Indigenous (re)envisioning and restoration of Anahola seascapes

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Dr. Patricia Fifita

By Colin Bowyer, Communications Manager - February 6, 2025

In summer 2023, a friend of Patricia Fifita’s came to her with a stunning proposal: help restore 432 acres of Anahola coastline that lies within the moku (region) of Koʻolau along the northeast coast of Kauaʻi. With support from the Lenfest Ocean Program, Fifita, an assistant professor of ethnic studies, now co-leads a team of scholars, researchers, and community liaisons to develop an restoration plan centering on Kānaka Oiwi self-determination, histories, ecological health, and healing.

“For over 200 years, there’s been a dispossession of ancestral homelands on Kauaʻi, as well as a dismantling of the Indigenous system of managing and protecting land and coastal resources,” explained Fifita. “As Indigenous Hawaiians regain access to land and sea spaces, there is a need for Indigenous-driven efforts to sustainably re-engage and re-incorporate Indigenous knowledge systems, practices, and ancestral connections to place in meaningful and equitable ways.”

In February 2022, Jeremie Makepa, Fifita’s friend, Native Hawaiian, and resident of the Anahola Hawaiian Homestead community, was awarded a Rite-of-Entry permit to oversee the long-term utilization and stewardship of the coastline. The acreage is currently owned by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, an agency overseen by the U.S. State Department that's tasked with returning Hawaiian homestead lands to Native Hawaiians. 

Makepa, who’s also a fire captain for Kauaʻi County, established the ʻĀina Alliance. Through the nonprofit, Makepa was able to remove thousands of pounds of trash and abandoned cars, as well as clear and maintain the land to mitigate wildfires, a growing threat on the islands. Makepa later invited Fifita and Emmalani Makepa, a community liaison for ʻĀina Alliance, a local nonprofit, to collaborate on developing a makai (ocean) restoration and management plan for the site.

Together, through a series of “kūpuna-led” participatory talk-story sessions, Fifita, Makepa, as well as Dr. Lori Cramer, professor of sociology, and Dr. Lelemia Irvine, a physics professor at the University of Hawaiʻi-West Oahu, will develop a community-led pathway towards the coastlines' restoration. Fifita will also be partnering with researchers at the Center for Oral History at the University of Hawaiʻi-Mānoa to help preserve the data and oral histories gathered from Anahola residents. 

“What we’re hoping to record is traditional and customary management responsibilities and practices of the coastline,” explained Fifita. “It’s so important to capture and preserve the memories of those who once lived and continue to carry knowledge and memories of the Anahola coastal areas. We are interested in understanding what used to go on there.” 

Additionally, the research team will be working with Kūkulu Kumuhana O Anahola (KKOA), a local nonprofit that blends traditional and modern culture to promote sustainability. Recorded Indigenous knowledge will help inform future KKOA projects to more sustainably shape communities along the coastline. 

A significant component of the project is also to develop a data sovereignty statement to outline for future researchers of Anahola how data from Indigenous residents can be used and shared. Helping Fifita with data collection and transcription, as well as crafting the data sovereignty statement are two undergraduate research assistants Heavenly "Naia" Afo and Tihani Mitchell, both students in the College of Liberal Arts.

“When embarking on a project of collecting ‘data,’ which can include anything from ancestral knowledge, cultural practices, social information, and more, it is critical to allow Indigenous communities to have authority over their own stories, as well as define a code of ethics and responsibilities for researchers as to how they can use this valued information.” 

Fifita, Cramer, along with the two undergraduate research assistants, recently presented some of their initial findings as part of a Lenfest Ocean Program webinar series. 

“Jeremie and the research team have received an outpouring of support from Anahola residents for this ongoing project” said Fifita. “The community-focused planning work myself and my colleagues are managing is only a small part to help inform the long-term restoration work for the entire Anahola ahupuaʻa.”