic farms, fishponds, And the ocean extends as far as the eye can see. Agricultural production serves to Educate, feed and sustain the community.

Families gather for celebration, learning, and healing, Traditional and modern arts and sciences Strengthen the Heʻeia community.

Hoi is restored as a native wetland. Koloa, ʻalae ʻula, and aeʻo have returned And the splashing of ʻamaʻama sounds like Rain falling on the Heʻeia Stream. Clean, clear water feeds the fishpond And native limu and other marine life Are once again abundant.

It was a wonderful but challenging goal that would need solid partnerships, community involvement, kūpuna guidance, and committed workers. The list of Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi partners in

2010 was an impressive roster that included the Koʻolaupoko community, regulatory agencies, and the research community. 253 Through numerous meetings, consultations, and talk-story sessions, and with the help of committed community organizations and community members,

Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi was able to build a solid foundation with brand new KO board leadership, an organization that structured their management practices to include a community base and

253 The partners in the 2010-2015 Strategic Plan for Mahuahua ʻAi o Hoi included; KHCC, HCDA, Harold K.L. Castle Foundation, Hawaiʻi Community Foundation, Koʻolau Foundation, Office of Hawaiian Affairs, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, U.S. geological Survey, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Kahaluʻu Neighborhood Board, Kāneʻohe Neighborhood Board, The Nature Conservancy, Honolulu Board of Water Supply, Honolulu Dept. of Planning and Permitting, Townscape, Inc., Carpenterʻs Union, Kaneʻohe Business Group, Paepae o Heʻeia, Fresh From the Farm, LLC., Queen Liliʻuokalani Childrenʻs Center, UH Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology, UH Kamakamūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, UH Hilo College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Natural Resource Management, Castle-Kahuku Complex Schools, City Council members, Ikaika Anderson and Donovan Dela Cruz, State Representatives, Ken Ito, Pono Chong, and Jessica Wooly, State Senators, Clayton Hee and Jill Tokuda, U.S. Representative Mazie Hirono and the late U.S. Senators, Daniel Akaka and Daniel Inouye. 149 excellent collaborative partners. The project commenced with the decision by the KO board to select Koa Kūkea-Schultz as their executive director who would take on the challenge of seeing the restoration project vision to fruition.

Kānekoa Kūkea-Schultz, Executive Director

Kānekoa Kūkea-Schultz (Koa) has served as the Executive Director of Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi since 2009 and has led the Heʻeia Uli restoration project for the last ten years (fig. 18). What Koa took on in 2009 was a four-hundred plus acre wetland that had been fallow for nearly sixty years.

The last leasee, CFS, had not actually done any work in the wetland. Between 1999 and 2009, the already fallow Heʻeia Uli had been further subjected to an additional ten more years of wild, unseeded, and uncultivated growth. Original ʻauwai were barely visible. Non-native overgrowth and undergrowth had taken over nearly the entire nenelu. Further, there were stories that some of

Costa’s cattle were still roaming unattended in the wetland. These were wild bulls and the idea of coming across them was not a pleasant one as they could be dangerous. There was no tangible evidence of the once magnificent kalo or rice fields that had once flourished in Heʻeia Uli.

Fig. 18. Kanekoa Schultz , Aaron Yoshino, 2018, 150

Hawaiʻi Business Magazine. 254

In 2010 Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi, under the leadership of Kanekoa Kukea-Schultz, an agreement was negotiated and the acquisition of a 38-year lease for the Heʻeia nenelu was executed by

Anthony Ching, the development chief for HCDA. The goal of KO was to establish a Hawaiian cultural complex to perpetuate ʻŌiwi culture. This would include the restoration of the wetland for the cultivation of kalo, vegetables, lāʻau lapaʻau or medicinal plants, and other such crops. A lot of administrative paperwork as well as physical work would be required. The engineered success of the irrigated pond systems in Heʻeia Uli had been severely compromised. In the resulting one-hundred and sixty-two years since the Māhele, the once food-producing landscape of the wetland had changed drastically. Waterways were compromised, non-native species had colonized the existing wetland, and one of the first things needing immediate attention were the hydrological systems of the nenelu. The restoration would be no easy task. Water was extant, but its circulatory system was obstructed (fig. 19).

Fig. 19. Heʻeia Wetland [Heʻeia Uli], HCDA, 2018. 255

254 Hawaiʻi Business Magazine, accessed March 30, 2020, https://www.hawaiibusiness.com/that-which-feeds-us/.

255 Townscape, Inc., Heʻeia Community Development Plan & Project Rules 2018, accessed April 1, 2020, https://dbedt.hawaii.gov/hcda/files/2018/07/HEEIACDD_COMMUNITYMEETING_081418.pdf . 151

Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi: In the Beginning

What did management look like for Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi in Heʻeia Uli? It wasnʻt as simple as just picking up a shovel, weed trimmer, cane knife and begin working. Environmental studies, impact analysis, a master plan and permits were required before any of the major ground-moving work could begin. The environmental assessment was needed to comply with both State and

Federal regulations and law. Special management area use permit (SMP), approvals for a Clean

Water Act Section 404 permit, and the receipt and approval for a State Conservation District Use

Permit (CDUP). KO also needed approval through application for a City Sustainable

Communities Plan Rural Communities Boundary Amendment and Zone Change in order to conduct agricultural activities. Parts of the Heʻeia wetland were under the jurisdiction of the

Hawaiʻi State conservation district. Acquiring data needed for those permits and approvals and as a baseline for future evaluation of project implementation was absolutely necessary. These actions would take place over the next five years. 256

Townscape, Inc., an environmental and community planning company, was also a partner in the restoration effort. According to their website:

Townscape worked with Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi to develop a strategic Plan and a Conceptual Plan graphic and narrative to illustrate and share the community’s vision for the wetlands of Heʻeia, called Hoi. As part of the planning process, Townscape secured the approvals needed from the State Commission on Water Resource Management and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that allowed for kalo restoration. Townscape also worked with the Natural Resources Conservation Service to develop a conservation plan that was approved by the Windward Soil and Water Conservation District, thus allowing for agricultural operations. (https://townscapeinc.com/projects/heeia-wetlands-restoration).

256 Kākoʻo ʻOiwi, Mahuahua ʻAi o Hoi, Heʻeia Wetland Restoration, Strategic Plan 2-10-2015 (Heʻeia: Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi): 13.

152

The conceptual graphic created by Townscape was a map that provided a visual site analysis of Heʻeia Uli and served as the conceptual master plan for the project. Townscape is, as of December 2019, facilitating the master planning process with Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi and HCDA as required by the Hawaiʻi State Legislature.

Returning to Hāloa: Planting Kalo in Heʻeia Uli

In 2009, an initial dryland kalo field was dug and prepared for planting on the ma uka or

Kahekili Highway side of the nenelu. The plot was used as a demonstration site for the cultivation of dry land taro while the ma kai fields were being prepared for wetland production and certified organic taro propagation. Once the ma kai irrigated loʻi were ready, huli were planted and the production and harvest of kalo began. Fields in the selected five-acre area were prepared. There were five to seven loʻi, some in cultivation, others in the process of becoming so. All of the loʻi were in need of weeding, harvesting, and planting. It was an ancient cycle that was being reborn on the fertile ʻāina. Hāloa had come to life in Heʻeia Uli.

The next five years proved fruitful but was not without challenges. By this time, volunteers, community and school groups, and corporate employees are coming to the wetland to engage with the ʻāina, plant, pull, or weed in the loʻi, and getting very dirty in the process. With only a limited supply of water with which to rinse, those who returned again and again to the wetland are to be admired and applauded.

Volunteers are extremely important in the organization of KO. Students, teachers, other educational organizations, schools, and charter schools, along with company employees who come to get dirty, and boy do they (see fig. 20). Not only do these volunteers provide the many hands that are needed to mālama the loʻi, but what Heʻeia Uli has to offer in exchange for the 153 volunteers’ hard work is amply explained in an article I co-authored with Hokulani Aikau

(2016):

The Māhuahua ʻAi o Hoi project, which translates to re-planting the fruit of Hoi, strives to restore this relationship [between Kānaka and Haloa] by providing the larger community with opportunities to volunteer at the loʻi on community workdays. An invaluable aspect of the experience of volunteers is the orientation. These events offer volunteers and staff the experience to connect with Hāloa, to enter the lepo of Papa with hands, feet, body and mind, to plant, or weed kalo, to sink into the walewale of the ʻāina momona. For Kānaka Maoli, this is the embodiment of Hāloa onto the ʻōiwi body. (545).

Fig. 20. Le Jardin Students at the Wetland, LJA Weekly, 2018. 257

Producing Paʻi ʻai and Poi at Heʻeia Uli

By 2013 the production of poi was starting to accelerate as the supply of kalo increased but not enough to fill all of the orders that were coming in. KO supplemented their orders with additional kalo that arrived from Maui on Wednesdays and poi production would begin. It was the same schedule; kalo was harvested and cleaned on Wednesdays, cooking commenced on

Thursdays, and the milling and packaging took place on Fridays. Cleaning and cooking took place at the wetland, but the milling of the kalo was conducted at the home of a kupuna in Heʻeia

257 LJA Weekly, accessed April 1, 2020, https://www.lejardinacademy.org/cf_enotify/view.cfm?n=2622 .

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Kea. 258 The following is a description (Aikau & Camvel, 2016), of a milling operation at Heʻeia, in which kalo had been prepared for grinding by the Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi staff:

I arrive to Heʻeia Uli about 5:00 a.m. Kānehoalani (sun) has yet to rise so it is cool and dark. I sit down on the bench of a wooden picnic table with my steaming mug of hot coffee. Nalani, who came in at 4:30 a.m., already had the kalo in the large stainless steel pot, submerged in water and cooking. They use propane stoves to boil the huge pots of kalo. Sista was now in charge of getting the provision needed for cleaning and milling the kalo. Things such as water, ice, bags and ties, scale, gloves were now her responsibility. Sista and Ioane arrive at 6:00 a.m. and begin to prepare the area for peeling the kalo and the arrival of volunteers from a local company. I learn that prior to cooking the taro, the corms are checked for pocket rot, a metal screen placed on the bottom of the pot to avoid sticking and burning, and the corms are layered in the pot (biggest to smallest). A second pot is on another burner with boiling water, which will be poured over the prepared corms. Once the water is ready, the corms are covered with the boiling water, burlap bags are arranged on the top of the pot, and covered with the lid, then made secure by heavy pōhaku and/or stone dowels. Nalani estimates the cooking time will be four to six hours. After about an hour and every half-hour after that, the kalo is checked for readiness until it no longer “itches” the throat when eaten. (551)

The process required at this was the purchase of water and ice for both cleaning and packing the kalo once it was cooked. There was still a limited supply of water via hose and there was no electricity available at the site. Any water used from the hose needed to be boiled.

