It's a little hard to see from the screen-shot below, but well worth the squinting: four endangered ae‘o (Hawaiian stilts) are having a great and noisy time at the far edge of the farthest of our upper-Ulupō patches. The Army Corps of Engineers recently spent millions to build the artificial ponds at Mokulana for the purpose of providing a protected habitat for the redux of Kawainui's native birds; Kaleo Wong seems to have accomplished something similar, but on a smaller scale, in a restoration-of-traditional-use context, and with no money at all.
Here is Kaleo's story: "We recently reclaimed a loʻi that has been under the control and entanglement of invasives for many years. Last week it was planted by@shellknoets and her English class from ʻIolani. There is zero wait time to harvest the ʻiʻo from Hāloa. No need wait 1 year until the kalo matures. The ʻiʻo and the hua (fruits, gains, effects, results) of this work is immediate. It is seen in the faces and in the ʻano of the kids. It is seen in Hāloa back in the lepo. We also see it in the returning of our native birds. In this case the endangered aeʻo, a bioindicator that we are indeed returning the ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono. We are not just growing kalo, we are growing consciousness."
-- Kihei de Silva
Here is Kaleo's story: "We recently reclaimed a loʻi that has been under the control and entanglement of invasives for many years. Last week it was planted by@shellknoets and her English class from ʻIolani. There is zero wait time to harvest the ʻiʻo from Hāloa. No need wait 1 year until the kalo matures. The ʻiʻo and the hua (fruits, gains, effects, results) of this work is immediate. It is seen in the faces and in the ʻano of the kids. It is seen in Hāloa back in the lepo. We also see it in the returning of our native birds. In this case the endangered aeʻo, a bioindicator that we are indeed returning the ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono. We are not just growing kalo, we are growing consciousness."
-- Kihei de Silva
