Kuʻula Kai was the person who’s credited to build the first fishpond in the world.

He built it in Hāna, Maui.

He made the fishpond there and the people of the other ahupuaʻa of the neighboring side all wanted similar things, so they would ask him to help them with fishponds on Maui.

And by then his family was growing.

His son ʻAiʻai became a strong man.

He started to head some of the parties going out build fishponds.

Then from Maui he went to Molokaʻi.

From Molokaʻi he sees Oʻahu.

And he came to and landed in Waimānalo.

And in Waimānalo he built the first fishpond on Oʻahu.

And legend is wherever he went and built fishponds, people would ask him how can we show our appreciation.

And ʻAiʻai said, “Nothing for myself.

But if you will, put up a stone to honor my father Kuʻula Kai, put it up on the eastern side of your fishpond and maybe on the other side put up a stone for my mother, Hina.” The Kuʻula stone is something you would find at traditional Hawaiian fishponds.

The one we found at Kānewai was actually covered in brush and buried over.

So as we started clearing we came across this upright stone right at the edge of the fishpond and that's the male stone and normally there's a Hina stone on the other side of the fishpond, so you have this balance.

You'll see surviving stones at at Hawaiian Fishponds still today.

They're almost 500 fishponds that were identified all throughout the islands, so kind of just to think about how common they were and what a normal thing it would have been to see a fishpond and walking along the shoreline in the area where you lived.

They’re such an integrated part of the watershed and the ahupua’a because the real common ones along our coastlines combine the importance of the marine environment and then also the water coming down from the mountains.

They’re a reflection of everything that comes down through the watershed, but also the health of the fisheries around them.

If you think about it historically too, because they required so much manpower to build the actual infrastructure in that way, it reflected the unity of the people living in the area.

But also like the quality of leadership for an Ali’i or Konohiki of the area to be able to galvanize a large amount of people over whatever amount of time that it would take to move, especially the ponds that required the heavy rocks from the mountains.

How do we get protein on Oʻahu?

The old folks said let's eat fish.

And why do we make so many fishponds?

It's because we're feeding people.

According to scientists Hawaiian Fishponds, when they were working properly, could produce between 300 and 500 pounds of fish per acre per year.

There were, as of 1880, a 114 fishponds comprised of about 3,600 acres of freshwater pond making a million pounds of fish a year on Oʻahu.

And those 114 ponds actually are more than all the other fishponds in the rest of the Hawaiians Islands.

So Oʻahu had so much fresh water bubbling out of the ground.

And what the ancestors did, if they saw it on the land, they'd make a pond.

But if they saw it in the ocean.

They’d also build a wall to keep that fresh water inside.

Hawaiian see that the fish are congregating to the freshwater, and then they would make a fishpond at that area.

So they specifically cited the fishponds in areas where there were fresh water Springs.

All the Springs that were in this area had fishponds, so even though many of them have been filled in, we could see that there had to be some connection.

The reason they put fishponds at Springs was because the Springs will keep the parasites off the fish and it keeps the fishpond healthy by circulating the fresh water and then you can grow your limu.

The green strand limu is what the mullet eat in the fishpond, so they're not fed.

They actually have to feed on that limu.

From there, herbivores are encouraged to come into the fishpond as young, juvenile, pua and then as they grow up they are harvested.

So that's a self containing system.

Theyʻre never fed like Western aquaculture relies on feeding constantly.

The other difference, Hawaiians have predators in the ponds and Kāku or the Barracuda it will remove those sick fish from the population.

So you always have this healthy, self sustaining fishpond.

The fishponds were designed specifically so that juvenile fish can be raised in harmony with the ocean and to farm the ocean you have to know the ocean and have a deep knowledge which today we're just scratching the surface on that.

Hawaiians observed over centuries and centuries and they knew when the spawning periods would occur.

So in this area we have ʻanaeholo which they originate in Pearl Harbor or Pu’uloa, and then they would travel around the island all the way to Kahuku.

And Kahuku was the end point.

So Maunalua where we are today is one of the places that the ʻanaeholo would come and they were attracted by the freshwater.

Kupuna talk about they could smell that fresh water.