Volunteers arrive and are given an orientation to Heʻeia Uli, its name, history, and restoration plans. Some volunteers are ushered under the tent where the kalo was being cooked to help with the cleaning of the cooked corms of kalo. Aikau and I 259 described the process:

It was an assembly line of sorts, everyone sitting in a circle on metal folding chairs, laughing, talking story, sharing responses on the art of taro cleaning and how not to get wet in the process. Hot corms were placed in two large metal pots of purified water

258 In pondering the duality and connections of place-based moʻolelo I offer the following as a contemporary ʻŌlelo Noʻeau for this period of poi production by Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi.

259 Hokūlani Aikau and Donna Ann Kamehaʻikū Camvel, “Cultural Traditions and Food: Kānaka Maoli and the Production of Poi in the Heʻeia Wetland, Food, Culture & Society 19, no. 3 (Taylor & Francis Online): 539- 561. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2016.1208340.

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steeped in ice. Another large pot with purified water was where the cleaned corms were placed. From there Nalani and Sista provided quality control by checking the corm a final time for any discoloration, rot, or other blemishes we might have missed. Nalani and Sista took the corms and cut them into cubes then the kalo was then placed in clear plastic bags, the coolers filled with the prepared kalo and covered completely in ice to prohibit spoilage. All tubs, pots, spoons, screens are thoroughly washed, area cleaned. Nearly eight hours from our arrival to the wetland the kalo is packed and ready for the next day’s milling.

The milling of the poi the following day took place about three-quarters of a mile from the wetland. The ice-packed coolers, filled with freshly cleaned and cut corms of kalo, were transported to Heʻeia Kea for the milling process. Aikau and I described this:

Ioane and Jensen roll out a large machine on wheels, an old meat grinder. They hose it down and once thoroughly cleaned, the machine is rolled to the middle of the area. I watch them put it together and turn it on. In their gloved hands they place the cut kalo pieces onto the plate and then push it into the grinder with the aid of a plastic water bottle. I smile inside thinking “reduce, reuse, recycling at its best.” I watch the grounded mass being pressed through tiny holes and come out looking like pasta only thicker and bulkier. I want to take my finger and scoop up a glob and eat it already! It looks so amazingly delicious! I take pictures of it. The process of kalo milled through the grinder again and again mesmerizes me. I feel like this is an important moment. I keep staring at the kalo as it comes out. I laugh to myself thinking it looks like pasta, but oh no, this is better than pasta. It is the perfect food and it’s filled with mana (divine power) because … yes that’s it! It is the tangible connection to Hāloa. I am reminded that just as Haumea is being reborn in every generation, so too is Hāloa being reclaimed with every planting, every harvest, with each cooking, milling and preparation of the kalo into poi. 260

The resurgence of Hāloa and the production of poi in Heʻeia Uli is steeped in the mana of ea. In the introduction to A Nation Rising, Hawaiian Movements fo Life, Land, and Sovereignty ,

Goodyear-Kaʻōpua explains ea as “Life and breath, an active state of being, like breathing, ea cannot be possessed; it requires constant action day after day, generation after generation.” 261

The resurgence of Indigenous power comes from the reclamation of our ʻŌiwi lands and the

260 Ibid.

261 Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua, A Nation Rising Hawaiian Movements for Land, Life, and Sovereignty , eds. Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua, Ikaika Hussey, & Erin Kahunawaikaʻala Wright (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014): 3-4. 156 reassertion of ʻike kupuna or traditional and customary practices as established by each ʻohana in their specific ahupuaʻa or ʻili. As more acreage of ʻāina is replanted in taro in the ʻilis of Heʻeia

Uli, Pahele, Punawai, Puʻulani, Hanaweke and Kaualaukī, so too is the Kānaka Maoli body transformed. As kalo is being cultivated, harvested and eaten, so too is the Kānaka spirit nourished by Hāloa. As streams reinvigorate and nourish the ʻauwais, so too is the Kanaka Maoli body brought back to ola or life. This is what ea looks like in Heʻeia Uli.

Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi and HCDA: Co-Adaptive Management

Management strategies in Heʻeia Uli require the ability to adapt. By definition adaptive management is “A systematic approach for improving resource management by learning from management outcomes.” 262 What that really means is that, in the case of Heʻeia Uli, things are always in flux because the environment is always changing and pulse events often occur on the

Windward side of Oʻahu island. 263

Physical acts of restoration in Heʻeia Uli are expansive ground-moving events. As a result of those undertakings, the land has been excavated, plants and trees removed, waterways and ʻauwai have been rebuilt, redirected, or made anew, and a huge stand of mangroves near the

Heʻeia Long Bridge have been removed. None of these tasks are simple and all of them have responded differently. Adaptive management in the wetland allows for the unknown variables. In other words, management is built on the expectation that challenges will occur and problems will arise. As a result, the management plan, a living, changing document, allows for learning by

262 U.S. Department of the Interior, “What is Adaptive Management?, 12/2019, https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/migrated/ppa/upload/Chapter1.pdf.

263 Pulse events are changes that occur abruptly. In the case of Heʻeia Uli, extreme and moderate rain and flood events are always occuring that can change the ecological or environmental conditions of the wetland. 157 doing based on events that occur. Problems arise and are defined, alternatives are discussed and implemented. Those executions are monitored and evaluated and adjustments are made.

The collaborative nature of the Heʻeia Uli restoration has afforded KO a bit of a buffer in the event of a critical event. In 2018 one of those events presented itself when a massive excavator being used in the removal of the mangrove went off its support platform and nearly sank all the way into the mud making it difficult to get out (fig. 21). A kupaʻāina was asked to do a pule when the event happened. A kāhea went out and the pane took many forms in the shape of

Hawaiian Dredging, Yamashiro Trucking and Yamashiro Supply, Matt Leong, Donald Gentzler,

Pineridge Trucking, Rick Towill, John Neff, Pono Pacific, and Koʻolaupoko Hawaiian Civic.

After evaluating the situation with the expertise of equipment operators, construction companies,

KOʻs collaborative partners, and other individuals listed above, it was decided to reinforce the entry way into the section of the wetland where the excavator was. Iron plates were used to strengthen the area and a bulldozer was used to carefully pull and slowly spin the enormous excavator onto the iron plates allowing it to be pulled from the grasp of Meheanu. 264

264 Meheanu is the moʻo wahine of the Heʻeia Uli and the Heʻeia Fispond. The walewale of the mud is her domain.

158

Fig. 21. Sinking Excavator, He’eia Wetland , Donna Camvel, 2018. 265 The removal of the sinking excavator required a quick adaptive response which required a fair amount of careful expert analysis. This was provided by the collaborative partners and their networks and resulted in an unprecedented learning opportunity should this kind of incident occur again. This is how community-based management should ideally function. Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi has struggled for the successes they have achieved even as they withstand and continue to survive obstacles and great challenges along the road to restoration.

HCDA, as owner of the Heʻeia wetland, is the landlord of Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi. While not taking the day-to-day physical management of Heʻeia Uli, HCDA is part of the larger community development plan for Heʻeia Uli, which is currently being drafted. A draft working report (see Appendix 1) in October, 2018 was done in consultation with HCDA Authority members, Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi board members, major stakeholders and the neighborhood boards of

Kāneʻohe and Kailua. Community meetings were held and about 140 people participated in the consultations. What was gleaned from those meetings was that the community supported the restoration of Heʻeia Uli and the goals of bringing back cultural and agricultural practices to

265 Donna Camvel, 2018, private collection. 159

Heʻeia Uli. 266 What was also presented in the report was a task list that needed to be accomplished in the land use plan. Those goals include rezoning the land, taking into account the physical characteristics of the land, the State Land Use District Boundaries, as well as maximizing the ability to support priority activities for the District of agriculture, cultural practices, education, and resource management activities. 267 In order to protect Heʻeia Uli from urban development, HCDA recommends “Pursuing an Agricultural Conservation Easement for the Heʻeia Community Development District (CDD) to provide additional protection for the lands in the District and to ensure the long-term protection of the District for the priority activities of the land, as proposed in HRS Chapter 206E.” 268

The development of HCDAʻs Heʻeia Community Development District and Kākoʻo

ʻŌiwi’s restoration plans are reflective of how collaboration between the land owner and their tenant, in this case KO, are able to not only reach an understanding in what is culturally appropriate in the restoration project, but to work together in the effort and let Kānaka Maoli take the lead. As both HCDA and KO head into 2020 with the perspective of completing a master plan for Heʻeia Uli, more possibilities may materialize for KO that might include more long-term funding opportunities. Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi is a 501 C3 non-profit corporation and receives the bulk of its funding from grants. The sale of poi and other produce add to the budget and are expected to increase as more loʻi are opened and more kalo grown for the production and sale of poi. Research grants have been helpful and the partnership with the Heʻeia NERR has afforded funding the mangrove clearing project.

266 Townscape, Inc., “The Heʻeia Community Development District Plan & Rules, Hawaii Community Development Authority (Honolulu: Townscape): 11 (1-75).

267 Ibid., 4.

268 Ibid. 160

Heʻeia National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR)

The Heʻeia NERR is unique in the national network of the 29 National Estuarine Research

Reserve System (NERRS) companion sites in the United States. This is because only the Heʻeia

NERR seeks to incorporate an Indigenous, or Native Hawaiian approach, that of an Ahupua’a

Traditional Management Systems Approach. Included in the NERR boundaries are are the

Heʻeia wetland, located in the ʻili of Heʻeia Uli (its estuaries, streams, and portions of upland forests located therein), the near-shore coastal locations within the bounded area, the Heʻeia Fish

Pond, Moku o Loʻe, which houses the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology, and ocean waters of

Kāneʻohe Bay, all situated within the boundary of the Heʻeia NERR.

In partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the

Heʻeia NERR will be managed by the State of Hawaiʻi through the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine

Biology (HIMB). According to HIMBʻs website, “The Heʻeia NERR is made up of 1,385 acres that includes upland forests and grasslands, wetlands, reefs and seagrass beds, as well as

Kāneʻohe Bay.” 269 NOAA provides the funding, as well as programmatic leadership and guidance. Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi and the Heʻeia Fishpond are part of the NERR. KO is currently conducting research in partnership with the NERR. While providing research opportunities for

HIMB’s researchers, students, and community, the NERR can prove to be an incredible asset if they follow through on the positions decided upon, positions for a there are current research collaborations taking place between Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi and the Heʻeia NERR.

As is most often the case with scientific forays into Indigenous territory, a critical concern is

269 Marcie, “HIMB to Manage Newly designated Heʻeia National Estuary Research Reserve,” Kaunānā (Kāneʻohe, HI), January 19, 2017. http://manoa.hawaii.edu/kaunana/noaa-designates-he%ca%bbeia-national-estuarine-research- reserve/ 161 the gap between the Hawaiian worldview and the Western scientific worldview. While bridges have been made to address these differences, much work still needs to be done.

