Navigating the Climate Crisis Series: Looking to the Past for Hawaiʻi’s Food Secure Future
An Interview with Dr. Natalie Kurashima
by Sharde Mersberg Freitas, Chapter Organizer | Reading time: 13 minutes
In continuation of the unpacking climate crisis series, and in the season of Lonoikamakahiki, we often use this time to reflect on the year. This installment focuses on Hawaiʻi’s historical sustainable food production, and potential future capacity to sustainably produce food locally to support Hawaiʻi’s population. Although there is a level of uncertainty in terms of what the future holds, especially in light of the action needed to be done to meet policy goals as discussed in the prior installment of this series with Dr. Chip Fletcher, there is some certainty provided by looking to the past and how that can inform our future. For Hawaiʻi, this involves looking to Hawaiʻi’s ʻike kūpuna, or ancestral knowledge, as it may help us to return to a more sustainable Hawaiʻi. To learn more about this reality as we prepare for a future impacted by the effects of climate destabilization, we had the privilege of chatting with Dr. Natalie Kurashima.
Dr. Kurashima is Kanaka ʻŌiwi, born and raised in Waipiʻo, Oʻahu, and currently lives with her ʻohana in Halekiʻi, South Kona on Hawaiʻi Island. Dr. Kurashima is an Integrated Resources Manager of Kamehameha Schools’ Natural and Cultural Ecosystems Division.
As the ʻŌlelo Noʻeau says, “i ka wā ma mua, i ka wā ma hope” (to plan for the future, we must look to the past). In that same spirit, we started our conversation with Dr. Kurashima by asking what can we learn from ʻike kūpuna (ancestral knowledge) to address Hawaiʻi’s sustainability issues, and how can this help us create a future Hawaiʻi that’s more sustainable? Here is her response:
“At one level, I think we can learn how food was produced, and we can learn the ways that resources were managed traditionally. At a larger level, we can learn from the governance systems that were in place then, inclusive of kapu and kānāwai. Traditionally, Hawaiʻi’s resource management systems were embedded with its religious system. Then, at probably the greatest level, we can understand the Kānaka ʻŌiwi worldview: the understanding that we are genealogically connected to our surroundings, not just the plants and animals, but the quote unquote inanimate, the pōhaku, the soil, the transpiration that goes into the atmosphere. It’s the understanding that we're genealogically connected to all those phenomena and that familial relationship really drives how we're going to interact, how we're going to mālama, how we're going to choose to harvest, and participate in that reciprocity. So I feel there are all these different levels of ʻike kūpuna that we can look to to address our sustainability issues. And some of them are really transformational.”
Dr. Kurashima then expanded on these concepts, sharing about some of her research. “Currently, Hawaiʻi imports the vast majority of our food. Yet, we know our traditional agricultural systems produced food sustainably for hundreds of generations, almost a thousand years in this same place. How do we learn from our traditional systems to address our current food systems needs?”
To better understand how we might arrive at answers to these questions, Dr. Kurashima described research done with colleagues published in 2019. They modeled three main traditional agricultural systems in Hawaiʻi—loʻi, dryland or rain-fed systems, and agroforestry—and under current climate and three future climate change scenarios. She shared,
“...what we found was that these systems were extremely productive. The traditional agricultural lands actually only covered about 6% of Hawaiʻi’s land, or 250,000 acres. But, we calculated that these systems could have produced about 1 million, a little over 1 million metric tons of food per year. When you think about how much people that could feed, based on a 3,000 calorie a day diet, we estimate that these systems could have fed over a million people per year. That amount of food being produced is actually pretty comparable to what Hawaiʻi is consuming today. And it's just one line of evidence that goes against the whole narrative that Hawaiʻi could never feed itself. Hawaiʻi has fed itself at similar populations and we can again today. The ʻāina has the potential to provide us that.
