Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 40, Number 7, 1 Iulai 2023 — Understanding Wetlands From an Indigenous Perspective [ARTICLE]

Understanding Wetlands From an Indigenous Perspective

By Adam Keawe Manalo-Camp Moloka'i has some of the most extensive wetlands in Hawai'i. These wetlands are not only important habitat for endangered species, but they also function to control flooding, improve water quality, control sediment, and they serve as a major resource for sustainable agriculture that has fed generations on the island. The wetlands of Moloka'i also feature heavily in mo'olelo and were a source of makaloa (a grasslike sedge) that was used to weave fine mats. Today, these wetlands are being threatened due to sea-level rise and the effects of upland forest degradation. The Moloka'i Wetland Partnership (MWP) is an innovative approach to wetland restoration. Formed in 2020, the partnership is composed of federal, state, and community groups including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Hawai'i Division of Forestry and Wildlife, Nēnē o Moloka'i, Ka Ipu Makani Cultural Heritage Center, Paeihe Birds Habitat Joint Venture, Moloka'i Land Trust, and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. MWP seeks to facilitate conversations about the wetlands, encourage Kānaka Maoli practices and knowldge systems, and help Moloka'i residents to get the skills, tools, and data they need to restore the wetlands as they see fit. MWP has not defined what wetland restoration constitutes and believes that it is up to the Moloka'i community to decide how restoration should be carried out and what "restoration" itself should look like. The partnership is a network of groups - but individual groups within MWP are already engaged in wetland restoration. "When you look at cultural overlay of the different historical lo'i and the historical fishponds, it will eoincide exactly with the overlay of what others define as 'wetlands.' They see a wetland. From our Indigenous perspective, we see it as a traditional agricultural, eeological, and cultural system," said Pūlama Lima, executive director of Ka Ipu Makani Cultural Heritage Center. "This model is applied throughout Hawai'i in other restoration work on fishponds and lo'i but what we want is to change the narrative of what a wetland is so an Indigenous perspective is put forth. "One of the first projects we initiated as a partnership was a prioritization project that looked at different wetlands sites along Moloka'i's south shore and did field assessments to see the feasibility for the restoration of these wetlands sites considering climate change, sea level rise, and inundation. So we developed a pool to feel out whieh sites would be prime to restore now and would be resillient to climate change," said Lima.

Some of the sites that were determined to be ready for restoration work and resilient to climate change include: Kaupapalo'i o Ka'amola; Kakahai'a; 'Ōhi'apilo Pond; Punalau Pond; and Kamāhu'ehu'e Pond. The results of the priority project were then taken to the Moloka'i community for their mana'o. Due to the different definitions of "wetlands" at the federal, state and county levels - and eaeh one with a different view of what restoration entails - Lima said that "wetlands is a very triggering word in our eommunity because of how they are defined. There are a lot of hoops that people have to go through, and it seems like those conservation models are exclusive of human interaction - but that is what MWP is trying to change." These restrictive models of conservation and restoration invoke the historical trauma around Native Hawaiian land displacement. The permitting system itself underlies this exclusivity as permitting for restoring lo'i and loko i'a is different from wetland restoration. "Right now, restoring wetlands and restoring lo'i and fishponds are seen as two different types of restoration work," Lima explained. "But looking at the data we have collected and looking at the historical accounts, the Moloka'i wetlands system functioned as it should when humans interacted with those spaces. What we are trying to say is that by restoring lo'i and restoring fishponds, this functions the way wetlands should function - whieh is to enhanee our water and prevent sedimentation of our reefs. Essentially, these landscapes are wetlands - but are not currently viewed as such." MWP members are also seeking to bridge Western science and Indigenous knowledge in these spaces. Lima cited an example of this: "One of the biggest things I have learned from working with our scientific counterparts in this partnership is that within the scientific Western definition of wetlands, there are many types of wetlands. There are many categories of wetlands. In our kuana'ike Hawai'i, we had the same. We had lo'i punawai, ki'o wai, and wai mapuna - all of these places were identified as aina wai, or aina that served the purpose of water quality." Maui County has also had discussions with MWP regarding their plan to map all wetlands within the county and develop a cultural overlay. However, members of the Moloka'i community, including MWP, have expressed that they don't want certain cultural areas mapped within that overlay due to the sensitivity of the areas and concerns about how that data could be used. ■ MVP will be conducting community meetings for Moloka'i residents throughout the year to share their manao. For more information and to sign upfor updates, contact Pūlama Lima at pulama@kaipumakanichc.org.