Restoring Indigenous aquaculture heals both ecosystems and communities in Hawai‘i
For generations, native Hawaiians have understood that their aquaculture systems, fishponds known as loko i‘a, serve as nurseries that seed fish populations in surrounding waters. For the first time, a team of scientists from the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) have modeled this feat of Indigenous science in a study.
“We are using science to translate ‘ike kupuna, or Indigenous knowledge, into policy,” said study co-author Kawika Winter, an ecologist at HIMB and He‘eia National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR).
“The value of this paper is that it’s one of the first, if not the first, to really show that there are ways to do aquaculture in ways that benefit the system around it.”
In partnership with He‘eia NERR and Paepae o He‘eia, a nonprofit organization dedicated to stewarding the He‘eia loko i‘a, an ancient Hawaiian fishpond enclosing 36 hectares (88 acres) of brackish water, the team simulated different restoration scenarios in Kāne‘ohe Bay on O‘ahu Island based on a simplified food web. The study found that restoring more of the bay into fully functional loko iʻa would grow fish populations not just within the ponds, but across the bay.
“Aquaculture has a really bad reputation for basically destroying areas around it, but those are commercial approaches to aquaculture that aren’t holistic in their thinking or values-based like Indigenous management,” Winter said. “Rather than ensuring the health of the system, commercial aquaculture is concerned with maximizing profits.”
Winter attributed the success of the loko i’a design to Indigenous thought processes: “Indigenous thinking is operating within the opportunities and constraints of this system and figuring out a way to make things abundant within that context, sometimes even increasing abundance beyond natural levels.
Restoring ecosystems and relationships
Since co-founding Paepae o He‘eia in 2001, study co-author Hi‘ilei Kawelo, a sixth-generation Hawaiian from Kāne‘ohe Bay, has witnessed thousands of volunteers transform the He‘eia loko i‘a.
With the ongoing restoration, Paepae o He‘eia has seen both the aquatic environment and participants’ well-being improve with increased access to traditional foods, strengthening their relationship to place, and fortifying their family and community relationships. “For me and for a lot of our employees, this is one of our outlets, if not our primary outlet for exercising aloha ‘āina [love of the land],” Kawelo said.
“‘Āina is so important, because it is a term for a system that has the nature and its people in an inseparable reciprocal relationship,” Winter said. “The concept is core to this work because it’s about getting back into a way of thinking where there is no separation between the lands, the waters and us.”
While the overarching goal of Paepae o He‘eia and other fishponds is to revitalize Hawai‘i’s extensive Indigenous aquaculture system, Kotubetey said he knows the work may take generations.
For generations, native Hawaiians have understood that their aquaculture systems, fishponds known as loko i‘a, serve as nurseries that seed
