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BACKYARD KULEANA KEONE KEALOHA Aloha käkou, ‘o Keone Kealoha ko‘u inoa. I currently live and work on Kaua‘i with a non-profit, Mälama Kaua‘i, I helped found in 2006. The following is a brief history of how I came to be here, some of what I’ve learned, and where I see things going. I hope my experience can provide another facet to your worldview and a meaningful insight for your future choices. COMMUNITY ORGANIZING I was raised in California for the earliest portion of my life. At thirteen, I came to live on O‘ahu, where I attended Kamehameha through my high school years. It was there that I came to have a deeper connection with Hawaiian Culture—the history and stories, events and traditions. Pushing boundaries and sometimes getting into trouble, I was finding my place in the world and coming to understand myself as a youth and as a kanaka. After traveling and living abroad for some time, I returned to the islands in 2005 to raise my children. We landed on Kaua‘i in Kïlauea, a small sugarcane town on the northern coast of the island. Multigenerational and ethnically diverse , Kïlauea was reminiscent of my earlier home in Kahuku on the North Shore of O‘ahu. The roads were single lane, not much going on past 6:00 p.m., and everybody knew everybody’s business. This made for some drama, but it also made for a strong community. When big things happened, people came out, together, and could put their differences aside for the good of the town. I was inspired to be a part of such a place and to assume my kuleana as a town resident. I started by volunteering on the neighborhood board, one of the oldest and most well-respected boards on the island. This position helped me make connections and eventually led to my helping found a communityfocused non-profit called Mälama Kaua‘i. My intention was the same: support the community and the ‘äina; respect culture and history; leave things better than you found them. Mälama Kaua‘i was a vehicle to make a difference. We organized meaningful gatherings , educated ourselves, and collectively had a more unified voice—one that 208 KAUA‘I FUTURES said there were other ways of doing things, ways that put the best interest of our community first. Our approach has focused on sustainability through local culture, and we developed many programs and partnerships to realize that, including: • Hawai‘i’s first Green Map, highlighting green businesses and sustainability -oriented non-profits for island visitors and residents alike • The Kaua‘i Green Business Program, in which locally owned companies agree to adhere to responsible baselines in energy usage, waste practices , and procurement options • Cultivate, a 100 percent-local food distribution service that helped expand access to local healthy food, increase income and markets for producers , and provide more options to grocers, restaurants, and hotels • The Kaua‘i School Garden Network, which has installed or revamped gardens at many of Kaua‘i’s pre-K–12 schools • The Kalihiwai Community Garden, forty-two individual plots organically planted and maintained by local residents • The Kalihiwai Permaculture Food Forest, a two-acre living library of propagation material with over a hundred species of climatized staple fruit and food trees purposefully in-planted with nutrient-rich companion plants, with the goal of localizing as much amendment material as possible • The Eco-Roundtable, a quarterly meet-up of Kaua‘i-based environmental and sustainability organizations, providing a forum for relationship -building, updates on each other’s work, and outreach to the public on important issues and ways to impact change Our members also took a stand on local issues, sometimes as an organization and sometimes as individuals. In nearly all of these cases, we found the crux of the issue to be the duel between corporations and the community—profits versus people. For instance, at Naue, an ancient cemetery was paved over by a housing developer when the notorious SHPD, or State Historic Preservation Division , failed in dynamic fashion. We stood against the Superferry, when public funds were being used to test an ocean transportation system for a multibillion dollar military contract concerning a Joint High Speed Vehicle (JHSV). More recently, we opposed the Public Lands Development Corporation (PLDC), a tool that would have increased the control and influence of private interests over Hawai‘i’s state-managed lands. [18.117...

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