In analyzing the Heʻeia NERR’s Education Program Needs Assessment & Market Analysis , it is concerning that the analysis is lacking in articulating beyond its didactic components necessary in the collaborative bridge-building between culture, science, education, and mālama

ʻāina. Heʻeia is extremely significant as one of a very few intact ahupuaʻa located on the island of Oʻahu. As such, it’s cultural heritage and thus, cultural resource management (from physical and spiritual management of place, cultural education, customary protocols, mo’olelo, pule, oli and hula) must lead and engage ‘Ōiwi knowledge systems into the core concepts of the educational curriculum as set out in the assessment and analysis.

The organizations that represent the key partners of the Heʻeia NERR are HCDA, Hawaiʻi

DLNR, KO, Koʻolau Foundation, Koʻolaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club, Paepae o Heʻeia and

Papahana Kuaola; certainly a strong beginning foundation for ʻike kupuna that will enhance cultural knowledge and practices needed.

Environmental science and natural resource management strategies for the Heʻeia NERR are based on specificity of place, which is founded on ʻike kupuna or traditional knowledge and must be more than just a guidance mechanism. It is the essential constituent necessary in effecting purposeful cultural education that aligns with the collaborative and integrated management of the

Heʻeia ahupuaʻa. While the Heʻeia NERR site is bounded, the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa itself is not and thus, the contiguous relationship within the ahupuaʻa, its ʻili, streams, wetland, fishpond, and near-shore fisheries, all contribute to the unique and integrated ecosystems.

The Heʻeia NERR is a great opportunity to put into place the kinds of pedagogy that are critical in the restoration efforts of Heʻeia Uli and the Heʻeia Loko Iʻa. The driver of Indigenous 162 knowledge is ʻike kupuna. Place-based knowledge and learning is being able to engage ʻāina and resources through knowledge of the ancestors and their ‘ike kupuna. These resources are here in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa. Between HCDA, the Heʻeia NERR, Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi, Paepae o Heʻeia, and all the collaborative partners, resources, and science brought to the table, the Heʻeia Ahupuaʻa is set to become a powerful, contemporary, cutting-edge example of what modern-day, Indigenous-led cultural, environmental, social, and ecological restoration can look like.

The Importance of Land Tenure as the Basis for Restoration

Land tenure is essential in understanding how land agreements were affected by political, social, economic, and traditional ʻōiwi practices which in turn, have affected the disposition of

Kānaka Maoli. An examination of the historical (1830-1923), and contemporary (1924-2019) land tenure of Heʻeia Uli represents two time periods, the historical presents more genealogically, and the contemporary, a more linear and progressive chronological depiction.

In reviewing the land tenure, the single owner of Heʻeia Uli by documentation is

Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate. This was the contributing reason why Heʻeia Uli remained in cultivation during the plantation era and why it was never acquired by anyone through sale.

Heʻeia Uli remained in the possession of the Bishop Estate until a land exchange took place between the Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority and the Estate in 1991. Bishop Estate had tried to sell the wetland to a developer to build a golf course. Thanks to the Heʻeʻeia community and Governor John Waiheʻe, that attempt failed.

While Heʻeia Uli has remained intact, keeping it beyond the reach of development was never a sure thing. It still isnʻt so in the present. However, co-management between HCDA and

KO has proven to be a step in the right direction in terms of bringing back traditional agriculture, 163 or the cultivation, harvest, and milling of poi at the wetland. In restoring Heʻeia Uli, Kanaka

Māoli are reclaiming their elder sibling, Hāloa, restoring the ʻāina and planting kalo. Looking forward, there is much anticipation in continuing the cultivation, harvest, and production of poi as part of the pathway toward achieving food security and resilience in the face of climate change impacts. Adaptation is needed in Heʻeia Uli. With four hundred plus acres of wetland to manage, adaptability is a necessity for Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi. These four hundred acres are immediately upstream of the loko iʻa, which is under active restoration and the third case study site of this dissertation. Below are pictures of the Heʻeia nenelu, where mangrove once stood.

Fig. 22. Heʻeia Nenelu , Camvel, April, 202Fig. 23. The Moʻo Returns, Heʻeia Uli , Camvel, April, 2020.

164

Chapter 5: Loko I’a ‘o He’e’ia: The He’e’ia Fishpond

Hoʻāla ka nahelehele ma Heʻeia Uli. ʻIkuwā ma ka Luamoʻo. Make wai ʻo Haumea,

The forest awakens at Heʻeia Uli. There is a noise at the Luamoʻo. Haumea is thirsty.

Pani Ka Puka, First the Wall, then the Fish

Fig. 23. Heʻeia Loko Iʻa, Pani Ka Puka , 2016, Kanaeokana. 270

According to the Honolulu Magazine, “Nearly 2,000 people (fig. 24), came from all around the Pacific to the Heʻeia fishpond to be a physical part of repairing an eighty-foot hole in

270 Kanaeokana, accessed March, 2020, http://kanaeokana.net/about/pani-ka-puka-2000x1000/.

165 the kuapā or wall of the loko iʻa.” 271 What this effort represented isnʻt only an unprecedented historical and ʻŌiwi grounded event, but a supreme example of how community and community- based management works, bringing in, “Families to schools to hula hālau to organizations that included Hawaiian Airlines, Kamehameha Schools, Waipā Foundation on Kaua‘i, The Nature

Conservancy, Kāko‘o ‘Ōiwi and The Kohala Center on Hawai‘i Island. Even Gov. David Ige was there.” 272 Using an ages-old technique, hāpai pōhaku, where buckets of rock and coral were carried by thousands of people forming a chain, the puka of the fishpond wall that had been there since the 1965 flood was now well on its way to being repaired (fig. 25).

Fig. 24. Volunteers, Heʻeia Loki Iʻa, Pani Ka Puka , Catherine Toth Fox, 2016 .273

Loko ʻIʻa ʻo Heʻeia represents an example of a modern-day Indigenous model of cultural rebirth and sustainability. As Kānaka Maoli managers restore and revitalize the fishpond, the forefront of that effort is immersed in ʻike kupuna alongside a mix of Indigenous and Western

271 Catherine Toth Fox, “Thousands of Volunteers Work Together to Fix Pani Ka Puka,” Honolulu Magazine , February, 2016. http://www.honolulumagazine.com/Honolulu-Magazine/February-2016/Thousands-of-Volunteers- Work-Together-to-Fix-Pani-ka-Puka/.

272 Ibid.

273 Honolulu Magazine, accessed March, 2020, http://www.honolulumagazine.com/Honolulu-Magazine/December- 2015/Thousands-Turn-Out-to-Fix-a-Huge-Hole-in-This-800-Year-Old-Heeia-Fishpond/ . 166 science. The implementation of varied strategies and methods for the day-by-day restoration and management of the fishpond has been a tireless effort of extremely hard work, commitment, immense challenges, tremendous volunteer participation and community support. One of the greater results of those initiatives taken in the Heʻeia fishpond is the cultural and political empowerment of Kānaka ʻŌiwi and the community of Heʻeia.

Prevailing scholarship on the historical aspects of Loko Iʻa ʻo Heʻeia has provided an excellent foundation for this research project. 274 The historical land tenure (1830-2019) of the

Heʻeia fishpond is reviewed. Kahu or caretakers of the fishpond who have intermittently leased and managed the fishpond since 1830 are discussed in chronological sequence. An examination and comparative analysis of fishpond operations is undertaken including production methods, fish cultivation and harvest, fishpond maintenance, economic viability, political contexts and other such events that demarcates each kahu’s experience during their tenure at the fishpond is reflected upon. How have those tenures of stewardship evolved as working templates that are culturally appropriate, intellectually informing, and scientifically rigorous in restoration and management of the Heʻeia loko iʻa today?

In “He Lei Aloha ʻĀina ,” Kanaka Maoli scholar Mehana Vaughan 275 uses the metaphor of lei making to induce the notion of relationship to ʻāina. The simile of a lei and its pua or flowers, becomes analogous to how one sees and knows a landscape. In the making of the lei, each individual pua is ʻāina specific and provides a visual journey into the past that extends into

274 Kelly, 1975 & 2000; Devaney, Kelly, Lee & Motteler, 1982; Henry, 2000; Prasad, 2006; and Carson, 2006, Klieger, et al., 2005; Gentz, et al., 2012; Helber Hastert & Fee Planners (2007); Wilson Okamoto Corporation Engineers & Planners, 2007; and Kelly, 1975 & 2000.

275 Mehana Vaughan, “He Lei Aloha ʻĀina,” in Kanaka ʻŌiwi Methodologies Moʻolelo and Metaphor , ed. Katrina- Ann R. Kapāʻanaokalāokeaola Nākoa Oliveira and Erin Kahunawaikaʻala Wright (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2016), 42. (42-52).

167 the present day. I lend Vaughan’s methodological approach to my own framework so as to articulate the land tenure of each kahu who cared for the Heʻeia loko iʻa.

In this case, I have collected each pua (kahu) from a field of archival research, newspapers (both ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi and English), interviews, participant observation, and moʻolelo or stories I have been privileged to hear or read. Here, the term ʻaha, is the symbolic ʻōiwi cordage used to haku or weave my lei. ʻAha is a sennit cord, braided of coconut husk, human hair, intestines of animals and other elemental biota. Goodyear-Kaʻōpua explains, “The ʻaha cord provided the material basis for countless functional elements of the complex society our ancestors developed in the Hawaiian Islands. Houses, canoes, tools, water containers, weapons, drums, burial goods, and symbols of chiefly rank: all of these and more depended on ʻaha.” 276

I use the word ʻaha as a simile to connote the powerful human and spiritual mana contained in the ʻaha I use to haku this lei. Each kahu, from Pākī, Pauahi Bishop, John

McKeague, the various Chinese families, notably Hau Hee, Thomas M. Furumoto, Sherrod T.

Horimoto, and Fred S. Takebayashi, Mary Brooks, Mahina Paishon Duarte, Hiʻilei Kawelo, is a unique and individual flower who contributes to the beauty of the completed lei, as seen in Table

5, below.

Table 5: Chronology of land tenure at the Heʻeia Fishpond

1830 Abner Pākī is acting konohiki of Heʻeia. 1848 Pākī is awarded the Heʻeia Ahupuaʻa, including Loko Iʻa ʻo Heʻeia, Moku ʻo Loʻe and Mōkapu Peninsula. 1855 Pākī dies. 1857 Konia dies and Bernice Pauahi Bishop (daughter of Pākī & Konia) inherits all of Heʻeia including the Heʻeia fishpond. 1858 Pauahi and Charles Bishop. 1866 Pauahi leases 2,500 acres of Heʻeia to John McKeague (HACL) for 15 years including the fishpond.

