Mālama Hulē'ia – Using traditional Hawaiian practices to restore a free-flowing, healthy, and productive Hulē’ia ecosystem at Alakoko fishpond. Kauai, Hawaii
When we returned to the fishpond after the storm, we found downed trees, damaged infrastructure and erosion along portions of the kuana. Our old shower building was largely lost, the new nursery shed blown away, and it took some work just to regain access to the site.
But we also found plenty to be grateful for. We were all safe, the restored sections of the kuapā held strong, much of our infrastructure came through relatively well, and within days we were able to welcome our community back to Alakoko.
And you showed up.
More than 40 people joined us for our September Community Workday, just days after the storm.
What had been planned as a regular community workday became a much-needed day of cleanup and recovery: clearing debris, salvaging materials and helping us begin putting things back in order.
Many of the people who came that morning are familiar faces. They return month after month to share int the hana, pulling weeds, moving rocks, planting, clearing, building, learning and caring for this place alongside us.
One of our regular volunteers shared that after the hurricane hit Kauaʻi, it felt especially important to have a place where she could come together with her community and know that her hands were making a real difference.
That stayed with us.
We often say that the work at Alakoko feeds us in many ways – mentally, spiritually, and physically. That Saturday certainly lived up to the saying.
In the days since Hurricane Lowell passed over Kauaʻi, we have been able to make our way back into Alakoko and begin taking stock of the storm’s impacts.
The first thing that strikes you is simply how different Hulēʻia looks.
Hurricane-force winds brought down trees throughout the valley and stripped much of the foliage from those that remain standing. Areas that were lush and green just a week ago now have a strangely bare appearance. Downed trees initially blocked access to Alakoko, but our crew was able to clear a path back onto the property last week.
Once inside, it was clear there is quite a bit of cleanup ahead of us.
Several structures and work areas were damaged, materials and equipment were scattered across the property, and the nursery shed we had secured ahead of the storm was blown apart. We are still sorting through the damage and determining what can be salvaged, repaired or will need to be rebuilt.
We are also still assessing impacts across the larger property and restoration areas. While our first look at the loko iʻa and kuapā was encouraging, we haven’t yet completed a full assessment. Peleke will be taking a closer look in the days ahead, and we know from experience that there can be more to understand than what is immediately visible after a storm.
For now, there is plenty we can do.
Ua ola loko i ke aloha
This Saturday’s Community Workday gives us an opportunity to begin. On September 19, we’ll gather at Alakoko to begin cleaning up storm debris, organizing what has been scattered, and putting things back in order.
The outpouring of aloha across Kauaʻi in the aftermath of Lowell has been incredible. We know many in our community are still tending to their own homes, ʻohana and neighbors. For those who are able and looking for another place to lend a hand, we would be grateful to have you join us.
Please register in advance and come prepared for muddy conditions and storm cleanup. If you have your own work gloves, please bring them along.
There is more assessment and recovery ahead, and we’ll share more as we understand the full picture. For now, we’re grateful to be back at Alakoko and ready to begin the work together.
This is an exciting moment we’ve been working toward for quite some time: our amphibious excavator is officially at work in Hulēʻia.
Getting to this point has been quite a journey. After losing access to the machine that helped us with our earliest mangrove removal, we set an ambitious goal of purchasing an amphibious excavator of our own. Our community rallied behind the idea, and with the help of foundations, partners, and individual donors, we were able to make it happen.
Then came the not-so-glamorous, behind-the-scenes part: shipping, assembly, troubleshooting, negotiating, maintenance and repairs. So you can imagine how good it felt to finally watch the excavator make its way across the fishpond and start removing mangrove.
We’re starting with a relatively small stand of red mangrove that is under 15 feet tall. Before the machine got to work, Peleke conducted a beautiful blessing ceremony. Then, together with our partner Helen Raine of Archipelago Research and Conservation, we conducted a bird and nest survey to make sure there weren’t any waterbirds nesting in the work area and to meet our permit requirements.
