Native Hawaiian Climate Resilience Program

The Native Hawaiian Community (lāhui) has long recognized that the health of its people is intrinsically linked to the health of the lands, waters, and all environmental aspects of Hawaiʻinuiākea (the Hawaiian archipelago). This understanding has fostered a vital relationship with environmental nuances, processes, and changes, enabling the Native Hawaiian people to adapt and thrive during past environmental upheavals. Ancestral ingenuity and resilience in the face of change are memorialized in moʻokūʻauhau (genealogies), moʻolelo, and kaʻao (traditions, histories, and stories), often referred to as Native Hawaiian traditional knowledge. This knowledge is reflected in traditional practices passed down through generations, including food cultivation, the arts, scientific observation, voyaging and celestial navigation, language, religion, family care, health and medicine, natural resource conservation, and site preservation. Such practices connect the Native Hawaiian people to their environment, emphasizing the need to recognize changes and the capacity to respond, adapt, and evolve to preserve the integrity of the community. Unfortunately, weather-related anomalies in Hawaiʻi have increasingly threatened the Native Hawaiian Community. These changes have resulted in heightened drought, coastal flooding and erosion, and the degradation of nearshore reef habitats, significantly impacting critical industries such as tourism, agriculture, and aquaculture, as well as subsistence fishing and farming efforts in rural areas. Additionally, the lāhui faces an influx of invasive species that jeopardize traditional farming practices, exacerbate wildfire risks, and contribute to soil erosion and flooding. The cumulative effects of these impacts pose serious challenges to the livelihoods of the Native Hawaiian people. The Kapapahuliau Grant Program aims to enhance the Native Hawaiian Community's ability to navigate these environmental challenges by strengthening their self-sufficiency and self-determination while maintaining and enhancing their capacity for coping, adaptation, and transformation. Kapapahuliau is centered around the following five Guiding Principles for which actions are carried out to support the overall Program Goal. Project proposals should look to meet all five of the following: 1) Native Hawaiian Organizations currently represent the Native Hawaiian Community. 2) Aloha ʻĀina (love for the land): The Hawaiian Islands and its environment are essential to Native Hawaiian Community identity. 3) Adverse weather and subsequent environmental impacts inevitably cause economic hardship to the Native Hawaiian Community and projects should incorporate economic sustainable practices. 4) Native Hawaiian Community resilience must incorporate Native Hawaiian traditional knowledge systems and ingenuity. 5) Kuleana (Right & Responsibility) to advance Native Hawaiian Community resilience through dialog and shared learning.