Before they would enter Maunalua Bay they were way outside in this massive school is coming and you could, as far as you could see - you see Mullet.

Here we are at Kaʻalāwai Beach which is at the base off Diamond Head Crater.

The traditional story about the ʻanaeholo is that they started off in Pearl Harbor.

But back 100 years ago, Pearl Harbor was known as Ke Awa o Puʻuloa.

And the mullet actually came out of West Loch, which is one of the three lochs in Pearl Harbor.

And they specifically came from a spot that was called Kaihuopalaʻai.

And that simply means the nose of a person named Palaʻai.

The ʻanaeholo are actually pelagic spawners.

That means that they don't spawn in the harbors in the estuaries, the streams, the canals where you usually find them, but when it's time to spawn, which is in the winter and spring months, usually from about November through January or so.

The ʻanaeholo come together in huge schools, or they did previously anyway, they would just start swimming out into the open ocean, and that's where they would spawn.

They'd spawn in the open ocean.

That's why they're called pelagic spawners.

The three stages of growth for the mullet were pua.

The baby mullet.

Amaʻama, which were the juvenile mullet up to about 12 inches long and then the mature mullet which were ʻanae.

They were between 12 to 24 inches long.

When the mature mullet the ʻanae got together to school, when it was time for them to do their pelagic spawning, as soon as they left the Bay or the harbor where they normally live, they became ʻanaeholo - the traveling mullet.

They would start in Pearl Harbor.

They would start in Ke Awa o Puʻuloa and make a turn to the East and they would pass all of the shoreline spots and then come up around Diamond Head and come through this area where we are right now which is called Kaʻalāwai beach.

My family home was here for 40 years and all of the surf spots between Black Point and the lighthouse my friends and I, we surfed every single one of them.

We'd be out here surfing during the during the winter months, especially in December and the schools of ʻanaeholo would just come flying past us.

They were in the thousands and it always amazed us.

They weren't just cruising or just parking like a school of fish like weke, or some of the other schooling fish, but they were on the move and they just come flying through the surf.

Going under us around us and sometimes even over our boards and they'd be heading up towards Maunalua up towards Koko Head and Koko Crater.

When they would come to Maunalua there, they're outside in the ocean and the Hawaiians in this area, they're waiting for them.

Papa Lukela was the konohiki out in the in the bay and you can imagine when this big huge school showed up, it was a lot of excitement.

That's what they've been waiting for and Papa Lukela would be waiting at the mākāhā and he would lift up the gates and you would think that all the fish in the fishpond would escape, but that's not what happened.

Instead, the big school from outside would swim against the current into the fishpond because they can smell that freshwater.

So Hawaiians designed these systems so that all that fresh water would attract the fish to the fishpond.

So 1880, we've got 114 fishponds.

There might have been more than that, but these are the big ones.

Theyʻre in Ko’olau, theyʻre in Kona all of Waikīkī use to have fishponds - all the way through Kakaʻako where Ward is, all those areas.

What happened to those ponds?

Why did they disappear?

Ben Dillingham.

So Ben Dillingham decided he wanted to put a railroad all the way around the island.

And then it's kind of irritating to have a railroad tracks where there is water, so he filled in the pond.

And then there's the idea about how Waikīkī was full of mosquitoes because of the taro patches and the fishponds and all that standing water.

But that's a fallacy taro can't grow in standing water, it has to be flowing very quickly has to be cold.

Fishponds cannot function without circulation, so the water has to be cold and completely bubbling out of the ground.

Somebody decided that Waikīkī should be a tourist destination.

They forced the taro farmers and the fishpond keepers to fill in their taro patches and fishpond, and they had to pay for it.

And if they couldn't afford to pay for the fill, then the land was confiscated and they had nothing.

And that wasn't enough for Waikīkī, then they went through Honolulu District.

When we come down towards Honolulu Harbor, when we go towards Sand Island today - Fishponds Fishponds and Fishponds.

And I think part of it was not only Ben Dillingham's railroad, but there was an idea that things that were Hawaiian like Taro patch is like eating taro like fishponds like eating fish.

This was all really caveman stuff.