Starting here gives our team a chance to learn the new machine, work out any kinks, and get some practice under our belts before we move into the much larger stands of mature mangrove after the bat pup-rearing season.
A Little Room for ʻŌpeʻapeʻa
There’s another reason we’re starting small. This time of year, we also have ʻōpeʻapeʻa to think about.
ʻŌpeʻapeʻa, or Hawaiian hoary bats, are Hawaiʻi’s only native terrestrial mammal. They’re solitary bats that roost in trees, and from June through mid-September, females are giving birth and caring for pups that may not yet be able to fly.
While ʻōpeʻapeʻa are thought to live in the Hulēʻia valley, we don’t have documented evidence of them roosting in the mangrove. Still, we take the precaution of leaving woody vegetation taller than 15 feet undisturbed during pupping season, just in case bats are using those taller, older-growth trees.
After September 15, when the seasonal restriction ends, we’ll be ready to move into the taller mangrove and begin tackling the remaining 15+ acres included in our current restoration work within the Hulēʻia National Wildlife Refuge.
And the work happening now is just a glimpse of what having this machine makes possible.
The amphibious excavator can travel and work in the soft, wet conditions where conventional heavy equipment simply can’t go. Having our own machine gives us the ability to take on work that previously required costly specialized contractors and, more importantly, gives us a tool we can use for years to come as restoration continues throughout Hulēʻia.
To everyone who helped us get here: mahalo. There were a lot of steps between the idea of owning this machine and watching it finally go to work. We’re incredibly grateful to the community that believed in the vision and helped make it possible.
And we’re just getting started.
Meanwhile, Something Else Is Growing
With a very large machine crawling around the fishpond, it’s easy for some of the quieter restoration work happening at Alakoko to get overlooked. So we wanted to share this, too.
Through our growing partnership with the Hawaiʻi Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW), we recently received more than 500 native plants for restoration at Alakoko.
Many of these plants are headed to our five-acre puna wai riparian restoration area, a spring-fed freshwater corridor that connects with the surrounding wetlands and fishpond. Our team has been gradually removing invasive vegetation here and reestablishing a healthier plant community in its place.
This part of the restoration calls for a gentler approach. Rather than clearing everything at once, we’re working in phases: removing invasive vegetation, getting new plants established, and then gradually opening more of the invasive canopy as the new vegetation takes hold.
It takes time, but that’s part of the work.
And we love the contrast between these two projects. On one side of Alakoko, restoration looks like a massive amphibious excavator pulling invasive mangrove from the wetland. On another, it looks like our team and community volunteers putting small native plants into the ground and giving them a chance to grow.
Restoring Hulēʻia takes both.
There is a lot happening here right now, and we’re excited to finally be putting some long-held plans into action. Mahalo for following along, supporting the work, and being part of the community caring for this place.
A Trust for Public Land perspective of Alakoko and Hulē‘ia
The Trust for Public Land and Mālama Hulē‘ia successfully purchased and placed the Alakoko Fishpond under a public trust that protects it from development in perpetuity. Mālama Hulē‘ia alongside the Kaua‘i community will continue to steward this 102 acre of cultural and environmental significance. (See complete press release here.)
Because of the great community support demonstrated for preserving Alakoko Fishpond, The Trust for Public Land and Mālama Hulē‘ia initially succeeded in the first steps of obtaining approval for use of the County of Kaua‘i’s Public Access, Open Space, & Natural Resources Preservation Fund. (See our previous post here.) Meanwhile, The Trust for Public Land also sought private philanthropic funding to protect Alakoko.
The outpouring of community support inspired Dr. Pricilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg to commit a $4 million charitable gift that provided full funding for the conservation purchase, all expenses associated with the transaction, as well as support for The Trust for Public Land and Mālama Hulē‘ia’s missions. This private gift allowed The Trust for Public Land to begin negotiations with the landowner, while preserving limited County Open Space funds for other critical conservation acquisitions.
