Spirit of Aloha | Features | November/December 2002

WAIPA: A Living Ahupua'a
By Priscilla Perez Billig

Stretching from the mountaintop to the ocean, an ahupua'a contained all the resources needed for life in ancient Hawai'i; today, one of the few complete ahupua'a left in the Islands is being restored into a "working" community

Mai uka a i kai, "from the mountains to the sea," describes the setting of a lush and fertile land called Waipa, on the North Shore of Kaua'i. Stretching from the summit of Mamalahoa, rising 3,745 feet above the sea, to the nearshore waters of Hanalei Bay, Waipa is very likely among the first Hawai'i lands settled by ancient Polynesian voyagers.

These early Hawaiians applied a "resources management" approach within a social structure that ensured their survival in a new, natural paradise of raw elements. Managing an area, usually from the mountaintops to the nearshore waters, they lived in a self-sufficient watershed they called ahupua'a. They viewed the natural environment as an integrated system and nurtured it holistically, while using it to feed, heal, clothe, house, transport and teach the community.

Working with the rhythms of nature and the bounty of the ahupua'a, Hawaiians regulated their use of its natural resources and practiced forms of conservation that would sustain these resources for future use. Hawaiians would occupy Waipa in this manner for almost two millennia.

Today, as Native Hawaiians struggle to maintain their cultural identity and traditional bonds to the land, a group of deep-rooted Kaua'i families is quietly bringing new life to Waipa. They are restoring the ahupua'a in a way that maintains key elements of a traditional Hawaiian lifestyle and provides their community with renewed ties to the land and a measure of economic self-sufficiency. "We're simply attempting to be good stewards of the land, as were our ancestors," says Stacy Sproat, executive director of Waipa Foundation.

Through a grass-roots effort that began 20 years ago, this Hawaiian community of residents-most are able to trace their Kaua'i roots back several generations-has created the Waipa Ahupua'a Learning Center, a "living" ahupua'a that promotes traditional Hawaiian stewardship practices.

"Part of the success of what they've created here is that they build community," says Neil Hannahs, director of land assets for landowner Kamehameha Schools. A measure of credit goes to the support and partnership of many agencies, including Kamehameha Schools, the University of Hawai'i Sea Grant College Program, Queen Lili'uokalani Children's Center, Alu Like, Hanalei River Hui, Hawai'i Community Foundation, and private donors and volunteers.

At Waipa, volunteers roll up their sleeves and learn the value of caring for the land while actually working it. Teens and young adults are clearing out invasive plant species that choke out native ones, restoring lo'i kalo (taro pond fields), replanting the beach dunes with naupaka and pohinahina, and propagating and replanting native and Polynesian-introduced plants. Future plans include restoring and restocking fishponds with 'ama'ama, awa, aholehole and moi.

Meanwhile, kupuna (elders) are teaching the younger children and participating in community service activities.

Volunteers tend almost 5 acres in the cultivation of kalo (taro) and plan 15 more. A few acres are devoted to a nursery and gardens of vegetables, herbs and tropical flowers. And more than 50 acres are pastureland for cattle and horses. Still, the farmers of Waipa may be best known for their poi.

The community at Waipa provides about 300 pounds of poi a week for Kaua'i's Hawaiian 'ohana (family). "Families and volunteers come together weekly to continue to practice their cultural traditions through the making of poi in the style of 70 or 80 years ago," Sproat says. On "poi-making Thursdays," one can sense this community's ancient connection to kalo and the land at Waipa.

A broad alluvial plain with abundant water sources, Waipa flatlands have always been ideal for growing kalo. Ancient Hawaiians tapped into Waipa Stream and the natural springs at the base of the bordering ridges, and dug major 'auwai to deliver water to their kalo pond fields.

Wooded ridges and rolling plains offered native forests dominated by koai'a, 'ohi'a, groves of 'iliahi (sandalwood), kou, milo, lau hala, loulu palm, wauke, hau, maile and mokihana, as well as la'au, or medicinal plants. Here, necessities of everyday life-subsistence, health, craft and ceremony-were used and conserved.

Along the Waipa Stream, which empties into Hanalei Bay, and behind sand dunes along the coast, Hawaiians built fishponds. Not far from the sea, they constructed a small heiau (shrine). Farther into the ahupua'a, also along Waipa Stream, they built a larger heiau to the god Kane, the supreme god of ancient Hawai'i.

Under such steadfast adherence to the traditional ways, the ahupua'a of Waipa flourished.

Then, in 1848, the kingdom underwent a major land division, called the Great Mahele. Kamehameha III, son of Kamehameha the Great, granted Waipa to Princess Ruth Ke'elikolani, another Kamehameha descendant; upon her death, the land passed to Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, whose eventual legacy was Kamehameha Schools. Until the late 1800s, the pasturelands of Waipa were farmed predominately in kalo and 'uala (sweet potato) by Native Hawaiians. Then Chinese and Japanese rice farmers took over the area. In the early 1900s, cattle ranchers moved in and their herds devastated the land and nearly obliterated all archaeological remains.

