2024 Gathering of CBES Grantees

Philanthropy alone is not enough. Permanent preservation of our environment requires collaboration between community, science and academia, and government.

Twenty-six Kosasa Foundation Community-Based Environmental Sustainability grantees and a few funders spent a day together sharing, listening and learning.

We all came away ready to work together to reclaim our environment.

We ended our day together

with hope and a list of actions

that will propel us forward:

Focus on building relationships, diversified sources of funding and succession planning.

Make what we are doing translatable, and share what we do.

Trust others, pursue pilina, show up.

Let experts be experts.

Be the partner you wish you had.

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Featured Grantees

Aloha ʻĀina Program

MISSION: We create parks and protect land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come. In Hawaiʻi, our vision is that residents are thriving and healthy, and meaningfully connected to the land, each other, and a living Hawaiian culture. To achieve this goal, we work to preserve Hawaiʻi’s trails and parks where people have access to nature and healthy outdoor spaces, watershed and native forests that sustain Hawaiʻi’s fresh drinking water, farm and ranch lands to grow food, and lands that nurture Hawaiian culture and traditional resources.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE: protecting lands important to Hawaiian culture to restore both land and its control and management to Native Hawaiians, improving access to land where cultural practices continue and thrive, and protect wahi pana.

STRATEGIES & PRACTICE: Work hand-in-hand with communities across three Hawaiʻi programs that allow us focus our work in areas where parks and public lands are needed most.

A WIN: 9 years in the making, a quarter-acre of land was acquired for Waipā Foundation to access Halulu Fishpond, a loko puʻuone (sand dune fishpond) that connects Waiʻoli stream and estuary and provides habitat for pua to thrive.

EMERGING WORK: [1] Advocate for government agencies to partner with communities to create hybrid models of land ownership and community co- management. [2] Addressing the conflict and generational trauma triggered by landprotection. [3] Explore strategic land protection partnerships with large landowners. [4] Engage in more complex, holistic storytelling about how conservation/land protection is not anti-development.

ROADBLOCK: [1] Government, bureaucracies, funding programs not supporting or putting up barriers to community ownership/stewardship. [2] Landowners who see land only as a commodity. [3] High cost of real estate in Hawaiʻi.

Keauʻohana Native Rainforest

MISSION: Preserve Hawaiʻi’s unique cultural and biological resources through environmental restoration and education.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE: Hawaiʻi’s native plant communities face great pressure from invasive species and loss of habitat. Protecting the few remaining native forests is crucial to preserve Hawaiʻi’s unique cultural and biological resources.

STRATEGIES & PRACTICE: A HERʻs primary focus is restoration of Keauʻohana State Forest Reserve, the largest and most intact native lowland rainforest remaining in the State of Hawaiʻi. It is located in the Puna District of Hawaiʻi Island. Restoration methods include removal and composting of invasive plants; using compost to build soil on the forest floor; and supporting native species in the forest interior. Planting native species is also key to restoration. HER operates a native plant nursery to supply seedlings for out-planting. It also uses Keauʻohana as a living classroom to engage students and community groups to learn about, care for, and develop a deeper connection to native lowland rainforests.

HER has expanded its native forest restoration efforts in Puna to include the Halepuaʻa Forest Reserve and Waiʻele lands.

Hui Mālama i ke Ala ʻŪlili

Hoʻonopapa Koholālele

MISSION: Re-establish the systems that sustain our community through place-based educational initiatives and ‘āina-centered practices that cultivate abundance, regenerate responsibilities, and promote collective health and well-being

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE: Hoʻonohopapa Koholālele is an ahupuaʻa-scale project (1,390 acres) that seeks to address current and future needs of our rural, frontline community to restore ecosystem health, increase food security and climate change resiliency, and promote responsible Native Hawaiian community-led economic development.

STRATEGIES & PRACTICE: Restore and steward an additional 20-acres of regenerative ʻulu agroforestry in Ka Maha ʻUlu o Koholālele by clearing invasive species and out-planting 500 ʻulu and 1,500 place-appropriate native plant species.

A WIN: The clearing of 20 acres of Eucalyptus and ironwood stands within the wao maʻukele region of Koholālele to make way for the expansion of our Maha ʻUlu o Koholālele. This puts us in the fencing and planting phases that will contribute to food sovereignty, carbon sequestration, and protection of native flora and faunca.

EMERGING WORK: Planning work to provide housing for ʻohana and hoa hana to begin living on ʻāina once again. What does living on ʻāina look and feel like? How does this direction reinforce Nohopapa Koholālele?

ROADBLOCK: Speed bumps include [1] finding local companies and workers to reinforce value of living and working in oneʻs community; [2] finding affordable and effective machinery to handle the work; and [3] learning and growing our ahupuaʻa management practice.