Indigenous Ecology of Kalapana Hawaiʻi

Abstract

This dissertation considers the Kalapana coastline of Hawaiʻi Island from that of several ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) perspectives: lāʻau lapaʻau (Hawaiian healing practice), the plurality of practices and understood entities associated with paʻakai (seasalt) biocultural vegetation communities, and moʻolelo (stories), of kuaʻāina (rural subsiders) of the coastal geography. Attention is given to the unique-ness of coastal geographies within ʻŌiwi and biogeographic scholarship and within processes that establish ola— the lāʻau lapaʻau understanding of wellbeing, and of biocultural abundance. Ola and biocultural abundance are related in reciprocal loops: ola is possible and attained through position within bioculturally abundant systems and places. Likewise, bioculturally abundant places and states are more likely to be sustained or created when ola is being cultivated. This work introduces the concept of coastal care—the reciprocal relationship of care between communities and coasts and the biocultural linkages and diversity of cultural dimensions that contribute to care. Kalapana is unique in its network of biocultural kīpuka (refugia) for both human and non-human entities. These entities are linked through their pilina (relationships), and roles to hold and transfer mana. Mana is the ʻŌiwi term for energy and spirit, which flows like water, without conscience. This ontological and epistemological framework, calls for ecological practices and informed-management frameworks that are awake to ways of knowing that are inherently ʻŌiwi. Thus, ʻŌiwi methods used in this body of work include lāʻau lapaʻau studentship, moʻolelo (story), and a huakaʻi research framework (HRF). To huakaʻi is to follow, to move with direction and purpose, following after a teacher or teachers with a goal in mind. The HRF was paired with systematic vegetation surveying along the coastal edge communities of Kalapana to nuance understandings of this environment and construct fine-scale biocultural narratives of vegetation communities. This understanding was paired with place-based and conservation priority indices to better understand how a coast can be re-mapped from multiple values-systems. Within the Kalapana network of kīpuka, pockets of biodiverse terrestrial and marine communities are held as islands, continuously navigated and connected by kuaʻāina, and their embodied ancestral memory and generational-based care across ever-changing marine and coastal grounds, co-producing these states of biocultural abundances. Highlighted in particular is the importance of coastal care, and its implications for future approaches to defining well-being and biocultural abundances in Hawai‘i and in other Indigenous contexts across Oceania.