Nā Hulu Aloha — A Precious Remembering: Origin Stories of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument Native Hawaiian Cultural Working Group Kiamanu Subcommittee
Abstract
Layers of protection rectify an exploitative past of overharvesting seabirds within the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, affectionately known as the kūpuna (ancestral) islands. The Papahānaumokuākea Native Hawaiian Cultural Working Group’s Kiamanu sub-committee—facilitating the gathering of salvage-appropriate seabirds within Papahanānaumokuākea--seeks to transform the corresponding narrative driving seabird conservation today that has preserved that single story. With our kūpuna islands experiencing climate change and the resulting mass exodus of precious marine ‘ohana, this is an important moment for our islands and the broader Pacific region. This essay shares how a community strives to fulfill a duty to mālama our most precious natural and spiritual capital. It is a story of hope that we meet the synergistic challenges of heightened climate variability, biodiversity loss, sustained militarization, and cultural erosion with the same resilience and resolve as from our deep and recent past.