276 Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua and Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada, “Making ʻAha: Independent Hawaiian Pasts, Presents & Futures,” Daedalus Journal of the American Acadmey of Arts & Sciences (2018): 50. 168

1878 Kaʻale leases the loko iʻa for 3 years. Her lease is extended in 1881 for 13 more years. 1904 Heʻeia Agricultural Co., Ltd. (HACL) leases the fishpond, house and lot to Wong Sing Hee et al. 1907 HACL to Ho Sam Yin et al. 1913 Chee Wo takes an ad of notice in the Honolulu Advertiser cautioning visitors not to visit the fishpond between 7:00 pm and 7:00 am. 1925 Koon Kwon Ltd. in partnership with Edward Siu Hen Au. 1920 Au family leased the pond until the floods of 1921 damaged the wall. They sold the lease to the Hee family. 1932 Hau Hee. 1943 Clarence T. Loo & Ping Quon Ching, co-partners doing business as Heeia Farm Fish Pond & Poultry. 1947 Thomas M. Furumoto, Sherrod T. Horimoto, & Fred S. Takebayashi. 1949 Thomas M. Furumoto & Fred S. Takebayashi (Horimoto departs in 1949). 1960- Choi Family. 1965 1960- Fishpond was fallow throughout this time. 1989 1978 Jerry Kaluhiwa- limu project. 1989 Mary Brooks. 2001 Students (Hawaiian Studies UH Mānoa) of the Mālama Loko Iʻa Class. 2001 Mahina Paishon-Duarte. 2007 - Hiʻilei Kawelo. Present Source: Klieger, et al., 2005; Gentz, et al., 2012; Helber Hastert & Fee, 2007; Wilson Okamoto Corporation Engineers & Planners, 2007; and Kelly, 2000.

Fox et al. write, “Restoration for Indigenous communities is a deeply political project.” 277

Sibyl Diver explains further, “Embedded within colonial systems that have historically excluded

Indigenous communities from land management decisions, collaborative partnerships or co- management arrangements between Indigenous Peoples and the State of Hawaiʻi can be problematic.” 278 Colonialism and its impacts are extant in Hawaiʻi, never more so embedded

than within the bureaucratic multi-jurisdictional sectors of governmental regulation and

277 Fox et al., “The river is us; the river is in our veins:” re-defining river restoration in three Indigenous communities,” Sustainability Science 11, no. 3 (2016): “The final publication is available at link.springer.com”.

278 Sibyl Diver, “Co-management as a Catalyst: Pathways to Post-colonial Forestry in the Klamath Basin, California,” Hum Ecology 44 (2016): 534.

169 oversight. Differing state, city and county and federal jurisdiction over fisheries, wetlands, ocean and streams make for a plethora of permitting requirements that can take years to promulgate according to the various permits and applications required.

In the case of the Heʻeia Loko Iʻa, the co-managing partner is the land owner, a private charitable educational trust, Kamehameha Schools, endowed by the will of Bernice Pauahi

Bishop, daughter of Abner Pākī, who received the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa, including the fishpond, in the Māhele of 1848. According to the estate financial report, 279 the assets of the trust in June of

2018 were worth an estimated $9.4 billion dollars.

In terms of support for Paepae o Heʻeia (POH), the 501 c3 non-profit corportation managing entity for the Heʻeia fishpond, Kamehameha Schools (KS) provides funding for the organization and is in alignment with the restoration goals of POH.

Loko Iʻa ʻO Heʻeia

Fishponds are “Commonplace in legendary literature attributed to the 14th through the

19th century; therefore it can be conjectured that fishponds appeared in Hawaiʻi sometime prior to the 14th century A.D.” 280 According the website of Paepae o Heʻeia, “the fishpond is of the kuapā style and is estimated to have been built approximately 600-800 years ago with possibly

279 “Report on Financial Activities, July 1, 2017 – June 30, 2018,” Kamehameha Schools, 2018, https://www.ksbe.edu/assets/annual_reports/Financial_Activities_2018.pdf .

280 William K. Kikuchi, “Prehistoric hawaiian fishponds,” Science 193, no. 4250 (1976): 295.

170 the longest wall in the Hawaiian islands, 1.3 miles or 7,000 feet, which completely encircles the fishpond.” 281

Loko I’a ‘O Heʻeia, or the Heʻeia Fishpond is located on the Windward side of O’ahu in the Ahupua’a of Heʻeia. The fishpond is bordered in the north by Lae o Keʻalohi in the ‘ili of

Heʻeia Uli, 282 to the south by the ‘ili of Kalimaloa, to the east is the Bay of Kāneʻohe, and to the west is the ʻili of Pahele. The loko kuapā or pond wall of Heʻeia, was built on a coral reef flat.

Keala, Hollyer, and Castro describe the kuapā:

Loko kuapā were strictly coastal fishponds whose characteristic feature was a kuapā (seawall) of lava or coral rubble. They were usually built over a reef flat, with the wall extending out from two points on the coast in an enclosed semicircle. These ponds usually had one or two ‘auwai (channels) that were used mainly for water flushing or inflow, depending on the rising and ebbing of the tides, but were also used during harvesting and stocking. Loko kuapā, because they were enclosed reef flats, had all the marine aquatic sea life that would be expected to be found on a reef flat including kala, palani, and manini. Less common fish sometimes found in these fishponds were the kāhala, kumu, moana, weke ula, uhu, various species of hīnālea, surgeonfish, crevally, goatfish, and even puhi. (9)

The kuapā wall of Heʻeia fishpond measures nearly 7,000 feet in length and encircles the eighty-eight acre fishpond. The average depth of the pond is 3 feet and the shoreline fast lands adjacent to the pond comprises an additional 10 acres.” 283 While the loko iʻa has been subjected to extreme weather events that have caused great damage to the fishpond wall, the shape of the kuapā has not been drastically altered.

281 Hiʻilei Kawelo, “The Fishpond,” Paepae o Heʻeia, 2013, https://paepaeoheeia.org/ .

282 Territory of Hawaiʻi. [Map of Portion of Heeia Koolaupoko Oahu]. Scale 200 feet to an inch. Honolulu: Alexander & Baldwin, 1913. The mound at the top of the ridgeline that separates Heʻeia Uli from Heʻeia Kea is named Keʻalohi 2 in the 1913 Map of Heʻeia. Keʻalohi 1 is Lae ‘o Keʻalohi.

283 Wilson Okamoto Corporation Engineers and Planners, “Heʻeia Fishpond Operational Site Plan,” Paepae O Heʻeia and Kamehameha Schools (June 2007): 1.

171

The Heʻeia fishpond receives its wai or waters from the tributary upland streams. These are the Haʻikū, Kaiwikeʻe, and ʻIolekaʻa streams. These watercourses converge in the ʻili of

ʻIolekaʻa and upon passing beneath Kahekili Highway, enter the ʻili of Hoi to become Heʻeia stream. The stream continues its flow through the ʻili of Koaena and Kakualaukī. Here, Pūʻōlena stream joins Heʻeia stream as it enters the nenelu from the ili of Paʻaukiʻi. These are the abundant sources of wai that provides the arterial circulation of freshwater that pumps life into and through the wetland. Heʻeia stream continues its course through the ʻili of Puʻulani,

Hanaweke, Punawai, Pahele, and Heʻeia Uli making the nenelu or wetland, an ʻāina momona, or a land fat with water. Heʻeia Uli 284 is also the name used to identify the general area of the

Heʻeia nenelu. These watercourses flow into the loko i’a via mākāhā.

Originally, the fishpond was constructed with six mākāhā, or water flow control structures. Three were located ma uka and three situated ma kai near the Heʻeia viaduct.

According to the operational site plan for the Heʻeia fishpond, “The ma uka makāhā furthest upstream is missing and presumed destroyed by the 1965 flood, but the rest are present and functioning.” 285 When the loko iʻa was working properly, the mākāhā would be opened during the rising tide, and fish would enter the pond. The gate would be closed, and the fish would remain captive in the pond. The pond is full of rich nutrients for herbivorous fish. The most

284 Heʻeia Uli is also an ʻili of the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa by virtue of its spatial or geographical relationship to Heʻeia Kea which is separated by the moʻo or ridge of Keʻalohi above Kalaeʻulaʻula (heiau now covered by Lae ʻo Keʻalohi, known as Heʻeia State Park).

285 Wilson Okamoto, “Heʻeia Fishpond Operational Site Plan,” (June 2007): 14. At the time of this report, the mangrove had not yet been cleared on the ma uka side of Heʻeia Bridge where the ma uka mākāhā are located.

172 common species raised in loko kuapā were ‘anae (mullet; Mugil cephalus) and ʻamaʻama

(milkfish, Chanos Chanos) and there was also āholehole (young “sea pig”; Kuhlia xenura). 286

On the Keʻalohi side or north of the fishpond is the estuary or muliwai where the outflowing freshwater from the Heʻeia wetland meets the incoming ocean water. This is where the mixing of fresh and salt waters occurs to create what was once a thriving ecosystem, enabling the spawning of Native Hawaiian species of ʻōpae or mountain shrimp ( Atyoida bisculata ), and fish or ʻoʻopu ( Eleotridae, Gobiidae, and Blenniidae ). These species have been observed in the nenelu and the ʻāina kuleana in ʻIolekaʻa and are indicative markers or species associated with the ecological restoration of the waterways in the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa. These markers or signifiers, are evidence that the rehabilitation of Native Hawaiian ecosystems is a goal within reach in

Heʻeia ahupuaʻa.

Land Tenure of Loko I’a ‘O Heʻeia

One of the first leases to the fishpond was granted by Bernice Pauahi Bishop in 1866 to

John McKeague, who established the Heʻeia Agricultural Company, Ltd. (HACL), also known as the Heʻeia Sugar Company. Today, the leaseholder is Paepae o Heʻeia (Paepae), a non-profit educational and cultural organization whose aim is to restore the loko i’a, but what does restoration and management look like in the 21st century for Heʻeia fishpond? In order for that question to be answered, an understanding of how Kānaka managed the fishpond in the past and up to the present (see table 5) is examined using land tenure of the loko iʻa to observe how

Indigenous knowledge and science (Western and Indigenous) corresponds as a working template for Indigenous-led land and resource management.

286 Klieger et al., “Hū Ipu O Oʻahu, A History of Central Koʻolau Poko, Oʻahu,” Department of Anthropology Bishop Museum (2005): 63.

173

Abner Pākī, Kahu from 1848-1855

Abner Kūhoʻoheiheipahu Pākī was the grandson of Kamehamehanui and the son of

Kalanihelemailuna (k) and Kawao (w). He was married to Laura Kōnia and they were the parents of Bernice Pauahi Bishop. He was of great physical stature, nearly six and a half feet tall, with strong features, and powerful physical strength.

In the Māhele of 1848 Abner Pākī received the ahupuaʻa of Heʻeia. This included the loko iʻa of Heʻeia and the peninsula of Mōkapu. Prior to the Māhele in 1832, Pākī was already acting in the capacity of konohiki or land manager.287 Pākī appointed Uhuuhu as the luna or agent of the konohiki. The kuleana of both Pākī and his luna, Uhuuhu, was to “Settle people on the land and to make the lands in Heʻeia productive.” 288 In “Indigenous Water, Industrial Water in Hawaiʻi,” Maclennan writes:

Customary water rights were based on the concept that removal of water to irrigate taro fields should not harm other users downstream. The konohiki of each independent land subdivided his water time among the holders of moʻoʻāinas (now kuleanas) on his ahupuaʻa, ʻili or kū. The konohiki controlling the most water rights in a given auwai was invariably its luna. He controlled and gave the proportion of water to each moʻoʻāina or single holding of the common people cultivating on that land. (507)

The allocation of water was a primary duty of the konohiki and his luna. The management of wai, its allocation, sequestration, and distribution, was essential in the production of food. In Heʻeia, the cultivation of kalo for poi was the primary work for many makaʻāinana.

