Indigenous (Re)envisioning and Restoration of Anahola Seascapes

The Hawaiian Islands are the homeland of the Kānaka Oiwi (Indigenous peoples of Hawai‘i), who maintain rich cultural and spiritual interconnectedness to the lands and sea. Yet, due to over 200 years of settler colonialism, Kānaka Oiwi have endured the dispossession of ancestral homelands, the desecration of sacred sites, and the dismantling of their ahupua’a system, an indigenous system of managing and protecting land and coastal resources. The Kānaka Oiwi have also suffered a devastating loss of language, cultural knowledge and practice, along with the enduring structural inequalities of settler colonialism. While Kānaka Oiwi knowledge and value systems persist, opposing political and economic regulatory processes have marginalized Native Hawaiian voices and inclusion in decision-making processes that profoundly affect their cultural and ecological heritage and futurity. As Kānaka Oiwi regain access to land and sea spaces, there is a growing need for more Indigenous-driven efforts to sustainably re-engage and re-incorporate Indigenous knowledge systems, practices, and ancestral connections to place in meaningful and equitable ways.

To meet this need, this project will support restoration planning for 432 acres of the Anahola coastline that lies within the moku of Koʻolau in the Kawaihau District along the northeast coast of the island of Kauaʻi. The site is currently owned by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL), a State Department tasked with returning Hawaiian Homestead lands held by the U.S. federal government to Native Hawaiians. In February of 2022, Jeremie Makepa, a Native Hawaiian resident of the Anahola Hawaiian Homestead community, was awarded a Rite-of-Entry permit by DHHL to oversee the long-term utilization and stewardship of this coastal area. Makepa later invited Emmalani Makepa-Wong and Dr. Patricia Fifita to collaborate on developing a makai (ocean) restoration and management plan for the site. Together, through a series of “kūpuna-led” participatory talk-story sessions, planning, and mapping workshops, they will develop an Indigenous research protocol that centers on Kānaka Oiwi self-determination, histories, ecological health, and healing. By reconnecting historical and contemporary relationships between the Anahola community and their ancestral seascapes and waterways, this work will illuminate community-led pathways towards its restoration. Looking ahead, the documentation of ancestral knowledge of the coastal zones and the Indigenous research protocol developed in this project will remain in place to guide future restoration and community-based co-management of the Anahola coastal areas.

Project Team

• Dr. Patricia Fifita - Indigenous Pacific Anthropologist and Assistant Professor of Indigenous Studies, Oregon State University
• Dr. Lori A. Cramer – Professor of Sociology and Assistant Director of the Marine Studies Degree Program, Oregon State University
• Emmalani Makepa-Wong - Community Liaison for Research and Education, ʻĀina Alliance
• Dr. Lelemia Irvine - Kānaka Oiwi Assistant Professor of Physics, University of Hawaiʻi-West Oahu