Walking the paths of Limahuli Garden & Preserve, my jacket soaked through by the steady rain characteristic of Kauai's lush north shore, I bent over placards introducing Munroidendron racemosum, a native ginseng so rare that its Hawaiian name has been lost to time. Further along the walk, I breathed in the sweet scent of the white hibiscus koki'o ke'oke'o, once thought extinct.
Though I came to Limahuli eager to see rarities like these two plants preserved in this 17-acre National Tropical Botanical Garden, I was soon captivated by something even more fascinating. Intricate layers of ancient rock-walled terraces climbed the valley and vanished into the dense highland forests above.
Shown by carbon dating to be more than 1,000 years old, these rock formations are part of an ancient “ahupua'a”, a traditional Hawaiian land division. Each ahupua’a is a system which encompasses all of the resources needed for sustainable living, including water, fertile soil, forests, and marine life. These ecosystems are natural embodiments of the concept of "malama 'aina," or caring for the land. Apuhua’as are the birthplace of the land-management and food-production techniques which once allowed Hawaii's isolated and densely populated pre-contact communities to be entirely self-sufficient.
Described by native Hawaiians as extending from the mountains to the sea (from mauka to makai), each ahupua'a had its narrow starting point high in the inland volcanic peaks, and then widened to include a stretch of shore and the fishing grounds up to a mile out to sea. At the heart of the ahupua'a is the watershed, which collects and distributes freshwater throughout the land. Channels diverted stream water to irrigate lo'i kalo (lowland taro pond fields), using ancient irrigation techniques to circulate water from pond to pond and prevent stagnation. The result: per-acre yields five times that of dryland farming.
Where the freshwater streams met the ocean, elaborate rock-walled fishponds mixed the nutrient-rich water from the taro ponds with tidal flow, creating ideal conditions for fattening fish captured through specialized gates to control the flow of water. The uplands, considered wao akua (the realm of the gods), were off limits to all visitors except those with knowledge of forest stewardship.
“The thing about the ahupua'a that is important to understand is that water is the organizing principle," said Davianna Pōmaikaʻi McGregor, professor of ethnic studies at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. "Our word for water in Hawaiian is wai, and our word for wealth is waiwai, because if you had an abundance of water, then your land was rich and you had an abundance of food."
European contact with the island of Kauaʻi is recognized as the year 1778, when Captain James Cook landed in Waimea Bay on the Western shore. At this time, the ahupua‘a system had been sustaining the Hawaiian people for generations. Kaua’i boasted upwards of 50 ahupua'a, with hundreds or even thousands more throughout the other Hawaiian islands. Yet, from the early 1800s, foreign colonization and the imposition of private land ownership systems drove Hawaiians out of their ancestral spaces. A Western-style land ownership system was imposed on Hawaii. Traditional ecological management practices were gradually undermined and replaced as land was divided up and sold to individual landowners. Families and livelihoods once-rooted in the communal ahupua’a system and practices were forced to adapt. Today, many of these systems have been long gone from the landscape.
Interestingly, the stream running through Limahuli has never been degraded. It has survived the changing-hands and reorganization of land use. Guided by the principals of waiwai, the perseverance of this ancient water stream “has grounded our community and reminded us of everything our ancestors have left behind for us. It’s stood the test of time, and pushes us through painstaking work of rebuilding and restoring our Limahuli”, says McGregor.
Across the islands, bold and diverse coalitions of community activists, scientists and environmentalists are working with the state government, the parks service and private landowners to re-establish traditional sustainable practices belonging to ahupua’a. Through efforts that have brought international prominence, a number of grassroots organizations such as The Waipa Foundation are translating these practices into the modern environment – a key goal in Hawaii, US state that now infamously imports 85% of its food. Projects are underway to restore native species, reforest uplands decimated by grazing, reclaim estuaries, rebuild taro fields and fishponds, and protect ocean fisheries.
In this community of Hā'ena at Kauaʻi's remote north-western tip, decades of effort to preserve and restore one of the last remaining examples of a complete ahupua'a are paying off. Over 600 acres of agricultural terracing have been restored at Limahuli Garden & Preserve, which is part of Hā'ena. Hui Maka'āinana o Makana, a grassroots community group that includes many descendants of Hā'ena's original families, has rebuilt taro ponds and revitalized traditional mountains-to-sea land management while also creating the first state-sanctioned, community-based marine fishery.
While in most areas, development prevents the recreation of an entire ahupua'a system, new signage projects are marking the boundaries of historic ahupua'a, raising awareness of the holistic system. In the process, Hā'ena has become a model for efforts to preserve existing ahupua'a throughout the islands and restore others long ago.
"This is the way we manage our resources for hundreds of years, and now we're coming around to see how well they understood and cared for their environment by what's left to us today." said Lei Wann, director of Limahuli Garden & Preserve, who is descended from one of the original families of Hā'ena.
With these intensively managed farming and fishing systems, Hawaiians were able to maintain a remarkably small ecological footprint, using less than 15% of their terrestrial ecosystem, while supporting several hundreds of thousands of people with no external inputs. The ahupua'a system emphasizes community-based sustainable land management, in which each community manages and utilizes the resources within its designated land area in a way that ensures long-term sustainability. Rotational farming, conservation of water and soil, and the integration of different types of crops and animals encourages a closed system approach. These are just a few examples of the traditional methods at play. Excitingly, as efforts continue to restore these practices also beget opportunities for modern agriculture to follow in tow.
"The ahupua'a is the guide map, taking you back thousands of years and offering the thoughts of stewards of the land in their time," Wann explains. "It's the doorway to accessing all that past knowledge that is completely applicable today."
There is no doubt that a quiet renaissance is unfolding to restore ahupua’a throughout Hawaii. Commitment to connecting with, preserving, and sharing this past knowledge through ahupua’a has gained traction. Kawika Winter, an ecologist at the University of Hawaii is especially excited by the prospect of integrating Indigenous science with conventional science.
“What’s so exciting about places like [Limahuli] is that its success is bringing together all of these different partners and goals—for biological conservation, revitalization of cultural practices and economic advancement… it’s starting to look more and more like a viable model for the 21st century”.
As all good things do, my walk through Limahuli came to an end. I sat beneath a flowering tenogyne campanulata, which might have gone extinct had it not been for this community's efforts. An endangered Hawaiian black-necked stilt dips its beak into the mud, foraging for a snack.
Recognising the reciprocal relationship between land and human is on no better display than nestled between the mountains and valleys of Hawaii, aloha ʻĀina.
The gardens leave me with parting words, etched on a metal plaque against a rock -
“I ka wā ma mua, ka wā ma hope...we look to the past as a guide to the future”
---
Savannah Ardrey is a Master's student at Stanford in the Earth Systems program and earned her B.S. in Symbolic Systems. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia between the ocean and the mountains instilled a wonder for the Earth and the stillness of landscapes. She hopes to apply her experience in identifying & creating value in the corporate world to shape how humans perceive, value, and protect nature. When she’s not volunteering at the farm, you can find her on the Stanford Dish hike or identifying the fruit trees on campus.
Comentarios