Applying Tradition to the Contemporary Resource Management Process

Abstract

Despite political and popular resistance to external sources of change throughout its post-contact history, the Hawaiian Kingdom was illegally overthrown by the U.S. government in the late nineteenth century. The following decades challenged Native Hawaiian culture, perhaps especially through attempts by the territorial government to suppress use of the Hawaiian language. Significantly, a cultural renaissance that began in the 1970s has led to renewed use of the language and other beneficial changes. Renewed emphasis on Hawaiian culture continues today, with various initiatives seeking to advance the sociocultural, economic, and political status of indigenous Hawaiians. One such initiative was undertaken in 2006 when numerous Hawaiians first convened to deliberate the reestablishment of traditional ahupuaʻa and kapu-based systems of natural resource management in the Hawaiian Islands. This chapter describes the evolution of this important effort.