I think that every aspect of of our land base is important to acknowledge because the overtaking of our Kingdom, back in 1893, from that period come forward to us becoming a State in 1959.

I think there's a lag in history.

You know and from from that period and our people feeling the crunch of, wow - we no longer have our land base, you know.

And those that that really carried on working the taro patches because they knew the taro was important, that poi had to be made and fishing kept going on because the fish was the way of balancing our diet.

And then when all of that was all exploited, you know, there was a period is like a lull in period of time that had to be put brought back.

In order for people to understand that the culture is still here and alive, and the people are still here - we have to show that a lot of the things which sometimes looks old is still alive.

The heiaus’ are still alive.

The fishponds are still alive.

It's all alive, and so my part in all of this is I'll help participate by teaching others.

We were taught, just be quiet and watch.

I understood that a lot of times people learn not by just watching and being quiet, but you have to show them the basics of what I'm doing when I'm doing it.

So you set the pōhaku a certain way an it's not going to fall.

There are different parts of a wall.

First is our pōhaku niho.

So Pōhaku niho are the foundational stones but when we translate it, Pōhaku is rock Niho is our teeth, and so, like our teeth, is rooted in our gums, we do root the Pōhaku Niho into the sand or dirt or ground wherever you're building.

And on top of that is our Alo.

Every pōhaku or every rock has a face, yeah.

So we look for the face and it's supported by our panihakahaka, yeah.

And those are smaller rocks, in our case we use smaller, rounder rocks that we wouldn't use as a face.

In other fishponds a lot of people use hakahaka is coral, but because we have a lot of wave action, we use stone because the waves will just break down the coral and move it around too much.

And to cap all of that off is the pāpale, yeah - our capstones, so pāpale is like a hat, so when we kept the wall then it's paʻa.

When you leave it open, then it's open to the elements to knock it down, so it's very key that all these things line up together.

And always remember to that, no matter how big or small the rock, it all has a function.

We do have a alakaʻi that we have out on the wall and so that's to just ensure that one we're building correctly and that it'll be functional.

And then two that we hit our goal, whether it's in footage or height, and to keep our wall straight.

Our kupuna were very, very meticulous.

And they're very maiau and maʻemaʻe very neat and clean.

So we try to be the same way.

Being able to pass pōhaku from one generation to another generation, to stand in the same line and then step away later and see the wall, a big chunk of the wall completed.

It's a sharing an experience.

It's a sharing of ʻike while we pass and talk story with each other.

Keiki are learning from makua or kupuna are learning from keiki and all this connections going on, and so to be able to.

Just have time to pass rock from one generation to another generation and make it paʻa in the wall is a really beautiful experience.

One of the things about the fishponds is that they were constructed to work with the ocean so that the ocean will circulate the fishpond.

And the old fishpond keepers, a lot of times they would sleep during the day, specially in this area.

Wailupe fishpond for example, the Nakano family over there.

They learn from the Hawaiians how to manage the fishpond and that included managing the mākāhā.

So that's where the pond breathes and during certain moons they lift up the gates and that allows certain fish to come in and then they're trapped.

So it's all revolves around the tides, and then the time of year is also equally important.

Each of the fishponds had a moʻo and usually the moʻo was the Guardian of the pond.

If you defiled the pond in any way that would upset the moʻo.

They say the moʻo family came from Tahiti and there's families today that trace their genealogy to the moʻo lines.

I always felt that Kahana was very, very special.

The fishpond was really the bread basket, you know of, that ahupuaʻa.

So when they readily needed fish they would just go get it.

It was not for the makaʻāinana .

I believe it was for our aliʻi class.

So I believe that every fishpond that is in place today has something to do with our aliʻi of that time.

Annie Keohokāole owned this whole valley, 5280 acres there about, and she eventually sold this ʻāina.

I always felt that because she was Queen Liliʻuokalani’s mama, King Kalākaua's mama that, you know, we in Kahana, we gotta be special.

Our fishpond is located at the river mouth of Kahawainui but is also spring fed by Springs that are in the inner part of the fishpond closer to the mountain side.

So according to some of the studies that have been done at Huilua, they place it to be around 600 years old and built by menehune.