During the time of Pākī, the kānāwai, or rules regulating the use of freshwater, was still mostly concerned with the distribution and allocation of wai, for the production of kalo in the Heʻeia

287 Marion Kelly, “Loko Iʻa O Heʻeia Heʻeia Fishpond,” Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate (2000): 8.

288 Ibid., 8.

174 ahupuaʻa. Those waters flowed from the lush ma uka valleys into Heʻeia Uli and then, into the loko iʻa, and was probably a contributing factor in why the mullet of Heʻeia were so momona and deliciously sweet.

Information has not yet been uncovered to establish whether Pākī physically managed the

Heʻeia fishpond. As the konohiki, he could have his luna or someone else take the kuleana of the loko iʻa. The maintenance of the fishpond would have been one of his responsibilities as konohiki which included the upkeep of the mile-long fishpond wall and its gates in addition to stocking, feeding, catching, and distributing the fish, all of which required an intensive amount of labor. Kikuchi suggests that, “Fishponds became symbols of the chiefly right to conspicuous consumption and to ownership of the land and its resource.” 289 As a high chief and konohiki,

Pākī certainly held that right in Heʻeia.

Uhuuhu (Pākī’s haku ʻāina) was awarded land by Pākī and also received lands in Heʻeia during the Māhele as well. One of those land claims is situated in the ʻili of Pahele right above the loko iʻa. As the luna for Pākī, Uhuuhu might have overseen or perhaps managed the fishpond himself, but again, there is no documentation to substantiate a known kahu or caretaker of the fishpond during Pākī’s tenure. It is assumed that the konohiki managed the loko iʻa himself, or delegated it to the luna who might have then assigned a kahu to manage the fishpond. In 1855,

Abner Pākī died, leaving his daughter Pauahi with 5,811.84 acres of land, including the 4,172 acre ahupua‘a of Heʻeia. 290 Bernice Pauahi Bishop was now the owner of the Heʻeia Loko Iʻa.

289 William K. Kikuchi, “Prehistoric Hawaiian Fishponds,” Science New Series 193, no. 4250 (1976): 299.

290 Klieger et al., “Hū Ipu O Oʻahu, A History of Central Koʻolau Poko, Oʻahu,” Department of Anthropology Bishop Museum (2005): 63.

175

Bernice Pauahi Bishop from 1855-1884

Bernice Pauahi Bishop was born in 1831, the daughter of Abner Pākī and Laura Konia.

She was the hānai daughter of Kuhina Nui II Kīnaʻu, the great-grandaughter of Kamehameha I, and the last royal descendant of the Kamehameha line. Upon the death of her mother Konia, in

1857, Bernice Pauahi Bishop inherited an additional 10,231 acres of land (for a combined

16,042.84 acres from her parents). 291 In 1850 she married Charles Reed Bishop, a young businessman from New England.

According to Kanahele, after Pauahi inherited the lands of her father and mother, she took on the responsibility of managing them. 292 He explains that, “Though she relied on konohiki, as landlord she was responsible and she had the assistance of her husband, Charles

Bishop, who was a signatory to all of the leases of her lands.” 293 Kanahele asserts that Pauahi might have been aided in management strategies by her cousin, Ruth Keʻelikōlani or simply, by trial and error. The political and economical environment in Hawaiʻi during this time was challenging for Pauahi, whose coming of age occurred during land tenure changes, the continuing death of Kānaka Maoli due to foreign disease, religious conversion, Western enculturation, and the plague of capitalism that would begin to reconstitute the political, social and economic relationships in Hawaiʻi.

It is said that one of Pauahi’s strengths was her understanding of the haole world and the ability to work with white people. Her English was impeccable and due to her travels in the years

291 Ibid.

292 George Huʻeu Sanford Kanahele, Pauahi The Kamehameha Legacy , (Honolulu: Kamehameha Schools Press): 84-86. 2002.

293 Ibid. 176

1866 and 1871, she was knowledgeable of the United States and Canada. She knew Americans whether missionaries or businessmen and she was well-liked and respected in the foreign community for her intelligence and understanding. 294 As Kanahele explains, “As Mrs. Bishop and ke aliʻi Pauahi, she enjoyed the best of both worlds, and moved freely and comfortably between the traditional and the modern, the Hawaiian and the haole.” 295 Her demeanor was said to be gracious, sweet, and patient, and that she displayed none of the arrogance others of high rank displayed. 296

As to the ways in which she may have managed the loko iʻa, no documentation has yet to be uncovered as to how much involvement Pauhi had directly with the fishpond. What remains clear is that the lease that was granted to John McKeague in 1866, by Bernice Pauahi and

Charles Reed Bishop, was certainly a profitable one when considering that the acreage of land that was leased by McKeague was 2,500 acres and included the Heʻeia fishpond. The political landscape was rapidly changing as businesses and commerce increased throughout the Honolulu proper. Diversified agriculture in sugarcane, rice, and pineapple enabled Pauahi and Charles

Bishop to make a profit from the business of leasing lands in Heʻeia.

In 1882, McKeague sold all of his interest in the Heʻeia lease to the Heʻeia Sugar

Plantation Co. (HSPc), and a new lease between Charles R. Bishop and the Heʻeia Sugar

Plantation Co., Ltd. was signed for much of the land in Heʻeia. In 1883, Pauahi Bishop signed her last lease and granted the company all traditional konohiki rights to fisheries and seas appertaining to Heʻeia, the Heʻeia fishpond, Moku o Loʻe, and Haʻikū Valley. As mentioned

294 George Huʻeu Sanford Kanahele, Pauahi The Kamehameha Legacy , pg. 114.

295 Ibid., pg. 117.

296 Ibid., 114.

177 before, in 1866 Pauahi leased 2,500 acres of Heʻeia to John McKeague of the Heʻeia

Agricultural Company, Ltd., also known as the Heʻeia Sugar Company (Heʻeia Sugar Plantation

Co.), for fifteen years which included the fishpond and an extension in 1869 for an additional thirteen years. In the same year, 1886, McKeague mortgaged his lease to Hackfield and

Company and deeds half-interest to Alexander Kennedy, his partner in HSPC. In 1903, HSP ceased all operations.

In 1904, the Heʻeia fishpond was intermittently sub-leased to farmers, mostly of Chinese ancestry, having arrived in Hawaiʻi as immigrant laborers for the sugar and rice plantations.

Chinese families were entrepreneurial, and the leasing of the fishpond was purely a profit-based venture. As noted in From Coolies to Colonials: Chinese Migrants to Hawaiʻi:

Most enterprises combined merchant capital with family labor. In rice planting, even the bachelors who worked on wai goon were distantly related to partners in the controlling firm. Consider Koon Kwon, Ltd., which leased Heʻeia, a loko kuapā in Kāne‘ohe Bay, O‘ahu, from Bishop Estate in 1925. Koon Kwon, Ltd. was a partnership between Hee Kwong and Edward Siu, who together paid $1,500 a year to lease the eighty-five-acre pond. Among the many managers were several of Hee’s sons, who operated the pond in residence along with hired hands. Thus Heʻeia was simultaneously a corporate and family venture. (88)

This explains the differing names on the subleases procured between HSP and Chinese enterprisers. From 1904 to 1943 the names associated with leases for the Heʻeia fishpond were,

Wong Sing Hee et al., Ho Sam Yin et al., Chee Wo, Au, Hau Hee, Clarence T. Loo & Ping Quon

Ching (Heeia Farm Fish Pond & Poultry), and Koon Kwon, Ltd.. It can be said that these lessees were related by family and/or by business affiliations.

Hau Hee from 1932-1943 178

One of the most notable kahu of the loko iʻa in the early twentieth century was Hau Hee, son of Wong Yee Hee who had leased the pond in 1904. An article in the Honolulu Star Bulletin covered Hau Heeʻs operation of the Heʻeia loko iʻa reported that Hee:

Devotes his chief interest in studying the propagation of fish, especially mullet and the care of young ones. About 20 of his biggest and finest mullet he has segregated in one pond and he intends to watch whether their characteristics are transmitted to their progeny. He also hopes to experiment with the artificial incubation of mullet eggs during the spawning season. This will probably be difficult because the mullet egg is no larger than a pinhead. Hee segregates his fish by age, smallest fish are kept in a separate pond and when they are about three months old a gate is opened and they are allowed to pass into an adjoining pond. When they are a year old, they are again moved, and several years later, they move again. Most mullet are at least four years old when they are ready to be eaten. Hee scatters a bag of middling and bran every day into the ponds with the young mullets, and the immediate agitation of the waters indicates that the fish are after the feed. He estimates that there are between 50,000 and 100,000 baby mullet in his pond. Hee catches fish only from April to October, leaving them to spawn the rest of the year. Most of the fishing is done at night or in the early morning hours. To catch mullet, a large gill net of three fourth inch mesh is used, and five men participate in the fishing, some of them in a rowboat and others from the fish pond walls. During the season, an average of about 100 pounds a day is taken to market. Hee is the only fish pond owner to have a stall at the fish market, and this method of marketing is much more satisfactory than mere wholesale selling when the market is flooded with fish, he says. A new pond has recently been stocked with about 200 shrimps, whose development and propagation under fishpond conditions Hee intends to study. (A1-2) The summarized article on Hau Hee above is the first documented record of what and how a kahu was taking care of the loko iʻa in 1932 (see fig. 26). Management records were obviously kept and particular detail was paid to propagation, incubation, feeding, spawning periods, harvest procedures and most important the management of the water flowing in and out of the pond in order to keep the fish alive and viable. As he notes, “There is constant work in 179 taking care of the fishpond, the floor of the pond must be kept free of destructive growth, the mākāhā or gates kept in good condition, and keeping the fishpond walls in repair.” 297

Hee paid particular attention to the economics of the pond and was known to be the only fishpond owner to have a stall at the fish market and he found, “This method of marketing was more satisfactory than mere wholesale selling when the market is full of fish.” 298 The article concludes with the ways in which Hau Hee took care of his workers:

Hee employs five men most of the year, and at times when there is extra work to be done he has as many as 12 or 15 and employs a cook to prepare meals for the group. “I think mine is the only fishpond which gives its employees vacations,” Hee said. The men never work on holidays and they work on Sundays only during the busiest season. I think they do better work that way than if they had to work every day in the year. (A1-2)

It can be said that Hau Hee was an incredible kahu and the working conditions which he

provided for his workers, was due to the reality of how physically strenuous and demanding the caretaking of a loko iʻa was. According to Marion Kelly:

After sections of the pond wall broke in the storm of 1927, the Hee family hired 48 Filipino workers who lived in a camp nearby to help repair the wall. The water had gouged out not only the wall, but great portions of the pond bottom under it. The holes were so deep the bottom couldn’t be seen. Hee estimates that the holes were at least 10 feet deep in some places. There were two holes, each approximately 50 feet long in the wall along te river side of the pond. The force of the river moved two sections of the wall inward about 75 feet toward the center of the pond from their original positions. 37

Kelly writes that the Hee family and their workers dug up the island at the mouth of the river after the 1927 flood and carted dirt in wheelbarrows to build up the wall. They also dug out

297 Gwenfreade E. Allen, “Hau Hee Operates Ancient 100 Acre Fishpond in Heeia, Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI): A1 – 2.

