HUI mlama i KE ALA lili (huimau) is a native hawaiian-led organization rooted in the ahupuaa of kohollele and paauilo, located in the coastal region of hmkua hikina (east hmkua) on the island of hawaii

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Interior Business Center awarded a $1,000,000 Project Grant under the Native Hawaiian Climate Resilience Program (CFDA 15.098) to Hui Malama I Ke Ala Ulili (HUIMAU), a Native Hawaiian-led organization. The 4-year grant supports the "Hoonohopapa Kohollele" project, which aims to restore and steward 30 acres of regenerative agroforestry systems in the Kohollele ahupua'a (land division) in Hawai'i. Key activities include outplanting 600 breadfruit and 120 coconut trees, cultivating 750 native forest species, and facilitating 48 'aina-based workdays and 48 environmental observation sessions with 1,500 native Hawaiian participants. This comprehensive effort seeks to enhance food sovereignty, strengthen traditional ecological knowledge, and build climate change resilience within the native Hawaiian community in East Hāmākua.

The current state of our native hawaiian community in hmkua hikina has been shaped by the rise and fall of an extractive plantation economy over the past four generations which served to deplete INA abundance, displace intergenerational native hawaiian families, and dismember generationally-established systems of sustenance. As a result, hmkua hikina is a food desert today. Faced with the escalating impacts of climate change - decreased annual and average rainfall, increased drought periods and longer dry seasons, rising surface air temperature, reduced streamflow - our efforts to hnai knaka (feed our community) and strengthen our native food systems, while creating economic opportunities for native hawaiians of this place, have become increasingly imperative to our communitys ability to remain resilient while navigating the effects of climate change.hoonohopapa kohollele is an ahupuaa-scale INA stewardship and community-based economic development project that seeks to restore a thriving, resilient, intergenerational ahupuaa-based community in kohollele, hmkua, hawaii. We are seeking funding through the kiakahi award category with an emphasis on addressing the programs priorities for coping response, adaptation, and transformation. Having recently secured a long-term 75-year lease from the county of hawaii for 1,000-acres in kohollele adjacent to the kamehameha schools owned-lands (390-acres) that huimau has stewarded for the past decade, huimau will establish a contiguous corridor of approximately 1,390-acres of native hawaiian community stewarded INA in kohollele - spanning from the shoreline to the wet rainforest zone, along a 2,400 FT. Elevation gradient - through this multi-generational project. The proposed project presents unique opportunities for collaboration between government (hawaii county), private landowner (kamehameha schools), and our native hawaiian organization (NHO) to leverage individual investments and mana for greater collective impacts to advance an ahupuaa-based sustainable community restoration model for hmkua and hawaii. For the purposes of this grant, the goal of hoonohopapa kohollele is to restore and steward a total of 30-acres of regenerative maha ULU and ULU NIU agroforestry by outplanting 600 ULU trees, 120 NIU trees, 750 native forest species, with 1,500 native hawaiian participants by facilitating 48 INA-based workdays, conducting 48 kilo INA observations and 8 soil monitoring sessions over 4-years in kpuka kaumaikaohu (20-acres) and kpuka kula (10-acres). As a result, the following outcomes support huimaus vision of noho papa hmkua - to live and thrive in hmkua for generations - and the program goal of kapapahuliau: outcome 1: establish 20-acres of regenerative IWI agroforestry systems in kpuka kaumaikaohu and 10-acres of regenerative IWI agroforestry systems in kpuka kula with our native hawaiian community through INA-based workdays to support food sovereignty and climate change resiliency outcome 2: perpetuate IWI agricultural, data science, and ceremonial practices rooted in the IKE kupuna (ancestral knowledge) of our ahupuaa, including pkukui (kukui composting), kpulu (mulching), maha ULU (breadfruit groves), ULU NIU (coconut groves), kilo INA (environmental observation), AHA (ceremony), and moolelo (storytelling) to navigate the effects of climate change in ways that maintain and promote the ingenuity, integrity, and identity of the native hawaiian people outcome 3: utilize IWI and other data sciences, monitoring, and evaluation systems (kilo INA and soil monitoring) to maintain and enhance our native hawaiian communitys capacity to cope, adapt, and transform with climate change impacts.