This ancient practice is rebuilding Maui's future: Here's how Lāhainā's reclaiming its forests

Yahoo

15-05-2025

HONOLULU (KHON2) — From mountain peaks to coral reefs, Hawai'i's natural systems are deeply connected. The ʻāina (land), wai (water), holoholona (animals) and kānaka (people) rely on each other to survive.
That idea isn't new. Native Hawaiian practices have honored those connections for generations.
But today, groups across the islands, including the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), are putting that knowledge to work in powerful ways.
One major effort is happening on Maui, where the DLNR Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW), along with local nonprofits and volunteers, is helping bring life back to native forests that once shaped rainfall, fed watersheds and supported entire communities.
Here's what you should know about the work and why it matters.
Healthy forests play a major role in collecting rain. That rain seeps into the ground and becomes the water we use every day. But if the forest is overrun with invasive weeds or rooted out by wild animals, it doesn't work the same.
The West Maui watershed, stretching from Honokōwai to Honokōhau, covers more than 9,000 acres of land. The land used to be part of a pineapple plantation. Now, thanks to a conservation easement with Maui Land and Pineapple Company, it's being restored by Aloha Puʻu Kukui and The Nature Conservancy, with support from DOFAW.
'You can't just manage one part of it,' said John Meier, president of Aloha Puʻu Kukui. 'You have to manage the whole, from the peak all the way to the ocean. They're all connected. If you want the ocean to be healthy, the mountain above it has to be healthy.'
Not all trees are created equal. Native Hawaiian plants like koa and a'ali'i support the watershed and keep the soil in place. Invasive species like Guinea grass and ironwood do the opposite.
They spread quickly, use up resources and don't hold the same value for native animals or the land.
At one site in West Maui, volunteers removed invasive plants and planted koa. Meier pointed to a small koa sapling and said, 'This area used to be all invasive weeds and ironwood trees. Now it's going to be koa and a'ali'i forest.'
It can take years to see progress; but with time and care, the land transforms.This year, Kula Kaiapuni 'o Lahainaluna, the ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi language immersion program at Lahainaluna High School, joined the effort. Students come to the forest, begin with pule and work with their hands in the dirt by weeding, digging, planting, learning.
'It's very important,' said student Aina Kapu. 'Because here in Hawai'i, this is where we come from, this is where we stand. This is where we expand our ʻike, our kuleana and our kūpuna did this for thousands of years, and we just want to repeat that same thing.'
Kaliko Kalani Teruya added, 'ʻĀina momona [care for the land], choke plants make the rain come more often. ʻĀina momona: So, we can sustain and protect our native forest.'
Pomaikaʻi Kaniaupio-Crozier, director of Conservation at Aloha Puʻu Kukui, leads many of the on-the-ground efforts. He works with school groups, nonprofits and other community members to make the restoration possible.
'Having the connection of Hawaiian reforestation and stewardship is really that pilina, that connection of what it takes to mālama, what it takes to be connected,' Kaniaupio-Crozier said.
These projects are not quick fixes. They rely on people willing to show up year after year to build something lasting.
While DLNR provides the structure and oversight for Hawai'i's land and water resources, much of the restoration work is possible because of collaboration. Groups like Aloha Puʻu Kukui and The Nature Conservancy bring their own experience; and landowners like Maui Land and Pineapple Company contribute through conservation agreements.
Kaniaupio-Crozier said, 'We're very pleased. Maui Land and Pineapple Company and the Puʻu Kukui watershed, in collaboration with the DLNR, TNC, and Aloha Puʻu Kukui. It's nice to see community rally around any landscape, but especially a landscape like Honolua.'
After the devastating Lāhainā fire, the work of restoring native forests carries even deeper meaning.
'Our forest in Lahaina was destroyed, and it was devastating,' said Kaniaupio-Crozier. 'But it's also an opportunity now, moving forward.'
Volunteers are replanting native species using seeds that have been in those areas for thousands of years. The idea is not just to restore the forest, but to reconnect people to the knowledge and values passed down from their kūpuna.
'They're not doing it for a brochure,' he said. 'They're doing it because they're walking in the footsteps of their ancestors as kupa o ka ʻāina of these areas.'
This year has been named 'The Year of the Community Forests' by Governor Josh Green, M.D. But what makes a forest 'community' isn't just who plants it. It's who carries its story.
Kaniaupio-Crozier put it this way: 'It's a humbling thing to touch ʻāina, to care for ʻāina in places like this. We know our kūpuna and ke akua, that he puts us in places for reasons, not to just pass through, but to make that ʻāina momona.'
That's what this work is really about: restoring the ʻāina (land), protecting the wai (water) and remembering that kānaka (people) and place are part of the same system. When you take care of one, you take care of both.
Learn more about DLNR programs and how to get involved in forest restoration click .
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You don't need a degree or experience to be kuleana. All you need is a willingness to mālama ʻāina.
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