298 Ibid.

180 a portion of hill up mauka, brought the dirt down in wheelbarrows, piled it on top of the wall, put more rock in with it, and put in place cement to make it all stick together better. 299

Fig. 25. Hau Hee at He’eia Fishpond , 1932, Honolulu Star Bulletin. 300

Hau Hee’s tenure of the Heʻeia fishpond proved both promising and difficult. What is more apparent is that the Hee family did not make use of the mākāhās to harvest the fish due to the varying spawning seasons. Instead they used boats and nets, going out in the dark listening for the schools of fish. Working from 8:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. to make it to town by 5:00 a.m was difficult and hard. Mr. Hee is quoted as saying, “People think it is easy. They say all you have to do is scoop up the mullet and sell them. They forget you have to patch walls, mend nets, catch the fry and bring them back, feed the fish, raise and lower the gates whenever the tide changes, day or night, and sometimes work all night. We all worked hard.” 301 The Hau Hee family left the loko iʻa in 1943.

299 Marion Kelly, Loko Iʻa o Heʻeia , page 37.

300 Honolulu Star Bulletin, January, 1932, https://www.newspapers.com/image/275038237/?clipping_id=40143413 . 301 Ibid., 40. 181

Under the tenures of Clarence T. Loo and Ping Quon Ching, Thomas M. Furumoto,

Sherrod T. Horimoto, and Fred S. Takebayashi, not much information is available.

Jerry Kaluhiwa 1978

In 1978 Jerry Kaluhiwa, resident and kūpuna of Heʻeia Kea, led a restoration project to replant and revive manuea, a Native Hawaiian limu or edible seaweed. Working with the

Kualoa-Heeia Ecumenical (KEY) Project and its executive director, Bob Nakata, the limu project proposal was successful in getting a year of funding from the cityʻs Office of Human Resources from the federal Youth Conservation and Community Improvement Program. The limu project was head-quartered at Heʻeia offshore Heʻeia State Park and the Heʻeia Fishpond. The group also planted limu gardens off Heʻeia Kea and Kahaluʻu. 302 According to Wally Ito, of the Limu

Hui,

“Long before the Limu Hui was formed and long before many of us were even aware of the need to protect our limu beds, Jerry Leroy Mahilani Kaluhiwa predicted the decline of limu in Kaneʻohe Bay, Oahu. Unlike most people who just sit and complain about the need for somebody to do something, Uncle Jerry stepped up to do something about it. In the 1970s, he started The Limu Project with support from KEY Project and local funders. Uncle Jerry was a great visionary, scientist, ecologist, educator and loea limu. Uncle Jerry also was an official guardian of the bay in his role on the Kane‘ohe Bay Advisory Council, reporting regularly to the local neighborhood boards on issues affecting that natural resource. He shared his knowledge of limu with others, including local Cub Scouts, and continued to be active in the community in many ways. We are very grateful for Uncle Jerry and Aunty Rocky’s contributions to our three-year-old Limu Hui network. They inspire us to continue his legacy of limu restoration efforts. Aloha my friend.” 303

302 Bob Krauss, “Gardener deals in seaweed, His crop’s growing–swimmingly.” Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, HI): November 2, 1980, page A-3.

303 Wally Ito, Uncle Jerry Kaluhiwa, Na Koa Limu, KUA (Honolulu, HI): 2017. http://kuahawaii.org/jerry- kaluhiwa-na-koa-limu/

182

Jerry Kaluhiwa, like many other Heʻeia kūpuna, would go on to become a founding member of the Ahupuaʻa Restoration Council of Heʻeia, making contributions to the restoration efforts and continuing to share his knowledge with the community.

Mary Brooks from 1989-2000

In 1998, a proposal was drafted to the attention of Mr. Neil Hannahs and Mr. James

Bassett, in charge of asset management for Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate (KSBE), written by Mary Elizabeth Brooks, the kahu of the Heʻeia loko iʻa. In that report she shared her own early experience with the kiaʻi of the fishpond. Brooks asked the moʻo of the Heʻeia fishpond:

If you could speak, what would you say? She answered...I need my watershed protected, and the bayʻs [Kaneʻohe] fishery managed wisely. My walls strengthened, my waters deeper, cooler and with more force through nā mākāhā. A secure source of baby fish and respect from the public, with security from theft. I need more protection from flood waters and sile. I want wisdom from my caretakers. I want you to make room for many loving, strong hands to share in the physical labor of lifting the weight. She then became very silent and after some time she said very clearly, “Most of all, I need endurance and effort. My beauty to be seen, noted, appreciated. My myths and legends to be taken seriously, while the work is taken with a light heart. To be strong, to feed people, be enjoyed...revered. (2)

Brooks’s company, Pacific Aquaculture, started operations at the Heʻeia fishpond in 1989 noting that, “We are in the process of rediscovering the fishpond’s secrets through trial and error.” 304 This is a common thread in strategies for managing the loko iʻa and the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa in general. The goal however, wasnʻt limited to just the preservation of the fishpond for the future. Part of Brook’s purpose was to “Inspire people to recognize and respect the value of this living archaeological treasure.” 305 In fact, Mary’s proposal did not cover just the scientific

304 Mary Elizabeth Brooks, Proposal for Heʻeia Fishpond to Kamehameha Schools. Honolulu:1998.

305 Ibid., 3. 183 criteria and quantitative data necessary in the mechanics of such a proposal for the management and restoration, but more critically, her proposal was framed in the understanding and reverent respect for the ‘Ōiwi values and akua inherently connected to the loko iʻa and to the entire ahupuaʻa of Heʻeia. Recognizing the relationship and duty to ʻāina, Brooks offered the loko iʻa as a place where a “rebirth of ancient, cultural, and spiritual values could be physically practiced.” 306

I met Mary Brooks in 1998 as a result of a community meeting that was held regarding the fishpond and the wetland of Heʻeia. Upon meeting this remarkable woman at the Heʻeia loko iʻa, a place I had never been to, I was immediately impressed with her quiet, yet penetrating spirit. Her ʻano was remarkably peaceful but her eyes carried great wisdom and great sorrow.

She spoke of the loko iʻa as a loved family member, citing both the tactile and intangible qualities of the pond. I was astounded but it was unsettling because she was haole. How could she know the loko iʻa like that? As I would come to learn, indeed Mary Brooks’s relationship with the fishpond, was a relationship with Haumea herself, one that was spiritually intense. The other part of that relationship was the physicality of it, the immensity of the required work, managing mākāhā, wai and muliwai, the everyday bodily commitment to hard physical work, the movement of materials, the management of fish, the maintenance of walls, the cutting of mangrove, and probably the most difficult work of all, mitigating of holes in the ma kai wall with the transport and placement of thirty thousand thirtytwo-pound cement cylinders, carrying them one by one.

306 Ibid. 184

In the twelve years of Brooks’ tenure at the Heʻeia fishpond, many challenges would occur, both good and bad. In 1996, Heʻeia experienced record-breaking temperatures that would warm Kaneʻohe Bay triggering a mass coral bleaching event. In the Hawaiʻi Coral Reef

Assessment , P.L. Jokiel reported that regional offshore summer temperatures had exceeded by +1

°C, there was high surface irradiance (low cloud cover), low wind speed, and restricted water circulation in shallow Kāneʻohe Bay leading to conditions of rapid heating.” 307 By the time

Brooks had experienced the loss of her crop in October of 1997, Hawaiʻi was already experiencing warming temperatures brought about by El Nino, an abnormal weather pattern caused by the warming of the Pacific Ocean. The lack of winds and high temperatures contributed to less rainfall. Less rainfall meant reduced stream flow and not enough cool water running through the fishpond. This factor, more than anything else, caused Brooks’s crop loss, estimated at about half a million dollars-worth of fish.

While the loss of her fish crop was quite a blow, but what would became even more grievous was the way that those she most trusted, would ultimately become a part of what was her unanticipated exit, or rather, eviction, from the fishpond by Kamehameha Schools Bishop

Estate.

In 2000, Cynthia (Lahilahi) produced “ Heʻeia: Where the Two Waters Meet .” Both

Lahilahi and her husband, Michael Verschuur Powell, directed the documentary featuring Mary

Brooks, caretaker of the fishpond, this dissertation author, kupaʻaina of ʻIolekaʻa, Frank

Kawaikapuolani Hewett, kumu hula and kupaʻāina of Heʻeia, Mahinapoepoe Paishon, apprentice loko iʻa caretaker, Lilikalā Kameʻeleihiwa, Director of Hawaiian Studies at the University of

307 P.L. Jokiel, and E.K. Brown, “Coral bleaching in relation to regional temperature trends and patterns,” Hawaiʻi Coral Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (CRAMP) , Climate Change and Hawaiʻi’s coral reefs, NOAA, 2018, https://www.fws.gov/coralreef/proceedings/Day%202%20PDF/5-Athline%20Clark.pdf 185

Hawaiʻi Mānoa, Mikhail Ponce and Hiʻilei Kawelo, students, and Hailiʻōpua Baker, an ʻŌlelo

Hawaiʻi kumu. The film opened at the Palace Theater in June of 2000, featuring a rich story of mālama and aloha ʻāina, was well-received and garnered kudos from the audience and the community.

Mary Brooks, like many other Heʻeia residents, was one of the founding members of

ARCH. In her capacity as executive director for the community-based organization, and later as co-coordinator alongside the author of this research study, procured a grant from the Hawaiʻi

Community Foundation to build capacity in the restoration of the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa. It was not long after this, that Brooks left the fishpond.

Mahina Paishon-Duarte from 2000-2006

Mahina Paishon-Duarte was a haumana or student of Mary Brooks. They shared a mutual love and respect for the Heʻeia fishpond. It was apparent that the loko iʻa was a special and intimate place for Mahina. As Mary Brooks’s haumana, she received virtually everything Brooks knew and felt about the pond. This was especially helpful in providing a solid foundation for restorative work that would occur under her tenure.

The timing of the termination of Mary Brooks’ lease from the Heʻeia Fishpond coincided with the residency of a young group of Native Hawaiian students, including Mahina Paishon-

Duarte. These were aspiring caretakers of the loko iʻa; Mahina Paishon-Duarte, Anuenue Punua,

Hiʻilei Kawelo, Lihau Hannahs, Keliʻi Kotubey, and others.