It's about 1000 feet long.

The wall itself encompasses at least seven acres of water and ʻāina.

Although we know menehune built it, it also takes communities to maintain it.

The pōhaku there did not come from kai, it's all basalt.

So it came from ʻāina.

So it probably came from different ʻauwai or ditches along side the valley and had to be carried and transported down there and all those hands that maintained and created the pond.

But we're trying to restore it so we too can also malama that mana that is there.

So the state owns Kahana valley, over 5200 acres of ʻāina or land from our highest mountain peak at Puʻu Pauoa all the way to the Bay Area, which is called Kaleihualoa.

My grandmother grew up in Kahana valley with her parents, Daniel Frances Beirne and Mary Hart Kawaauhau.

I grew up here most of my life.

Kahana has always been.

My foundation my kahua.

I can go travel around the world but when I come home I know home.

And it will bring me back to focus on the things I need to work on and focus on the things that I need to do so I can more effectively.

Complete and carry out the responsibilities I have.

Historically, the fishpond here was given as the loko iʻa and it was given to Waiaha, and Waiaha was the wahine that lived in this area.

This whole Kuliʻouʻou land parcel was given to her.

So that's some of the earliest written documentation that we have of this fishpond right here.

Fishponds are designed to breathe, and if you don't have a functioning system where the pond can breathe you get a stagnant and unhealthy pond and that's what we had here at Kānewai.

So we.

When we first arrived it was choked with invasive vegetation trees where the auwai lets the water out.

It was cemented closed and the water was black and there were some tilapia and mosquitofish.

As far as native species, there were next to none.

As we removed the invasive vegetation, we could see the water clarity starting to change, and as we removed the cement that plugged the auwai, little by little, after several years, the water started to flow and now it flows strongly.

And at the auwai there is a gate called the mākāhā.

And maka is eye and ha is breath.

That's how the pond breathes.

That was an architectural feature specifically designed to manage the ponds and at Kānewai Spring we have different types of construction, so the bottom is built on a coral shelf on an actual coral reef.

And then on top of that is the original wall.

Later on you have modern features.

So at one point a waterfall was put into the spring.

The modern wall that was built in the 80s with cement and all that is caved over while the Hawaiian dry stack wall has stayed intact because every stone it's fit and locked so they lock into each one.

One of the interesting things that we came across, and a lot of it is through taking care of the fishponds, we look up and we see where right below a ridge.

And then at the other fishpond that we have been restoring at Kalauhaʻihaʻi, it's the same thing.

It's right below a ridge - that was actually intentionally placed there because the fresh water drains right to the ridge spur.

And at that spur you have your punawai, your spring, and that's your perfect place for your fishpond.

Fish don't know the boundaries of property, and birds don't know boundaries of property.

But we artificially think there's separations between bodies of water, but really there is not.

And right here is the source of fresh water for this whole area and it comes out of the lava tube, it drains through the aquifer and once it comes out of here it flows through the mākāhā and it feeds into Kānewai fishpond.

And from there, the fresh water flows through another mākāhā and it goes into Paikō Wildlife Sanctuary.

And finally it opens into Maunalua Bay.

So from this small punawai or spring it feeds a tremendous area.

And we have some old photos of horses drinking fresh water way out by the reef and it's coming all the way from inside where we're not right on the ocean here, but it actually feeds the ocean.

I’m actually the 8th generation of a family that has resided in this area since before Kamehameha arrives.

And one of our ancestors, Mikalemi, was konohiki of ʻAiea and during his time was responsible for the kuahu, he was the caretaker of Pākule, which is at the mouth of Puʻuloa at a place called Kapākule.

So fish was in our family for long time, but not just fish for eat fish, but to care for the fish to store the water so that there was abundance.

And now we step into that same space without even knowing that that's the role that we would play.

This fishpond is called Loko Paʻaiau.

It is about 400 years old, built by the native Hawaiians.

Itʻs located at McGrew Point of Pearl Harbor.

Because we're on a military base, access wasn't allowed and so this presents an opportunity for those who knew about the site, our kupuna, to come out and see the site again and see that we are taking care of it.

Not only the kupuna but also anciently, you know, we are healing the land.

