Root Cause Remedies - Season Launch: Wai
By Lauren Ballesteros-Watanabe | Reading time: 2 minutes
Wai, water, has been on all our minds lately, as we collectively continue to hold the Navy accountable to Oʻahu’s people. As dire as this situation is, we must remember that this very preventable disaster is just one of many threats facing our precious resources. Everything is connected and urbanization, militarization, consumerism, tourism, climate change (the list goes on), have changed our natural water systems and access to fresh water supplies. Take a moment to listen and learn about Hawaiʻi’s unique water cycle and its value as a cultural and natural resource.
Root Cause Remedies is a locally produced environmental justice podcast that highlights local issues and explores pathways to liberation through grassroots storytelling. Past seasons have covered topics such as the foundational context on environmental injustice and racism in Hawaiʻi, the connection between COVID-19, climate crises, and capitalism, energy justice and more. Each season hosts a mix of conversations with kāne and wāhine educators, environmental scientists, artists, cultural practitioners, farmers, lawyers and folks from the frontlines of issues.
This season, the podcast team is tackling wai with a few poignant voices from the frontlines carrying vast knowledge and perspectives. Now is a good time to ground ourselves in this vital resource that we literally can’t live without. This is just one example of many struggles to protect and defend water systems from foreign interests, militarism, and profit seeking landowners. In this season, we spoke with water protectors throughout our islands to capture the many place-based struggles, and sought to weave a thread of deep reverence for wai's resilience.
We are so grateful for platforms like this and hope you can listen to these enriching conversations with the local expertise of protectors on the ground of Hawaiʻi’s forefront issues!
Check out their first episode with guest host, Lala Nuss; a regenerative practitioner, local wāhine, and soulful storyteller interviewing Professor Noelani (Noe) Puniwai. In this conversation, Noe offers her wealth of knowledge and innovative approach using “pono science and storytelling” to build a meaningful familial relationship with our natural resources and move towards ʻāina momona.
“When we think of our ‘āina as our grandmother, then we are going to do everything we can to ensure she is healthy and safe and clean and it’s that relationship that’s going to save Hawaiʻi.” -Noelani Puniwai
Then move on to their latest episode with aloha ʻāina activist, architect, and scholar Sean Connelly—
“Militourism and water don’t work well together because freshwater is health. Freshwater is wealth. Freshwater is everything you need for ‘āina and the key to destabilizing ‘āina is to destabilize wai – Waikīkī is epicenter of this movement of the United States to essentially drain the people and land of Hawai’i of its water forever so that’s how I think of militourism.”
Ola i ka wai, water is life.