We are at a new beginning, with great responsibility. Alakoko presents us with both a rich heritage and a complex challenge for the future.
Sara Bowen, Executive Director
“Mālama Hulē‘ia will now be able to begin the next steps in restoring the fishpond, surrounding wetlands, and wildlife habitat. Alakoko will grow as an outdoor learning environment for students to gain knowledge of the science of native ecosystems, Hawaiian culture and traditional fishpond systems. We are looking forward to continuing this work and honored to do it hand in hand with our community,” said Sara Bowen, Executive Director of Mālama Hulē‘ia.
Jan TenBruggencate, board president, Mālama Hulē‘ia says “For more than six centuries, Kaua‘i residents have stepped up to care for this pond, to learn from it, and to draw inspiration and sustenance. In this century, it’s our turn. This is kuleana—it is our obligation and our honor. It took a village to get to this point, and we are deeply thankful to everyone who has helped us carry this tradition forward,”
Jan Tenbruggencate sharing about Alakoko from front of canoe
Peleke Flores, Mālama Hulē‘ia Director of Operations, looking at both the past and future of Alakoko Fishpond, says “This wahi pana (celebrated place) is an important part of our island’s cultural history. This is where countless generations of Kauaʻi’s people for over the past 600 years worked, played and fed our communities. We are honored to be able to continue that tradition and looking forward to one day have Alakoko feeding our community again mentally, physically, and spiritually while extending the Hā (breath of life) of this place for the next 800 years along with the future generations to come.”
Peleke Flores (center) with volunteers discussing native plants
So while purchasing this ‘āina is a critical first step, it is only the first stage in what will be a multi-generational effort to restore and continue bringing life back to Alakoko. Funding is needed to help steward Alakoko into the future to once again become a working fishpond that will feed our community. Mālama Hulē‘ia estimates a $4 million need over the next five years to steward Alakoko. Kokua in all forms and amounts will be appreciated.
Please go to www.RestoreTheFishpond.org to make a gift, volunteer, and learn more. RestoreTheFishpond.org is a joint fundraising effort by The Trust for Public Land and Mālama Hulē‘ia to raise funds toward our missions. You will be able to contribute there as in the process of uhau humu pōhaku, the Hawaiian art of weaving stones together, to form a wall similar to what will be needed in the restoration of Alakoko Fishpond.
NPS: Uhau Humu Pōhaku
~written by Steve Yee, Mālama Hulē‘ia founder and dedicated volunteer
E nā hoa heluhelu i kaukolo ʻia e ka makani Alaʻoli iā ʻAlekoko kuapapa ē, welina nō me ke aloha pumehana. Greetings to our readers to another ʻAi Uahi ʻOle segment, where we share and highlight interesting finds from Mālama Hulēʻia’s growing collection of English and Hawaiian literary resources. The second feature of this series arrives from James H. Kuhau Kaiwi’s original, “MOOLELO O KA LAHUI KANAKA I KAPAIA MENEHUNE, O KAUAI,” which was later translated and published in Thomas G. Thrum’s, “STORY OF THE RACE OF PEOPLE CALLED THE MENEHUNES, OF KAUAI. (A HAW33AIIAN TRADITION.),” in The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 29, 2 114 (The Polynesian Society, 1920), 70–75.
At the turn of the 20th century, James H. Kuhau Kaiwi was one of a handful of authors who had preserved the moʻolelo (history, narrative) of a race of people named Menehune, who had constructed two kuapā-style fishponds meant for the royal children, ʻAlekoko and Kalālālehua. Although more research is needed for a completed biography on Kaiwi, light reference material indicates that he was from Niumalu, and held very distinguished titles throughout the Kauaʻi community. For a time, Kaiwi worked as a lawyer, and later served as a judge for the Līhuʻe district of Kauaʻi during Hawaiʻi’s Territorial Period. Towards retirement, Kaiwi became a Reverend for the Kauaʻi Branch of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association. One account by members of the Kaʻahumanu Society describes a visit to Kauaʻi in 1918, where Reverend Kaiwi blessed their meal at the Hawaiian Church of Līhuʻe; it was written that among the feast was the most decadent āholehole from ʻAlekoki [ʻAlekoko] Fishpond (Pakaalana, 1918).
