mālama: nvt. to take care of, tend, attend, care for, preserve, protect, beware, save, maintain. ʻāina: n. Land, earth.

​The founding of Hui Mālama i ke Ala ‘Ūlili (huiMAU) and our development of various programs and program sites are direct results of our explicit intentions to cultivate healing and social transformation in Hāmākua by re-birthing our community’s interdependent relationships with ‘āina and with each other—relationships that were disfigured by the rise and fall of the plantation economy in the past four generations. We approach these challenges and opportunities in our community by drawing upon models of regeneration and abundance in the natural world around us. Kīpuka, or forest oases, in the vast landscape of Pele’s domain, provide us with a glimpse into the landscape’s past. These kīpuka hold the seeds of potential for the regeneration and regrowth of the surrounding landscape. In this way, kīpuka provide us safe spaces to envision and enact the futures of abundance that we seek to create. Just as there are kīpuka on the volcanic landscape, natural and cultural kīpuka—called kīpuka aloha ʻāina—have persisted in Hāmākua Hikina as well. Two kipuka aloha ʻāina that huiMAU is currently caring for and actively cultivates are in the ahupua‘a of Koholālele and Paʻauilo, Hāmākua.

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Ka Maha ʻUlu Koholālele
Kilohana, Koholālele, Hāmākua

Ka Maha ʻUlu o Koholālele, literally translated as "the breadfruit grove of Koholālele," is a community-led food system project transforming approximately 80 acres of former sugar plantation and current eucalyptus plantation lands in Koholālele, Hāmākua, Hawaiʻi, into Hawaiʻi’s largest regenerative ʻulu (breadfruit) agroforestry system. In alignment with huiMAU’s mission to reestablish the systems that sustain our community, after nearly four generations of industrial monocrop agriculture degrading our native eco- and food-systems, this project seeks to address current and future needs of our rural Hawaiʻi community to restore ecosystem health, increase food sovereignty and climate change resiliency, and promote responsible community-led economic development.

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Mālama ʻĀina Koholālele
Kilohana, Koholālele, Hāmākua

Mālama ‘Āina Koholālele is the name of our kīpuka aloha ʻāina in the ma kai region of the ahupuaʻa of Koholālele. Since 2013, huiMAU has worked to restore the function of this ʻāina as a puʻuhonua through native ecosystem rehabilitation and Hawaiian culture-based ʻĀina education. This ʻāina inspired the creation of our Hoʻonohopapa Koholālele Program, which is a community-based ʻāina and aloha ʻāina restoration initiative, to collectively engage our community members in Hāmākua and on Hawaiʻi Island in place-specific practices of mālama ʻāina (native eco- and food-system restoration) and mālama wahi kupuna (cultural landscape regeneration), applied ʻŌiwi research, and cultural training workshops (cultural regeneration).

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KaHua HoAMa
Waipunalau, Paʻauilo, Hāmākua

KaHua HoAMa is the name of our kipuka aloha ʻāina in the ‘ili of Waipunalau, in the ahupua‘a of Pa‘auilo. huiMAU cares for this ʻāina to engage the youth of our HoAMa programs and broader community in creating an intergenerational community space for the cultivation ‘ai pono (healthy, organic, local food) and mālama ‘āina (sustainable land stewardship practices), so as to build strong community relationships, increase community resilience, and reestablish food sovereignty in the ahupua‘a of Pa‘auilo and moku of Hāmākua.

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