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The Kalaeloa Unit of the Pearl Harbor National Wildlife Refuge is a modern-day kīpuka (variation or change of form, such as an area of land surrounded by lava) located between the Kalaeloa Airport runway and Campbell Industrial Park—the largest industrial park in Hawai‘i. It was established in 2001 to protect the listed ‘Ewa hinahina (Achyranthes splendens) and ‘akoko (Euphorbia skottsbergii var. skottsbergii) and is also home to other native coastal plants and animals. The unit is 37 acres of dry coastal habitat with the largest remaining naio (Myoporum sandwicense) forest on O‘ahu.
This particular unit is unique because it is co-managed by two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service programs located in Honolulu—the National Wildlife Refuge System (Refuges) and Ecological Services (ES). Most refuges in the United States are managed under Refuges; however, the unique skillset of one individual—Lorena (affectionately known by most as Tap) Wada, from ES was essential to the success of this very special place.
Describe the ES/Refuges partnership and what makes this relationship work
The ES/Refuges relationship started at the request of the refuge manager in 2001. There was a specific need to enhance how ES and Refuges worked together. The Kalaeloa Unit was just established and Refuges needed help. They looped in Tap because of her interests, background, and experience.
“They (Refuges) were trying to do outreach and connect to the community; and at the same time, I was doing research with the state—the Division of Aquatic Resources on anchialine pools at Kalaeloa. So we worked jointly on restoring more anchialine pools based on the success of the first set that the state had worked on.”
Tap took that experience and implemented some new and creative strategies and that's how the collaboration started. “My thoughts were to be able to join that with what Refuges had wanted, which is more interaction and outreach with the community. So starting with schools and students and creating opportunities to teach people about the area as visitors and then as participants and restoration work, that's how that collaboration started.”
Kalaeloa is home to two critically endangered plants—the ‘Ewa hinahina and ‘akoko. It’s a very special refuge because it's designated specifically for plants, which is not the case anywhere else in the state. “When we were working on critical habitat designations for these plants, we realized that we didn’t even have enough habitat remaining to support their recovery. So ES felt like this is something we needed to be a part of,” Tap added. So together, two separate programs agreed to collaborate by defining goals and responsibilities, and both working towards conservation of this place for those plants.
Today, Tap still works closely with the Refuge manager, biologists from ES, Refuges, and Inventory and Monitoring (I&M), and even the Office of Communications when it comes to co-managing this refuge. “We are one Service—it’s a very good way to combine strengths and fill in gaps for each side, and Kalaeloa is the perfect place to do that. This collaboration works well in terms of what we each bring to the table to make it a successful project and unit.” There is a Hawaiian proverb that says ‘a‘ohe hana nui ke alu ‘ia, which means “no task is too big when done together.”
What are the benefits to co-stewardship
Tap was born and raised on O‘ahu, but she didn’t have connections to the west side of the island. In Hawai‘i, sometimes it’s about who you know that can determine your success or failure. If an individual or organization lacks a connection to a given community, it is difficult for the community to understand and trust any intentions and actions as genuine—even when the intention may be to help. Furthermore, a lot of communities already have a mistrust of the federal government. Aware of these sentiments shaped by the community’s lived history and experience, Tap treaded lightly, which made it difficult for her to get the ball rolling. “I actually did a presentation through the Hawai‘i Conservation Alliance and talked about the work we were doing out at Kalaeloa with anchialine pools, and part of the presentation focused on the things I don’t have the ability to do, and I basically asked for help. I wanted to reach the Native Hawaiian community, but I just needed help.”
Tap's humility coupled with her genuine desire to engage with the community caught the attention of Dr. Healani Chang from the University of Hawai‘i, who without hesitation, offered to help. Dr. Chang did a lot of research from a medical standpoint within the Native Hawaiian community on the west side, and she graciously offered to help Tap make connections within that community.
“Because of her, we were able to connect to a lot of different people out there on the west side that were willing to come to this area that nobody had heard about, and because of her, they were able to do that. Word of mouth started to go around about Kalaeloa, and that’s how I eventually met ‘Anakala Glen.”
‘Anakala (Uncle) Glen is a lineal descendant of Kalaeloa, and he participates in a much wider council that covers West O‘ahu and other places within the state. “He is our kahu and he provides us with recommendations and guidance. Kalaeloa is an area that the Service is responsible for stewarding and ‘Anakala Glen enriches our cultural understanding and connection to place that informs our efforts and how we work in partnership with the land and the community." He aliʻi ka ʻāina; he kauā ke kanaka, a Hawaiian proverb that resonates with Tap means, “the land is chief; people are its’ servants.” The land puts out a call and those meant to answer, will hear it.
Tap heard the call, so the next step was to figure out how to bring the community together. “I wanted to do it in a way that was respectful and welcoming and recognizing the host culture; Native Hawaiian culture. For me, that was most important because when we were starting this work in the early 2000s, there was a lot of talk over melding culture with science, when it’s synergistic; it’s not a melding together or changing. And that’s what co-stewardship is; there’s a relationship, and from that relationship spawns respect and love and long-term commitment.”