In the 1960s, small isolated communities scattered throughout the North Shore's Halele'a district, including Kalihiwai, Hanalei, Wai'oli and Waipa Ahupua'a, were still carrying on a subsistence lifestyle based on farming, hunting and fishing.

Then, in the late 1970s, Waipa, one of the few unobstructed and complete ahupua'a in all Hawai'i, was targeted for development into leasehold "gentlemen" agricultural farm lots. The farmers and fishermen of Halele'a, wanting a voice in the Hawaiian land development process and seeking to hold on to an area long used by the Hawaiian community for gathering and hunting, sought to organize themselves and petition Kamehameha Schools for their own lease. Their goal was to keep Waipa as a resource for community use and management.

Early on, the group received help from Hawaiian activist and community organizer LaFrance Kapaka in developing a clear sense of direction and a more unified effort. Soon, two firemen with ties to the land emerged as the natural leaders of the group. David Kawika Sproat, currently the fire chief for Kaua'i county, is a graduate of Kamehameha Schools, holds a degree in agriculture from the University of Hawai'i, and helped maintain a family farming and fishing business. Samson Mahuiki, a Hanalei fireman and a graduate of Kamehameha Schools, grew up living off the land, cultivating kalo with his father in Ha'ena, fishing on the reefs and raising livestock. Sproat and Mahuiki, as well as their families, became the driving forces behind the struggle to make the vision for Waipa a reality. Together they organized the Hawaiian Farmers of Hanalei in 1982.

In 1986, after four years of organizing, planning, petitioning and negotiating with Kamehameha Schools, the Hawaiian Farmers of Hanalei secured a lease for the entire 1,400-acre ahupua'a for 10 years, with an extension to 25 years.

"The Hawaiian Farmers of Hanalei were really visionary at the time," Kamehameha Schools' Hannahs says about the group's early attempts to save Waipa from commercial development. "They were seeking a lease when the practices of the past dominated. Now we're looking at them not as a lessee, but as a partner."

In 1992, Stacy Sproat, who as a teenager had witnessed her father David's efforts at Waipa, returned to Kaua'i with a degree in business from the University of Southern California to find the ruins left by Hurricane 'Iniki. She was instrumental in helping develop a Land Use Masterplan in 1994 and then forming the Waipa Foundation, a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Cheryl Alapai, daughter of Samson Mahuiki, also returned home to help her father as he began to open up the lo'i kalo, first with his bare hands, then later with a tractor and other equipment.

As these families struggled, more and more volunteers from the community came to help.

By 1999, the Waipa Foundation began to manage the ahupua'a's cultural, educational, stewardship, community-based economic development and other land-based activities. Today, the foundation and the Hawaiian Farmers of Hanalei jointly manage the operation from the project's headquarters inside two plantation-style buildings located across the highway from Hanalei Bay and about one mile from Hanalei town.

Kamehameha Schools helps fund many of the educational programs at Waipa. "We want to create community partnerships, where we can have children learning directly from the land," Hannahs explains. "There is a movement in educational circles, an understanding that the environment can be an integrated context for learning."

For students on field trips to the Waipa Ahupua'a Learning Center, Hanalei Bay provides a close-up look at diverse coral reef-building plants and animals, and the communities that depend on them for survival. It is here that Sea Grant biologist Adam Asquith introduces students to marine science basics, using the resources in and around Hanalei Bay as a living laboratory.

"We're building an ahupua'a system and at the same time we're building a community," Asquith says. "We have to learn what the resources are, then we have to learn to use them in a sustainable manner that benefits everybody."

Guided hikes into the valley help students explore geological formations that make up the ahupua'a, and teach how its physical features determine the life cycles of its flora and fauna-an opportunity to view the entire ecosystem. To learn about the hydrologic cycle and stream ecology, students examine water and its importance to life in the ahupua'a. They explore water sources and follow their courses from ground water to springs and flowing streams.

Volunteers help clear the ahupua'a of invasive plants, such as guava and Fijian pili grass, replanting native species by collecting seed, and developing seed banks and propagating them in nurseries. There's also organic gardening and native plant propagation, an effort headed by nursery and garden manager and lead volunteer April Couture.

"It's really an incredibly exciting vision," Couture declares. "It's going to take a lot of hard work and a lot of years to realize it."

This summer, among the 40-plus students working in the ahupua'a, university freshmen in Sea Grant's Hawaiian Internship Program mapped cultural and natural resources, tested water quality and surveyed native fish counts in Waipa Stream. They labored beside the Department of Land and Natural Resources' Youth Conservation Corps to manually clear out an obstructed 'auwai leading off Waipa Stream and down into the lo'i. The 'auwai had not flowed since 1920.

"This land is our children's legacy and that was our original intention," says David Sproat. "We wanted to create educational opportunities. Education is not only in the classroom. There are a lot of possibilities here."

Priscilla Perez Billig has written several feature stories for SPIRIT OF ALOHA, including "Medicines from the Sea," which ran in the October 1998 issue.

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