Mahina and her team of caretakers created Paepae o Heʻeia (POH), a non-profit 501 c3 organization in 2001. Their mission has been to “implement values and concepts from the model 186 of a traditional fishpond to provide physical, intellectual, and spiritual sustenance for the local community.” 308 In order to accomplish the tenets of the mission and vision, POH created three programs with which to facilitate their objectives. Ka ‘Ai Kamahaʻo is the educational component of POH providing place-based and eco-cultural education programs for three secondary charter schools, Kamehameha Schools classes, and a small group of King

Intermediate Students. 309

Kū Hou Kuapā is the ongoing effort to restore the pond to its original condition, and

ʻĀina Momona (land of plenty, fat land) is POH’s Community Based Economic Development

(CBED) arm focusing on the cultivation of Native iʻa and other resources and their transformation into profitable and nourishing products and services. 310 One of the first events conducted under Kū Hou Kuapā was the first Moi & Poi fundraiser in the summer of 2006, which celebrated the first harvest of moi ( Pacific threadfin ). Poi was offered from various loʻi locations as was kalo paʻa (cooked not mashed taro), and limu. Community-based support can be said to truly align with the POH phrase on the fundraiser announcement, “From the foundation laid by our Kupuna...reinforced by multitudes of hands...and sweetened by the waters of

Heʻeia.” 311

Mahina Paishon-Duarte was a charismatic leader of Paepae o Heʻeia. She was a young,

Kanaka Maoli leader, culturally appropriate, spoke ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi or Hawaiian language, and was a strong leader with exceptional organizing and strategy-building abilities. Her

308 Wilson Okamoto Corporation Engineers & Planners, “Heʻeia Fishpond Operational Site Plan,” Kamehameha Schools , (2007): 17.

309 Ibid.

310 Ibid.

311 Paepae o Heʻeia, “Moi & Poi Fundraiser,” announcement to the public, Saturday, September 16, 2006. 187 communication skills, humbleness, and willingness to serve were characteristics she embodied and was admired for. She was the lifeblood of POH and the ʻaha cord that bound the closely- knitted staff together. She was expected to be at POH for a long time and so at the December board meeting in 2006, when Paishon-Duarte gave her notice that it was her intent to resign as executive director by the end of the fiscal year in 2007, everyone was shocked.

Hiʻilei Kawelo 2006-Present

The departure of Paishon-Duarte from the Heʻeia Fishpond and her position as executive director was sudden and unsettling. Paepae o Heʻeia was just reaching its peak and strength as an organization and Paishon’s departure was incongruent with the prospectus for the next five years.

The relationship with KSBE as co-manager (and owner) of the fishpond was making good progress and POH was heading forward on a success pathway serving, as example, for other non-profit organizations to follow.

The board of directors and the staff of POH were worried about possible candidates being unable to fill Paishon-Duarte’s shoes, as her imprint on the loko iʻa wasn’t only from a business perspective, it was cultural, it was her relationships with people, it was the ʻano she brought with her and it was powerfully charismatic. Both board members and staff were concerned that the next person coming aboard would have an exceedingly high bar to meet and that the success the

POH had so far garnered might be in jeopardy. They neednʻt have worried.

Hiʻilei Kawelo comes from the ahupuaʻa of Kahaluʻu, and gives credit to her Kawelo-

Ching ʻohana for her upbringing. She is an avid wahine lawaiʻa (fisherwoman), very close to her fishing partner, her father, and is the current Executive Director of Paepae o Heʻeia (fig. 27). Her 188 style is down to earth, and you will almost always catch her in tank top and shorts. Her experience in fishing and with the Heʻeia loko iʻa is founded on her relationship with the ocean, with her best friend, Mahina Paishon-Duarte, and Kaneʻohe Bay where she feels at home and has fished for most of her life. This gives her a unique perspective on the fishpond, restoration, food production, and management of resources.

Fig. 26. Hi’ilei Kawelo, Paepae o He’eia. 312

In the transition after the departure of Paishon-Duarte, POH also lost Lihau Hannahs

(Grants Coordinator) and Anuenue Punua (Education Coordinator), founding members of POH.

As the organization moved forward with the construction of a new caretaker’s hale, they had also completed their operational short and long term site plans. In 2007, POH was awarded Hawaiʻi’s

2007 Native Hawaiian Nonprofit Award, which Kawelo readily credited Mahina Paishon-Duarte for.

Mangrove clearance and wall refurbishment (see fig. 28), became the targeted activities under the Kū Hou Kuapā program, and POH continued to host a number of groups ranging from community members, to Boy Scout troops, to world-class scientists and oceanographers.

Educational tours, field trips were offered to schools and community groups.

312 Paepae o He’eia, accessed, March, 2020, https://paepaeoheeia.org/staff/ . 189

Grants were awarded to POH from a variety of organizations, i.e., Office of Hawaiian

Affairs and Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority, to fund the continuing restoration of the kuapā or fishpond wall, and the programs that facilitate the perpetuation of the cultural activities and education that take place at the loko iʻa. Various workshops, science nights, Ridge to Reef programs, loʻi agro-ecosystems, sediments, nutrients and microbial communities in the agro- ecosystem, are some of the forums by which the community is kept informed on what POH is doing and some of the results of their work at the fishpond.

Additionally, a number of projects conducted in conjunction or partnership with various

University of Hawaiʻi affiliates, Department of Oceanography, SOEST, HIMB, Hawaiʻi Sea

Grant Program, Nā Kilo Honua o Heʻeia, National Sciences Foundation, Laulima A ʻIke Pono, are some of the collaborative efforts which have occured with much more research development and interactive programs being planned for the future.

Fig. 27. Heʻeia Loko Iʻa, 2000, Paepae o Heʻeia. 313

313 Paepae o He’eia, accessed March, 2020.

190

Recent activity of POH is centered on the Heʻeia viaduct, where the kuapā is being

restored and the removal of mangrove is taking place. The work has been transforming, as the photos took recently show (figs. 29 through and 31).

Fig. 28. Pihi a Piha , 2020, Eventbrite. 314

Fig. 29. Kealohi side of the Loko Iʻa, Camvel, 2020.

314 Pihi a Piha, accessed, March, 2020, https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2020-pihi-a-piha-a-backyard-paina-to-benefit- paepae-o-heeia-tickets-98268593007. 191

Fig. 30. Continuing mangrove removal , Camvel, 2020.

192

CHAPTER SIX: SUMMARY FINDINGS

We are not Oʻahu without Heeia. If we lose Heeia today, we lose part of ourselves forever.

John Waiheʻe, Governor of Hawaiʻi

I live in an ahupuaʻa that is in the midst of great change, of transformation from degradation to restoration. Committed teams of people, young and old, Kānaka Maoli and others are engaged in a great and living question. Is it possible to bring life back to the land, to the wai and the kai? Of course we believe it is possible. So the greater question is, how best to do so?

The aim of the present research has been to examine, in the context of history, how the current restoration is meeting the challenges that arise in the work: the challenges of addressing degraded ʻāina, of finding and implementing ʻike kupuna, of incorporating mālama ʻāina strategies, and employing an ahupuaʻa systems approach. The essential research question driving this study is, given the context of the local land use and history that has preceded them, how are

Kānaka Maoli returning to, managing, and restoring ʻāina and resources toward food production and food sovereignty at the commencement of the third decade of the 21 st Century?

What has this case study of three different ʻili revealed for:

1) the ways each site is managed,

2) how ʻike kupuna is used,

3) the roles Western and Indigenous science play in restoration efforts,

4) what the production of food looks like for each location,

5) how physically hard the labor is, 193

6) How government can be both a challenge and a collaborative partner.

This study has shown that while the three case study sites are located in a contiguous ahupuaʻa, due to their environments, they could just as well be in different countries and yet are less than an hour’s walk away from each other. This is what makes the research so interesting and challenging. The sites share the same water but each manage it differently. Each ‘ili, while connected to the whole part of an ahupuaʻa system, is autonomously working to produce kalo, and while each location is cultivating kalo, each is distinct in the way it is being carried out. On the cusp of the recent COVID-19 pandemic and the already present impact of global warming, the pathways to food production at each site in the case study has provided an impetus to further the efforts in food security and resilience.

Site Management

When it comes to the re-awakening of impaired lands and restoration as resurgence, the term management means so much more than just the administrative activities of planning, operating, financing, and the delegation of work. It is about the rediscovery of who we are as

Kānaka Maoli. It is about hoʻomanamana, the spiritual connection to akua and kupuna. This dissertation has alluded to this throughout. The elements of successful ʻōiwi management in the

Heʻeia ahupuaʻa are closely tied to the integration of ʻike kupuna in the cultivation of kalo and the growing of fish. Because it is happening within the context of modernity and all of its challenging economics in Hawaiʻi, restoration today is taking place within a traditional ahupuaʻa systems framework using management descriptors that could easily be found in any modern school of management. 194

For example:

ʻIolekaʻa: ʻOhana Management. Adaptive Management. Kahu. Lineal descendency. Small farm management practices. Self funded. Management and labor are unified. Heʻeia Uli: Local Board of Directors (Lineal descendents), Executive Director. Farm manager. Marketing Management. Educational coordinator. Heavy equipment operations. Volunteers. Intensive fundraising. Leasehold land. Co-management with the landlord (State of Hawaiʻi).

Loko Iʻa O Heʻeia: Board of Directors (chosen to represent a diversity of expertise), Executive Director, Assistant Executive Director, Financial Management, and a wide variety of program coordinators and managers. Volunteers. Funded primarily by landowner and supplemented by grant proposals. Co-management with the landlord.

On the ground, all three sites use an adaptive approach to management. That is to say, each site meets their objectives or goals with the anticipation that due to the degraded environment, there will be challenges that require the ability to be flexible and adaptable in the management of both the hana or labor and the people who do the work. Adaptive management is learning by doing, adapting to the unexpected, and solving challenges with alternative solutions.

Deliberations are required between management and staff, information exchanged and solutions to challenges are facilitated.

ʻIke Kupuna

This term has not been interrogated as deeply in the literature as it might have been. For example, there are multiple types of ʻike kupuna—those that apply to a specific place (i.e., generations of family members teaching down the line of what has been learned about the behaviours of a place over time), and ʻike that apply to a specific discipline (i.e., knowledge of kalo or fish farming). Further, the relevance of ʻike kupuna can be said to be reflected by the size of the operation. In other words, the degree to which cultural relevance is evident in these case study sites appears to correlate with the acreage of their operations—that is to say, the smaller 195 the farm, the more likely activities will be enveloped within ʻŌiwi protocols that include oli, pule, mele, and hula. Furthermore, there are deeper meanings of this term—reaching from the most pragmatic to the most sacred spirituality—which are not the subject of this dissertation.