As a non-profit organization, we are privileged to spend a great deal of time hosting and educating Kauaʻi’s many diverse communities. Throughout these engagements, it is of the utmost importance to be providing the most historically accurate curriculums available. The need for such curricula inspired revisitations to Thrum and Kaiwi’s work.
Inspiration behind the name “Ka ʻAi Uahi ʻOle,” The Hawaiian language proverb from which this series is titled arrives from the ʻōlelo noʻeau, “Ola i ka ʻai uahi ʻole o ke kini o Mānā (ON #2480).” According to the beloved Mary Kawena Pukui, the families of Mānā, Kauaʻi were famed as a region that rarely engaged in making poi from kalo, a process which typically involves a significant amount of labour and generous amounts of smoke. Although some accounts of the same phrase, such as in the moʻolelo of Pele-keahialoa and Waka-keaka-ikawai, “Aloha Mānā i ka ʻai uahi ʻole,” suggest that this ʻōlelo noʻeau pertains to the bounties of ʻōpae that were found in Mānā prior to the developments of the sugar cane industry. The delectable and famous shrimp were, according to the phrase, consumed with minimal preparation. ʻAi uahi ʻole – food without the labors of creating smoke. In the same way we hope to provide historical resources and information for our readers to readily enjoy.
Pakaalana, “KA HOOMANAO PIHA MAKAHIKI O KE KU ANA O KA AHAHUI KAAHUMANU, MA KA MOKUPUNI O KAUAI O MANOKALANIPO.,” Ka Nupepa Kuokoa LVI, no. 1 (January 4, 1918).
For a pdf file of the original, click on the following link:
Have you ever wondered about how the Alakoko fishpond wall could have been constructed? Well, we have too. So Jan Tenbruggencate has compiled everything known about the wall in a wonderful article entitled “At Loko Alakoko, What’s Under The Wall?”
The article is published here and can also be accessed from our main menu under About Huleia and Alakoko.
By Jan TenBruggencate Member, Mālama Hulē‘ia Board of Directors
Malama Huleia refers to this ancient Hawaiian fishpond by the name Alakoko, the spelling most commonly used in the earliest references from the 1800s.
But this historic site has had many names,
Most people today call it the Menehune Fishpond and many folks use the name ‘Alekoko. However, Hawaiian Land Court records and Hawaiian language newspapers dating to the 1800s, in the earliest references, mainly use the spelling Alakoko.
An 1852 Land Court document about lands in Niumalu, by surveyor W.H. Pease, refers to ka loko o Alakoko (the Alakoko fishpond).
Issues of the newspapers Ka Leo o Ka Lahui and Nupepa Ka Oiaio from 1895 use Alakoko. In his 1923 book, Hawaiian Legends, William Hyde Rice, who was born on Kaua‘i in 1846, uses Alakoko. In her book Koamalu, Ethel Damon, who was born in 1883, uses Alakoko.
The alternate spelling Alekoko, without the addition of the diacritical `okino before the first letter, is seen, though rarely, before 1900. Not the first, but among the first to use the spelling Alekoko was Thomas Thrum, who was not Hawaiian-born and not from Kaua‘i, in a 1920 edition of the Journal of the Polynesian Society. The term with the Alekoko spelling appears in a story he wrote involving Menehune.
Thrum, originally Australian, was a storyteller and publisher, and a powerful voice in the recording of Hawaiian stories—including a fair amount of bogus Hawaiian history. After Thrum’s use of the spelling, Alekoko becomes an alternate spelling to Alakoko.
The big fishpond in the bend in the river has also gone by the names Pēpē‘awa and even Niumalu loko.
Pēpē‘awa, while it sometimes has been used to refer to the pond, is apparently the name of the land division in which it is found—the ili, which is the term for the subdivisions of an ahupua‘a.