Then we asked, what are the constraints? If we were to restore these systems today, how much of this land is developed? Because we are one of the most developed Pacific Islands. We found that only about 12% of these lands that have the potential for traditional agriculture are currently developed. And most of the former traditional agricultural land is currently zoned agriculture, meaning that you could do restoration of these systems without any zonal constraints. And then, when we look at the climate change analysis, we do find that there is some reduction in the potential production. Up to 20% would be reduced by the driest climate scenario. But, we still could produce a lot of food. The models indicate that under climate change, some of the potential traditional agricultural lands will shift more mauka into the conservation zone. And it's usually conservation lands that are low priority for resource managers because they're lower elevation and invaded with weed species. The models suggest that restoration of traditional agricultural systems like agroforestry in these invaded areas that are zoned conservation could be a really good tool, since these systems 1) integrate native species, 2) can serve to bring additional financial or labor investment into these areas, 3) grow food in a changing climate, and 4) are coupled to outcomes of cultural and community connection...”.
In fact, there are many things that we can learn from Hawaiʻi’s sustainable food production practices of the past. It is the ʻike kūpuna itself that is quite astonishing! Dr. Kurashima’s passion for a more sustainable future was palpable, inspiring, and infectious as she shared more about the reasons as to why Indigenous agriculture is important as “demonstrated systems of resilience.”
“And that's because they're heterogeneous at multiple scales. So that means at the farm scale, you would have all different kind of crops. You're not just going to have one crop. You're going have all different kinds of crops and even different varieties of one species. Like kalo, for example. And so, if a pest came through, all your crops wouldn't be gone. On the other hand, if you have a single crop, and all your crops die due to a pest for example, you would have an empty field. And then if you had a storm come through, you could have lots of erosion. But if you have all different kind of crops mixed with trees, which is agroforestry--a mix of trees or shrubs with crops and usually there are ground covers—then, inherently there is both temporal and spatial soil conservation. Then at the larger landscape scale, indigenous agricultural systems often protect forest ecosystems too. So, if you looked across the landscape there would be lots of forest patches. At the landscape scale, conservation of forested areas both mauka and throughout your agricultural areas will create and conserve soil, while also increasing water recharge. When you maintain and integrate trees in an agroforestry system, there is often increased nutrient cycling because you have trees pulling up nutrients from deeper in the soil, turning into wood and leaves and falling back down into the farm as leaf litter or incorporated back through pruning or chipping. This type of integrated system is just so much better for our soil in many ways. Just one example of an indigenous agricultural cultivation method, producing food while also generating many other ecosystem services.”
Our interview with Dr. Kurashima was nothing short of amazing, and it was especially special when she spoke of how ʻāina teaches us:
“...yes, ʻāina teaches you, that's basically what these multi-strata, we call it ‘agroforestry’ now, but basically they saw how a forest functions, they saw the way a forest thrives naturally. How do we manage or recreate that ecosystem, but produce food at the same time? In a forest there are multiple stories of plants from ground covers up to the biggest trees. There are also all of these cycles happening, nutrient cycling, water cycling. I think our kūpuna learned how to farm, how to create innovative agricultural systems for Hawaiʻi through understanding our native ecosystems....”.
As a more specific example, also based on Dr. Kurashima’s experience, we asked her to share more specifically about how Kaʻūpūlehu has been working to restore fisheries after decades of over exploitation and other impacts as their response might provide a model for how we respond to climate change. Before diving into the specifics of what Kaʻūpūlehu has been doing to restore fishers, Dr. Kurashima shared about the unique values that Kaʻūpūlehu upholds as a community with kuleana not only as one’s right, but also one’s responsibility. Further, it is
“the community is saying, ‘it is our right to mālama. It is not anybody's right to take, it is our right as the community of this place to mālama and that should supersede everybody's right to take.’ And working with this community made me realize that this is reciprocity in action. How could you come from another place, and fish these waters? What are you doing to take care of it? When's the last time you came and fed these waters, fed the people at this place, did something to increase fish in this area. Those are the questions that we all should be asking ourselves before we harvest. To me, that's what this is all about...it's about a community of lineal descendants and people that are closest to these resources, knowing these resources deeply, and choosing to put a moratorium on take because they're choosing to mālama.”
In thinking about what others might learn from Kaʻūpūlehu, Dr. Kurashima shared,
“So one thing that Auntie Lei Keakealani Lightner, who is a lineal descendent of Kaʻūpūlehu, says is ‘I'm not trying to tell anybody else outside of Kaʻūpūlehu what to do, because my kuleana is to Kaʻūpūlehu. I'm going to know as much as I can about my place to make decisions about this place today.’ For me, this concept she emphasizes the importance of localized co-governance in resource management. There are those in our communities that have deep generational knowledge of place along with specific kuleana to take care of their place. What are the ways can we decentralize resource management today?”