In the case of ʻIolekaʻa, ʻike kupuna has been passed down orally and successively to the current kahu for the last three generations, and for the ʻohana, ʻike kupuna is still relevant and followed. At the Heʻeia Uli site, ʻike is provided by living lineal descendants from the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa. These kūpuna have provided a treasure chest of oral histories that have been collected across the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa and over the generations, but do not necessarily reflect a contiguous and direct relationship to the wetland. The majority of ʻike kupuna at Heʻeʻia Uli is of the second type described above—disciplinary knowledge of agriculture in the islands. The Loko Iʻa of Heʻeia, is similar to Heʻeia Uli, with the disciplinary knowledge specializing in fisheries and aquaculture. However, ʻike kupuna for the bay in which the pond is located is available from the academic institutions that partner and are in immediate proximity to the loko iʻa, i.e., the Hawaiʻi

Institute of Marine Biology and the many marine projects and scientific studies housed there.

Integration of Western and Indigenous Approaches to Science

There is no way to restore the ʻāina of these case study sites without adaptive management, and there is no way to practice adaptive management without the support of

Western science. Therefore, all three case study sites in this research dissertation, value and use science in order to identify, understand, and solve some of the complexities that arise at each site, providing a logical or scientific basis for mitigating management decisions. On the other hand, all three sites take their fundamental inspiration and practice, from the knowledge which has been provided by those who have come and gone before them. 196

At the onset of this research project, my predisposition regarding science was such that I held it at a lower level of respect than that of Indigenous science. In comparing the value of

Indigenous and Western science, my bias favored Indigenous wisdom, relegating Western science as secondary. This is reflective of the way I understood restoration from an ʻŌiwi perspective, one that was much more relational or symbiotic, and which predisposes science as invasive, settler oriented, and alien. I have come to appreciate the value of what Western science can contribute in identifying cause, effect, and resolution, particularly as it relates to the restoration of land and the management of natural resources. Some of the challenges in managing Indigenous lands requires the aid of science when needing to quantify such things as soil composition, water salinity and nitrogen levels, volume and flow, bacteria, and other such tests needing scientific analysis to make determinations on the various degraded conditions of the sites as they pursue the pathway to the production of food. Having participated in such a multi-disciplinary research effort, I have come to understand that modern restoration will not be successful unless carefully partnered with science in a culturally appropriate manner. The summary findings of how each of the case study sites has integrated science into their management strategies.

The last three kahu of ʻIolekaʻa, including the current one, have relied more heavily on

Indigenous observational approaches to the scientifically relevant choices that have to be made, such as water management, choices of planting, approaches to small farm management, and maintenance. However, during the course of this study, as an example of adaptation, this kuleana has taken some strong steps in the direction of food security, and has made this a priority for its planning for the future. As such, the Western canon of knowledge about food production in wet environments is highly desirable and valued. 197

In Heʻeia Uli, Western science is highly valued and provides a primary lens with which to understand the complex biochemical components of the wetland, and the changing of the water as it flows through this environment. In fact, without such an approach, they would not have received either funding or government approval for the main activities in which they have been engaged—re-engineering the land in major ways, clearing forests, removing earth and sediments, restoring and re-designing water courses, road building and more. For ʻŌiwi approaches to science, the management, while not holding cultural expertise itself, has welcomed people with such knowledge to share their ʻike in the restoration of this complex ecosystem, that is indicating, in preliminary ways, that the aina is re-awaking to its Indigenous mana.

So much Western science happens continually at the Heʻeia loko iʻa, that those studies have made scholarly contributions to the current literature. The interim director at the Hawaiʻi

Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) is on the board of directors at the fishpond. Many University of Hawaiʻi students do their internships at the fishpond, especially those from the Sea Grant

College Program and HIMB. Cultural aspects are integrated with the help of resident kūpuna, teachers, cultural workshops, i.e., net making, wall building, in addition to protocols required upon visiting the fishpond.

Food Production

Food production is so vital to restoration and resilience, that it is safe to say that none of the restoration projects in Heʻeia would be happening if the projects were not, at their very foundation, about food. The very purpose of each site, both in ancestral past and in these contemporary times, is the planting, mālama, harvesting and sharing (in one way or another) of

198 ma ʻai. Food is the focusing nexus for each project. The production of it is hard work, and yet, food is joy. It is the central most important part of any vision for the ahupuaʻa. Fish and poi.

In ʻIolekaʻa, the ʻāina has been productive—banana, ulu, uala, kalo, ʻawa, avocado, papaya, mountain apple, rose apple, noni, laukahi, aloe, tī, guava, passionfruit, māmake, prawns, crayfish, hoʻiʻo, bamboo shoots, puaʻa. They are all natural to the existing landscape. All of these laʻau were already living there three generations ago, if not more. In a way, one could say they, along with grass and forest and flowers, are the natural make-up of the cultural landscape. Of these, kalo is the one that has, over the years, been deliberately planted in loʻi. This ʻāina kuleana has, during the period of this study, taken a major turning point. In addition to ʻāina-based cultivation, the first steps toward integrated aquaculture-hydroponics-agriculture of diversified foods has been taken. This work will form a key component of the work on the aina in the next five years.

As for Heʻeia Uli, the focus here is to restore hundreds of acres of loʻi kalo, a vision photographically supported by a 1928 image of the land as ʻāina momona. Currently, while still in a re-construction and clearing phase, the first steps towards the vision of kalo cultivation has been achieved with sixteen loʻi intensively cultivated on approximately seven to eight acres of managed loʻi and ʻaina. Over the period of this dissertation loʻi kalo have expanded from three loʻi to sixteen.

For the loko iʻa of Heʻeia, the attempt to produce fish regularly had been challenged by the condition of the kuapā, namely the hole in the ma kai portion of the wall, which has since been addressed. While the fishpond produces various fish, crabs, eel, and limu, a concerted effort in the cultivation, production, and harvesting of fish has not yet commenced. The pond acts as food producer in three different ways: as a fishery (netting and whipping for fish and crabs in the 199 open waters), as a ranch (limu pasture with grazing fishes herded into makaha), and as a farm

(planting, feeding and harvesting fish). At this time, it is as an enclosed fishery that the pond is most productive in terms of food, and it does, indeed feed the staff, their friends and families, visitors and community members to some degree, but the loko iʻa is taking steps toward the completion of the structural integrity of the kuapā and once that has been completed, the serious growing of fish will begin.

Findings

The restoration of Indigenous lands, including those in Hawaiʻi, is fraught with difficulties ranging from the non-recognition of Indigenous rights and justice in both formal and informal settings. The extraction and archiving of Indigenous knowledge by non-Indigenous parties, the state’s failure to meaningfully cultivate Indigenous participation in structurally meaningful restorative mechanisms, and the insufficient integrating of ʻike kupuna within the settler bureaucracy is challenging. What is becoming clearly evident, is the need for Indigenous knowledge to intervene in mainstream discourses of sustainability, particularly in the areas of food production that embrace new ways of production while retaining traditional ʻike kupuna and cultural integrity in the process.

One key finding in this study pertains to the relationship of the ʻili with each other and between each ʻili and the ahupuaʻa. It is the water that is the piko and therefore, while it may not be apparent on a day to day basis, this study is really about one system with three parts. Never is this more apparent, than in the up-stream-downstream relations. This study revealed that despite the fact that the managers of each site have a cultural awareness of their relationship with one another, and then to the whole of the ahupuaʻa, this is more conceptual than practiced. 200

I posit that the reason for that finding is based on the hard work restoration entails. This kind of arduous and backbreaking work cannot be underestimated. Injuries occur, muscles ache, and the mind becomes focused on what is happening at oneʻs own site. It takes so much work to manage a site that one begins to think of management mostly in terms of what is happening within his or her own site. This is understandable, considering the amount of labor necessary merely for maintenance of the sites. However, without an awareness of the greater context within which we are working, we are only adapting to immediate concerns, leaving unattended those larger issues which, if ignored, lead to great vulnerability which may, in time, impact the production of food crops.

Additionally, while practitioners need to be looking upstream for what is coming at them, they also need to constantly be looking at the financial stream. Finances are vital to each enterprise, and they are often in short supply, setting limitations for what a restoration project can or cannot accomplish. This leads to another key finding in Kānaka Maoli restoration of

ʻŌiwi lands today. It is unlikely that major land-based projects can finance themselves through the sales of products. While food production, as mentioned earlier, is central to these projects, it is insufficent to carry the project. This is primarily due to the economic structures of the society in which these restorations are taking place. Thus, it is likely that the provision of cultural and place-based education will become an important part of the revenue stream, as modeled by the

Heʻeia loko iʻa. That is to say, together, producing food and producing knowledge, is most certainly the way toward the transformation of ʻāina and Kanaka in the future.

As seen in the case studies, each ʻili has faced its own challenges with governmental jurisdiction. Permit requirements, administrative rules and regulations, land use laws, environmental impact assessments, the Army Corps of Engineers, and a slew of governmental 201 requirements to restore and mālama these sites were both extremely frustrating and with the exception of the ʻāina kuleana, somewhat rewarding through collaborative efforts with DLNR and HCDA. However, none of the sites are allowing those challenges to hold them back in their restoration activities or in the power of collaboration with co-managers. No doubt, perhaps even unawares, each location site is fully committed to one of the most fundamental of ʻŌiwi values— the respect for skill and hard work in action.

As we look to the future, each ʻili is at the cusp of a new chapter, perhaps the subject of a dissertation for someone in natural resource and environmental management. At ʻIolekaʻa, one might almost say that the ʻāina kuleana is becoming a farm, with integrated aquaculture, aquaponics, planting new loʻi, establishing new educational opportunities upon completion of this dissertation, a renewed interest in cultural and ecological sustainability, tapping the power of the stream that runs through the land and converting it to electricity, and finally, a project to educate the government and establish a special zoning for kuleanas that have been able to weather the test of time.

Management at Heʻeia Uli, with a major milestone in the massive earthworks (the major movement and contouring of lepo) and the nearly completed clearing of the invasive forest at the

Heʻeia viaduct, will soon be turning its focus more toward kalo, continuing education, laʻau lapaʻau, and cultural programs. At the Loko Iʻa O Heʻeia, after nearly 20 years of dedicated work to restoring the kuapā that encloses the fish production area, it is likely that efforts will begin in earnest to begin the farming of fish. I submit that this will be an advanced level of restoration, reclaiming knowledge of fish behavior per the seasons and the tides.

In summary, what has been learned about restoration during this study? What is the formula for it, if one could overly simplify in this way: 202

First, you protect the land from development; then you recover lost and fallow lands, require access or leases, then comes the physical clearance of invasives, then the rebuilding of physical integrity of the place, then the movement of the water, then build a vision and attract people to work, partner with sources of knowledge, inspire others to support with funds. In time you learn things you could not learn any other way, beginning in earnest to educate others in the privileged knowledge that you have received. Ultimately, we remember what it’s all about, we are the land and the land is us. Where does Heʻeia go from here? The pace of restoration will continue into the coming generations. The picture that it paints is astounding. The ʻāina continues to be restored, Hāloa is resplendent, and Kanaka Maoli embody their elder sibling and are transformed as they cultivate the land. They take their rightful places; as kumu, mahiʻai, lawaiʻa, and other skilled kahu and kahuna, on their ʻŌiwi lands, rebirthed, resurged, restored, and self-sustained.

203

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