Huakaʻi to Kahoʻolawe

Ka Huli Ao Research Assistants Annie Borgen ‘26, Bronson Gonzales ‘26, Bronson Purcell ‘27, and Kalehuakea Kelling ‘27, along with Post-J.D. Legal Fellow Kaulu Luʻuwai ‘21, traveled to Kahoʻolawe with the Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana to gain firsthand insight into the tenet of Aloha ʻĀina. During their visit, they learned about Kahoʻolawe’s history as a former U.S. military bombing range and participated in efforts to regreen and restore the land.

For generations, Kahoʻolawe has stood as a paradox—sacred yet desecrated; remote, yet central to Native Hawaiian identity; quiet, but never silent. Revered as the kino lau of Kanaloa, the island holds profound cultural and spiritual significance as a navigational center for voyaging and site for religious and cultural ceremonies. Yet it also bears the deep wounds of colonization, having endured a long and violent history of abuse as overgrazed ranchland, and most destructively, by the U.S. Armed Forces for use as a live ordnance training area. Despite decades of devastation, Kahoʻolawe remains a living testament to resistance and renewal. Beginning in 1976, the Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana (“PKO”) led a series of occupations to end the bombing and reclaim the island. PKO also filed a federal civil suit, seeking enforcement of environmental, historic preservation, and religious freedom laws. Since then, sacred sites have been rededicated, religious ceremonies revived, hiking trails cleared, and cultural-use areas re-established. PKO’s advocacy ended military use of the island in 1990 and ultimately led to its formal return, held in trust by the State of Hawaiʻi, in 2003. Today, the Kahoʻolawe Island Reserve Commission (“KIRC”) stewards the island as a natural and cultural reserve, dedicated to the preservation of traditional and customary Native Hawaiian practices. The island is held in trust for future transfer to a sovereign Native Hawaiian entity.

From March 16-19, 2025, Ka Huli Ao research assistants returned to Kahoʻolawe, continuing Richardson’s tradition of place-based education. Research assistants Annie Borgen (2L), Bronson Gonzales (2L), Bronson Purcell (2L), Kalehua Kelling (1L), and Post-JD Legal Fellow Kaulu Luʻuwai ʻ21 joined PKO and a multigenerational cohort of volunteers—including Kamehameha Schools Maui staff and students, UH students, families, cultural practitioners, and a doctor—for an access to Hakioawa.

While early restoration focused on removing unexploded ordnances—much of which still remain littered across the island—current efforts center on erosion control, reforestation, and cultural revitalization. Throughout the access, cultural education remained central. Under the hale Namakapili, Uncle Craig Neff, a longtime kua with the ʻOhana, and Aunty Davianna Pōmaikaʻi McGregor, shared moʻolelo of Kahoʻolawe’s sacred sites and the decades-long legal and spiritual efforts to protect them. These stories wove each restoration task into a broader genealogy of ancestral ties, political struggle, and cultural resurgence.

After arriving by boat, volunteers established basecamp, cleared marine debris from the shoreline, removed invasive weeds, and replanted native vegetation in erosion-prone areas. Watershed stabilization continued on day two through an assembly-line approach: building rock walls, planting seedlings, and laying irrigation lines to support long-term regrowth. On the third day, volunteers hiked 12 miles through Kahoʻolawe’s uplands. At Puʻu o Moaʻulanui, they visited a koʻa to honor elemental forces and call rain from Maui beneath the connective Kaleināulu cloud. At Moaʻulaiki, the island’s second-highest peak, they reached the Navigator’s Chair, overlooking ancestral seaways between islands.

Each chant, planting, and step taken became a reaffirmation of kuleana. Though the scars of militarization remain, the work of healing continues through legal advocacy, ecological restoration, and cultural reconnection. Aloha ʻāina is the law beneath our feet.