LŌKAHI
Lōkahi means unity, oneness, harmony, and agreement. In the spirit of this exhibit, it refers to our ability to work in unity to heal relationships between ourselves while restoring the 'āina as represented in the three triangles that appear in the exhibit’s logo. As represented in our logo pictured in the upper left hand corner of this website, our exhibit moves beyond only exploring how the agricultural and military industries, through land and water use practices, have changed the landscape and relationships within the Honouliuli ahupua'a. As such, our exhibit highlights existing efforts that honor the wahi pana (legendary places) featured on this site and that seek to restore and reIndigenize Honouliuli.
The document Hālau Pu'uloa features organizations engaging in this work on page 282. It is an ʻĀina Inventory of the 'Ewa district in which the Honouliuli ahupua'a is located. The report was produced by Community Engagement & Resources Regional (KS-CE&R) staff, Nohopapa Hawai‘i, LLC (Nohopapa) per the request of Kamehameha Schools. Our Story Map, accessible in the menu bar, also has a list of organizations and contacts featured in the Community Organizations section.
RESTORATION PROJECTS
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs defines mālama ʻāina as an expression of our kuleana (responsibility) to care for the land through properly managing its resources and gifts. As described here, several organizations and individuals in Honouliuli are doing just this as they engage in social justice through cultural restoration of the 'āina (land) and place based education.
Ulu A'e Learning Center
Formed in 2014, the Ulu A'e Learning Center is driven to help the people of Honouliuli in being knowledgeable and engaged in the place they live. The center aims to develop skills, build confidence, and promote healthy relationships between people, in tandem with restoring the land, through workshops and programs. Some workshops that are offered teach the unique features of Honouliuli that include the heiau site at Pu‘uokapolei and the sinkhole environment of the ‘Ewa coastline. The center helps to maintain these sites. Examples of programs include the Lā Mālama program that encourages volunteers to take care of and clean the park at Puʻuokapolei and the Neneʻe program that highlights the importance of land stewardship to keiki (children).
Camp Pālehua
Camp Pālehua and its associated trails are located on the northern boundary and mountain ridgeline of Honouliuli, overlooking the mountains of the Nanakuli ahupua‘a and Wai‘anae ahupua‘a. Defining itself as a pu‘uhonua (a refuge), the camp is a part of 1,600 acres of land owned by Gill ʻEwa Lands, LLC. https://www.gill-ewa-lands.org/ Gill ʻEwa Lands, LLC (GEL) is committed to protecting and restoring Hawaiʻi’s natural environment and cultural sites. Besides camping, activities that visitors can participate in include hiking with staff and cultural practitioners who share their knowledge on Native species and about the mo‘olelo attached to the landscape.
Photo courtesy of Camp Pālehua
The Ewa Limu Project
Striving to continue Uncle Henry Chang Wo's work to educate about and advocate for limu, the Ewa Lima Project conserves and restores limu, which is vulnerable to over harvesting, climate change, and other suffocating species. With Uncle Walter Kamana and other kūpuna, people would gather at One'ula Beach Park every month to plant and educate others in an effort to replenish and protect the limu. According to Uncle Wally Ito with this project, One'ula Beach Park was once known as "The House of Limu", and it was Uncle Henry's mission to use this place as a teaching tool on caring for a rich limu ecosystem. The project has continued to follow in their footsteps by taking new and returning groups to mālama limu and instill in them, and the generations to come, the kuleana that will ensure the importance of limu not only in the environment but also within Hawaiian culture.
Photo courtesy of The Ewa Limu Project
The University of Hawai'i – West Oʻahu
Supervised by former student Tasia Yamamura, pictured below (photo by Kevin Muranaka) is the student organic māla (garden) at UH West O'ahu. UH West O'ahu is centrally located in the Honouliuli ahupua'a and partners with several locally based community organizations, hosting many events in the māla that involve students. Here, students learn growing methods and traditional uses of plants from various cultural practitioners and growing experts. In general, numerous staff, faculty, and programs at UH West O'ahu seek to promote and apply Indigenous wisdom regarding land stewardship in order to address pressing issues such as climate change.
Another effort created in collaboration with the University of Hawai‘i at West O‘ahu is the Uluniu Project. Established in the Fall of 2017 by Indrajit Gunasekara and Dr. Manulani Aluli Meyer, the project works to strengthen our relationship to the land. The Niu Nursery holds 264 seedlings with about 24 different varieties of Niu, which aids in the preservation of this species.
Throughout campus, Native species are integrated into the landscape including those that are drought resistant, given campus is located in a drier region of the island. Ashley Macho, a Creative Media student at UH West O'ahu, created a video (pictured to the right) featuring the Native flora of campus as part of her final project for Dr. Mello's Spring '25 ANTH/CM 377 Digital Anthropology course.
KALAELOA HERITAGE PARK
Kalaleloa Heritage Park has an array of community programs, educational programs, and fundraising programs that aid in its cultural preservation efforts. At Kalaeloa Heritage Park, visitors can observe features associated with the settlement of people and agricultural practices in the ‘Ewa region. The Kalaeloa Heritage Park site is relatively undisturbed, with many cultural sites that consist of, for example, agricultural features, heiau, and habitation sites. These sites are constructed on a coral foundation with stone structures of Tahitian origin.
UH West O‘ahu students enrolled in ANTH/CM 378 researched and photographed plant species Native to Honouliuli, which can be found here at the park. Click on each picture to learn more about the specific plant species and its uses. For their research, students commonly sourced information from the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, the Bishop Museum, and the Hui Kū Maoli Ola.
Photo courtesy of Kalaeloa Heritage Park
Given the anthropology program at UH West O‘ahu’s partners with Kalaeloa Heritage Park, we decided to devote a section of this exhibit to student activities that take place at the park, featuring pictures of the work from Dr. Kirsten Vacca’s annual field school course.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
During the Spring 2023 semester, students enrolled in ANTH/CM 378 Visual Depictions of the Human Experience and Media Power at UH West O‘ahu contributed to the development of this website as featured on this page, updated 2024. For a semester long project, students identified and obtained permission from organizations to feature here as well as researched and photographed Native plant species found in Honouliuli, which are central to many of these organizations’ cultural restoration efforts.
Contributing to this Lōkahi webpage, the following students gave permission to credit their work:
Gabriel "Gabby" Navalta, Pohaku, Kaylee M., Aiyana Sabuco, Thalia Rodriguez, Sylvia K., Noah Julep, Jacob G., Haley P., Samuel Adams, Mikaela Briones, Kristopher Cotchay, Chari Busbuso, Leilani Nunez, Jacob C., Kaela V, Rina Osedo, and Joshua Ader. Student Research Assistant and Website Developer, Kevin Murananka, provided guidance to students and developed this page based on their and the course instructor’s (Dr. Christy Mello) input.