Reviving cultural practices and traditional diets through Native Hawaiian water rights

Freshwater (wai) was the seminal resource from which the culture and diet of Hawai`i's indigenous people originated. In Hawaiian mythology, the wetland taro plant (kalo) is the first-born, older brother of all Native Hawaiians. Land divisions were based on ahupua`a, typically stretching from mountain to ocean, and most often centered on a stream, from which ditches (`auwai) diverted water to irrigate terraces (lo`i) of kalo. And waiwai, denoting an abundance of water, is the Hawaiian word for “wealth.”

With the development of large sugar plantations and their need for enormous amounts of water, the indigenous system of water distribution and sharing was transformed, abetted by the Kingdom of Hawai`i's Supreme Court, whose appointed members were immigrants trained in western law. Water became property that could be owned, transferred anywhere, and used for any purpose.

In 1973, under Hawai`i's first Chief Justice of Hawaiian lineage, the Supreme Court ruled that water was a public resource, held in trust by the State for its people, a decision reinforced in 1978 by amendments to the Hawai`i constitution. Court decisions in this century have identified protection of the resource and traditional and customary practices, including growing kalo, as among trust purposes. Thus, the stage has been set for the revival of cultural and dietary practices through increased stream flows for more lo`i and return of the indigenous freshwater fish, crustaceans and mollusks that once were abundant in Hawai`i's streams.