How did the community get involved
“I've been with the Service a very long time and I've seen it not work over and over and over again, but in this particular instance I think it was successful because more local people were involved in having a say in what they wanted the Refuge to be for the community; not the other way around. It was important to relate to people and listen to what their needs were and deliver.” This is an important part of building trust. A lot of times it’s easy to discount what the community is telling us they need because we think we know better as the “landowner,” but if we are not genuine in our efforts to work with the community, then what is the point? And that is what Tap does well; she listens, and she tries her hardest to find solutions to what the community says they want from us. She doesn’t go to the community and tell them what she thinks they need; she listens with an open heart and works toward their goals.
What is ka‘ananiau and how this guiding principle applied at Kalaeloa
Ka‘ananiau is the beauty of the management of time. It is the guiding principle at Kalaeloa, provided to us by ‘Anakala Glen. “When people come to the refuge, we ask them to be present, but also look back at what came 800 years before. What did our kūpuna (ancestors) know before and what did we learn about bringing it forward to today? And what do we want to bring forward, 800 years into the future? What do we want our mo‘opuna (descendants; posterity) to remember about the work we are doing today? Ka‘ananiau is thinking about what we want to bring forward and that's the beauty of the management of time. Everything we do today affects what will come 800 years from now. Everything that was provided to us, we need to really consider what we're going to do with that knowledge. So that 800 years from now, these things that we consider gifts, these things that hold value moves forward into the future. And in order to understand what that value is, we can't just know from today; we have to look 800 years back and see what did we know about the value of the things then, that we still have today.”
Ka‘ananiau is represented by learning stations at the refuge.
"Representing the past is the geology and geomorphology and fossil bones learning station. When the anchialine pools were being restored, fossilized bones of birds, fish, invertebrates, and plants were discovered. These fossils were estimated to be about 800 to 1200 years old. That tells us what this place used to be and what resources were available at the site back then. Today, Kalaeloa looks nothing like that; so the present is represented by all the native plants that have survived here, in this different environment from the past. The future is represented through the anchialine pools. Knowing the pools used to exist at Kalaeloa, but were not so in the present, we took that known value and restored them to living pools again. We can look at the anchialine pools to tell us what's available now—fresh water. What's happening between the ocean and the freshwater? We observe the effects of climate change climate change
Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale.
Learn more about climate change ; the sea level rise, the change in the condition of the freshwater that's coming down, and the condition of the ocean water, which helps us to consider what we will do in the future to continue to protect this area. When we look at the system as a whole and see what's still around and how they survived from 1,000 years ago, that is what we want to carry forward 800 more years into the future."
What we are working towards is emphasizing their importance today so that they are around for future generations. We highlight their connection to culture and emphasize that their loss, like the loss of many of our native species, would be the end of a part of our culture. Emphasizing the principle of ka‘ananiau resonates with all who visit the refuge because this community has already lost so much. The community wants to start to see more places like Kalaeloa get a chance to rebuild, so that the community itself can also rebuild from hundreds of years of loss.
What are some highlights of the work you’ve accomplished at Kalaeloa
“The biggest things to me are all my kids, all my students, all the people that I've introduced to Kalaeloa and watched as they for themselves find value in that place, their own relationship to it, their own commitments, their own involvement.”
“My biggest accomplishments are watching these high school students go, ‘Oh my goodness, this is awful. It's hot and I don't like it.’ And then within an hour, they've learned about what's really there. They've learned to look closer, to see things, to understand the connection to these plants, to the model, the cotton that looks like a weed, explaining to them about them importance of what an incredible plant this was to the national and global cotton industry.”
“And they see the little anchialine pool shrimp that aren’t even big enough to eat. But they have fun counting and measuring them. Watching them take pride in the place; watching them value these very tiny shrimp and the pools they live in that aren’t just holes in the ground anymore—that’s what’s going to change the world. Watching their excitement and passion grow is when I feel accomplished.”
What do you want to see happen in the future of Kalaeloa
“My dream for Kalaeloa is true co-stewardship. That means it’s long-lasting and it’s not just the Service managing it; but it belongs to the community. And at the heart of it is the respect and honor for the host culture that started it all. My dream is that everyone has an understanding of the host culture and incorporates it. I want to see continual growth where kids bring their families and then they tell their friends and they bring their families too. We have several families that started coming out because someone in their family visited and their excitement was so contagious, they convinced others to come out too and they fell in love with the place and helped us through the years. Of course, there's always change; students grow up and move on to other things. So we have to build new relationships, but co-stewardship is never ending and there's nothing that will stop it even if something else like a pandemic occurs. There will always be people who care. Kalaeloa will always be here and it is on a wonderful trajectory to restoration of a fully functioning restored dry coastal ecosystem; or when sea level rises it may become more of a shoreline community, and that's fine—that’s ka‘ananiau.”
The Kalaeloa unit would not be what it is today without Tap. Not only has she put in the work, but she has inspired many in the community to get involved and hana ka lima i lalo, or “put their hands to the earth.” She answered the call and lives up to her kuleana (responsibility) by listening to the needs of the community and finding innovative ways to honor traditional knowledge and western science. She coordinated the building of a traditional ahu (altar) as a way to provide a space for others to connect to the place, and she is empowering the next generation to grow and foster their own relationships with Kalaeloa so that true co-stewardship can continue.