Niumalu loko may simply be a term of reference rather than a valid name. It means “Niumalu pond” and may be used to refer to Alakoko in the way “City by the bay” refers to San Francisco.
The term Menehune Fishpond, which has gained popularity during the past century, is a reference to a complex story about either the entire construction or just the completion of the fishpond wall project by mythical Hawaiian forest dwellers.
If you’re interested in more about that, I humbly recommend my book on the subject, Menehune Mystery: The Original Tales and the Origins of the Myth, published by Mutual Publishing in Honolulu.
Malama Huleia is consciously integrating a kilo practice along with our restoration efforts. To kilo is to observe your environment which is specific to place and unique to each individual. The moon cycle influences the tides and movement of water through gravitational pull affecting ecosystems and our restoration work. The long tradition by our ancestors of observing the moon has resulted in knowledge of timing for optimal fishing and farming practices. Below is a brief overview of a few of the moons in this upcoming season.
New Moon/First moon – (Muku, Hilo)
October 16th 9:31am :: November 14th 7:07pm :: December 14th 6:16am
The Muku moon is the 30th moon, the end of the moon cycle. It is when the moon is in front of the sun; the backside is lit and the front side facing earth is dark. The first moon is a faint feather of light; key concept – “ilo” to germinate/sprout. Good time for planting seeds (not tubers or bananas). Great for beach and reef fishing, observing extreme high and low tides. A good for setting or re-setting personal goals and intentions.
First Quarter Moon – `Ole (`Olekūkahi, ʻOlekūlua, `Olekūkolu, `Olepau)
October 23rd 3:22am :: November 21st 6:45pm :: December 21st 1:41pm
There are four ‘Ole moons in the first quarter of the moon cycle; the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth moons with the Olekūlua being the quarter moon. `Ole can describe – pausing, ceasing, peeling back or removing. It is generally an unproductive time but can be used to prune, mulch and weed. Not good for fishing. A good time to take action toward our goals.
Full Moon – Piha moons (Akua, Hoku, Māhealani)
October 31st 4:49am :: November 29th 11:29pm :: December 29th 5:28pm
There are three Piha moons; the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth moons moon. A form of the word hōkū, star. When mahina is Hoku, she travels through the night from beginning to end (as do the stars). Excellent time for planting (except for kalo and bananas), seeds will be animated. Good for fishing at sea but not at shore. Watch for high waves. Time of culmination and celebration of efforts made toward our new moon intentions.
Third Quarter Moon – `Ole (`Olekūhahi, `Olekūlua, `Olepau)
October 9th 9:31am :: November 8th 3:46am :: December 7th 2:36pm
October 9th 9:31am :: November 8th 3:46am :: December 7th 2:36pmThere are three `Ole moons in the third quarter moon cycle; the twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-third moons with the ʻOlekūlua being the quarter moon. Not a good day for planting or fishing during the ʻOle moons. A good time to rest, refine and reflect – let go of anything that is not aligning with the goals and intentions set at the new moon.
Nearly 40 community members planted out dozens of native coastal plants Saturday , October 26, 2019, at the Alakoko Fishpond.
The imu crew
The workday, the one-year anniversary of Malama Hule`iaʻs first workday at the pond, culminated with the opening of an imu and an impressive luau spread. The imu had been started along the fishpond at 9 p.m. Friday and was opened at 11:30 am. Saturday.
Steamed breadfruit and pans of pork other goodies came out beautifully cooked.
Luau
Before the feast, teams of volunteers prepared the native weaving sedge makaloa and other potted coastal plants for out-planting onto the shores of the pond, where mangrove had been removed. Little by little, the exposed mudflats are turning green.
Preparing plantsMudflats
Aʻeo ohana
The work was accompanied by the calls of nearly a dozen native Hawaiian stilts, aʻeo, and a trio of Hawaiian ducks, koloa, and other wildlife that has repopulated the waterʻs edge now that mangrove has been removed.
