2024 in review~Nā Maka Onaona Highlights

Aloha e nā makamaka, 

Within a blink of an eye, we find ourselves in a new year and ¼ finished. We had every hope to get this to you all at the start of 2025 and apologize for this delay. We have so much to be grateful for as we review, reminisce, and reflect on our past year… how do we consolidate, summarize, and share it all with you who have opened up collaborations, partnerships, and support to Nā Maka Onaona and our team. It is with much aloha that we extend our thanks and appreciation to you in fulfilling our vision and purpose of supporting ʻĀina Momona: Thriving and Productive communities of people and place.  

2024 absolutely flew by!  Weʻve continued to build our Huliʻia Program working with communities across the State. Thanks to continued funding support from Harold K.L. Castle Foundation, Kuaʻaina Ulu ʻAuamo, the Chan-Zuckerberg Kauai Community fund, and a new funding opportunity through the Department of the Interior Kapapahuliau grant, weʻve been growing Huliʻia activities with 3 new hires (Chanel Wong (Administration Assistant) Hulali Soza (Project Coordinator) and Titi Giltner (Project Specialist) and a formal contract worker (Captain Kalei Velasco). Weʻve begun a formal Project Huliʻia Cohort working with adults from East and West Kauai diving into Ocean literacy, while building competency in sailing, waʻa care and maintenance. We formally have 46 cohort members from across the island (with some outliers) and are blown away from the diversity of ages, experience, and contribution represented in our cohort. We canʻt wait to report back on our first year. Stay tuned!

Our Productivity and Carrying Capacity (PACC) project, supported by the Ka’upulehu Foundation, continues to simmer as we work with various communities and agencies on our ʻOpihi Management Plan. Our team consisting of Kanoeʻula Morishige, Anthony Mau, Erik Franklin, Lauren Kapono, and I (with some key partnerships like Haunani Kane and the MEGA lab) have spent years building off of past monitoring from our Pilinakai project and the Intertidal partnership. We continue to support the Kaʻūpūlehua Marine Life Advisory Committee (KMLAC) as they have adopted our ʻOpihi management plan within their proposed management and hope to support other communities in their advocacy to contribute to natural resource research, conservation, and management initiatives across the State. Also as a side note: We are so proud of Kanoeʻula who has completed a huge milestone, defending and completing her PhD in “Reproductive Ecology of Hawaiian Intertidal Invertebrates, Haukeuke and Opihi: Drivers, Seasonal Patterns, and the Impacts of Temperature, Waves, Energy, Limu, and Habitat Structure” in December from UH Marine Biology Graduate Program. Congratulations Kanoe…. Ua kō! 

In addition to our on-going programs and projects, Nā Maka Onaona is privileged in our ability to support many other organizations and initiatives throughout the State and Pacific. Our crew was able to support Lele Aloha in their West Maui Unity March helping to feed volunteers and the many waʻa kaulua who came to support the Lahaina Community. We were able to attend and present at multiple projects and collaborations with UH TCBES, Sustainable Seas Conference Indigenous Knowledge Symposium in Aotearoa, Hono Moana Conference in Tahiti, and the Sea Grant Advisory Meeting. Our crew helped KUA host the annual E Alu Pū gathering in March in Hāʻena. We also helped support the Kamaliʻi Challenge Fishing Tournament in Hanapepe, Kauai where over 700 keiki (with their families) registered to celebrate community, fishing, and the ocean. 

Weʻve been able to host workdays, huakaʻi, professional development workshops, and presentations reaching over 4,500 (keiki to kupuna) spanning Hawaii throughout the Pacific to Vancouver (BC), Aotearoa, Tahiti, and the Cook Islands. And amongst other things, we are extremely blessed to contribute to the care of Papahānaumokuākea (the other ⅔ of our Hawaiian Archipelago) and have annually joined the cenchrus removal project on Nihoa where for 8-9 days, a small crew sweeps through every nook and cranny removing this invasive grass (and others) to protect this islands fragile ecosystem which houses a “treasure chest of species found nowhere else in the world” as well as maintain Nihoaʻs intimate relationship to Kauaʻi and Niʻihau. With the many networks we are blessed to be a part of, we are honored to continue our journey with friends from Aotearoa on a new network called Matakupenga, meaning mycelium, that hopes to mirror the function of mycelium in our social and cultural landscapes across the globe communicating and passing resources back and forth for the benefit of our collective movement and community. 

We continue to serve as fiscal sponsors to Nā Waʻa Mauō based in Hilo, Hawaiʻi Island and the Education Branch of Kanuikapono Public Charter School in Anahola, Kauaʻi. We have also added to our fiscal sponsorship support to our local “artist in residence” Maile Andrade who has donated her art to support our crew and field gear (sun shirts, hoodie towels, pareau, etc). 

We again, are extremely grateful for the opportunities to serve and support ʻĀina Momona: thriving communities of people and place. We also know that none of this would be possible without the love and support of our partnerships, collaborators, donors, and communities. MAHALO.

Naʻu nō,

Pelika Andrade 

Executive Director 

Nā Maka Onaona ʻOhana (Partners, Organizations and Donors*)