Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 32, Number 7, 1 Iulai 2015 — Bringing awareness to Hawaiʻiʻs Congressional Delegation: Cultural presence in today's 21 st century [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Bringing awareness to Hawaiʻiʻs Congressional Delegation: Cultural presence in today's 21 st century

Aloha mai from Kaua'i and Ni'ihau! I had the great privilege to attend the annual lei draping of the King Kamehameha statue in Washington, D.C., in honor of our great ali'i. During this celebratory occasion I had the opportunity to meet with our Congressional Delegation and was able to share some of the significant work and services of OHA within our eommuni-

ties and to continue to seek support from our Hawai'i delegates. It was also great to meet up with our Kaua'i Mayor Bernard Carvalho and support his initiative to meet with the Federal Highway Administration to further discuss the placement of our moku and ahupua'a boundary signs on state and federal highways on Kaua'i. Today, Kaua'i is seeing a new era that integrates and takes on these many opportunities of our historical past to the present, and our natural and 2 1 st century resources. Like, Hui Maka'āinana o Makana and its pursuit for the Community-Based Subsistence Fishing Area (CBSFA), the Kaua'i Nui Kuapapa (KNK) Project continues its quest to plaee the moku and ahupua'a boundary marker signs around our Island. "Kaua'i Nui Kuapapa," the great ancient or the vastness of Kaua'i, is a cultural and historical project that entails roadway signage and loeal and visitor resource tools of the 21 st eentury. The project identifies Kaua'i's five moku, with Ni'ihau as the sixth moku, and 54 ahupua'a, a prominent and well-known feature of the landscape of Kaua'i. The moku boundary signs of the project are currently placed on private properties off of the highways. This was not the initial vision of Mayor Carvalho or the project team. Presently, the signs are not placed on state roadways due to regulation concerns raised by the State Department of Transportation (DOT). The Kaua'i Nui Kuapapa team has

worked closely with the support of the Mayor and the Kaua'i County Couneil and other private and public organizations, such as DHHL and State Parks to implement the project and to find a means to get the boundary markers onto state roads and highways making them more visible for our loeal people and visitors alike. The County of Kaua'i and the KNK team will continue to work with the State DOT to aeeom-

plish this. We are optimistic that this will be resolved soon and that our moku and ahupua'a signs will be placed along the road as originally envisioned with an overall goal to educate kama'āina and visitors about Kaua'i's rich historical areas and land division of moku and ahupua'a. The National Historic Preservation Act, Section 106 is an important consultation process that is expected to take plaee anytime Federal monies are devoted to a project that may have impacts on cultural or historic sites. I am hopeful that OHA staff, both in Hawai'i and our D.C. Bureau, ean work closely with our delegation to seek answers as to why the Section 106 Consultation Process was not implemented for the Thirty Meter Telescope project. The TMT partnership has received nearly $19 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF), a Federal Agency, yet the NSF determined that its Ananeial contributions did not trigger the implementation of the 106 process. This process is meant to be a tool for our communities as well as indigenous communities throughout the United States to use as a means to protect their culturally significant sites. Why was this process not implemented for our most sacred mountain in Hawai'i? This is troubling and OHA should be looking further into this as it is part of our kuleana to advocate for proper enforcement and implementation of processes meant to protect our eulturally significant sites in Hawai'i. ■

Dan Ahuna VicE Chair, TrustEE, Kaua'i and Ni'ihau