While we may look to certain communities as models, it is also quite empowering and a great reminder for each community to exercise their own self-determination in crafting solutions that work best for their community.
Nevertheless, there is undeniably a lot to learn from Kaʻūpūlehu. And reflecting back to the last installment of unpacking the climate crisis series, that featured our interview with Dr. Chip Fletcher, Dr. Fletcher pointed to the importance of aloha. It may likely come as no surprise, but aloha came up again in our interview with Dr. Kurashima. In talking about Kaʻūpūlehu, Dr. Kurashima shared,
“...it's funny you bring up aloha because that is one of the key concepts that this community always talks about. The Kaʻūpūlehu Marine Life Advisory Committee (KMLAC) was created because of a legal intervention when these developments were happening. There were people on both sides of that legal intervention. Now they all work together on KMLAC to make this moratorium happen. And one of the things Auntie Hannah Kihalani Springer always says is that, there was always aloha kekahi i kekahi or mutual respect, that even though they were on opposing sides of the table, it was always with aloha. Even though there was disagreement, they never disrespected one another and they have all been able to work hand-in-hand to achieve greatness. They've achieved things that no other community in Hawaiʻi has. In the KMLAC, there are representatives of the developers. I represent the landowner. But I think at the end of the day, members see each other as people. They see each other as people who have aloha for the place.”
In addition to speaking to the importance and presence of aloha, meeting face-to-face was also shared as an important component to this coming together.
As we wrap up this installment of unpacking the climate crisis, Dr. Kurashima shared with us a call to action of sorts for the aliʻi institutions, and also some suggestions for what we can do as individuals:
“The aliʻi had the kuleana to ensure that there was perpetual stewardship of these resources for the makaʻāinana. The aliʻi function was to ensure that all water sources were sustained, that forests were protected at the landscape level so that people could farm, so that people could create and get food from loko iʻa and that the fisheries were abundant. And that was the aliʻi’s job. And now, that job lies on the public trusts and the Aliʻi trusts. It lies in our state system, it lies on DLNR [Department of Land and Natural Resources]. It lies on Kamehameha Schools as a large landowner, and we can learn about the responsibilities, and how aliʻi managed land to support a sustainable Hawaiʻi. Currently, our governance structures of managing resources are based upon continental systems, which doesn't work for an island. And we have an amazing indigenous system that was refined over hundreds of years, specifically for this place. We can definitely learn from that. …We can look at the framework of the aliʻi institution and how lands were managed at the landscape scale, but at the same time aliʻi enacted localized co-governance of resources in each ahupuaʻa, managed by an aliʻi of ahupuaʻa and a konohiki. At another level, the hoaʻāina [native tenants] were part of the management and the decision making of what happened at that ahupuaʻa as well. And we're seeing more of that happening now, with CBSFAs [Community-based Subsistence Fishing Areas] and communities really rising up to fight for co-governance of their resources. That's kind of what we're mirroring, you know, this isn't a new idea. This is what communities are trying to get back what they had, the power to manage their resources because they're the ones that know the most about these resources.”
And for Sierra Club members, as individuals, Dr. Kurashima shared the following charge:
“Something I really learned from Aunty Kekuhi Kealiikanakaoleohaililani: I would encourage everyone to know the name of their water source, that could be a rain, that could be a stream, that could be a spring. What is the real and true name of those places that give us all life? What is the name of your ahupuaʻa? What is the name of the ocean that feeds you? What is the name of the places that feed you? We are all a part of these places, we literally ingest those waters, and the food of our ʻāina, and that ‘āina becomes part of our being. And then I think it would be amazing if Sierra Club members could advocate for policies that supported increasing our indigenous food ways, our food system, and they can vote with their dollar by choosing to buy local, by knowing where our food comes from, and choosing products that support local and kānaka farmers and producers. They can be advocates for these co-governance movements so that we can have more localized ways of managing our resources that are based in the traditions of this place.”
Mahalo nui to Dr. Kurashima for your research, and taking the time to share with us for this month’s installment on Navigating the Climate Crisis series.