It's important because it belongs to the Hawaiians in the first place.

The community should benefit from it too.

Originally the King left the Navy borrow this island for awhile so they could do training by, and shipping things out of here, and later it became more permanent, but still it belongs here to the Hawaiians.

It'll benefit the whole community to know what valuable land they have there that served the Navy and, uh, many of them are not knowledgeable of this place.

It will open eyes.

We knew there was a fishpond, but we didn't know the wealth of the information that was out there in the historical importance.

This is where the Queen of Oʻahu came and made her home and cared for her people and her name was Kalanimanuia.

She lived in a time of peace and it's obviously because she cared for the people and she actually literally built these fishponds alongside the people, carried stones, and helped them.

So during her reign there was peace and prosperity.

She is actually the daughter of Kūkaniloko and the grandmother of Kākuhihewa.

Who we all know as having reigned over Oʻahu.

So a very important and sacred site for the whole island.

The Navy received funds to clear all the mangrove around Pearl Harbor area and this included loko Paʻaiau.

After they cleaned it, the fishpond wall was present with four mākāhā.

And so we began the preservation of this pond with the Native Hawaiian community.

As soon as we came in and cleared the majority of the mature mangrove rainforest, we immediately saw the native Hawaiian birds coming back and utilizing this her area as a foraging habitat.

So we found both the Native Hawaiian stilt, the black crowned night Heron, turnstones, the kolea, or the Pacific Golden plover - all immediately were found in this area and and they are always here at this point moving forward.

So we are seeing birds returning and utilizing the habitat in the same way that birds would have used it hundreds of years ago.

A forging habitat is an area of the animals used to feed.

The water birds are feeding on small worms, fish, crabs, any type of crustacean and the, as the water exposes the mud they can come in and feed in the habitat.

Mangrove unfortunately in Hawaii it was never here.

It's not native here and can therefore outcompete all of the native vegetation.

It's preventing the native plants from growing here which then has a ripple effect of preventing some of the birds or bugs or insects that are specifically associated with some of those very specific plants.

Once we remove it typically in the soil and the sentiment that were the mangrove was growing, there is a seed Bank of Native Hawaiian plants.

And quite literally can be there for decades waiting for the right conditions for the seeds to germinate and regrow.

So typically when you go in and remove the mangrove, you want to kind of keep that, maintain it and watch for a little while and see what naturally comes out of the seed bank.

It is a quite long and labor intensive process.

But it needs to be done.

As an archaeologist, it's my responsibility to make sure that we are protecting and preserving Native Hawaiian sites, including this fishpond here at McGrew point.

And with the Navy, it's my responsibility to consult with the Native Hawaiians and also to protect a sites for future generations.

Well, we're in the southern end of Kāneʻohe Bay.

And Waikalua loko is situated between Kawa stream and Kāneʻohe stream, where it empties out into the southern part of Kāneʻohe Bay.

So the ahupuaʻa of Kāneʻohe extends from the top of the Koʻolau mountain range, and in this particular place the highest peak in Kāneʻohe is known as Keahiakahoe and it extends all the way down to the furthest edge of the reef beyond Mōkapu Hill on what we know now is the Kāneʻohe Marine base and Puʻu Hawaii Loa.

In the days of old, I Ka Wa Kahiko, all of the resources that you needed to survive were within your ahupuaʻa.

In 2013, we were able to acquire Waikalua loko.

It is under the Pacific American Foundation Hawaii, Inc, which is a separate non-profit that we've formed just for the purpose of being able to own the asset.

It is one of the very first ancient Hawaiian fishponds to come back into Hawaiian hands since the great Mahele in 1848.

And that's why I feel so passionate about it and that it has deepened my understanding of the kuleana that we have going forward.

I’m thankful to the Kāneʻohe community and all of the people that have come to help us over the last 25 years, that number now over 100,000 students and families and community members that have come to help us with with practically no money.

The elder component to the restoration of the pond is absolutely critical to the continuity of knowledge, with Uncle Fred Takebayashi.

He's one of the few that we know that actually grew up on the pond.

I was born born 1927, graduated from Benjamin Parker School in 1945.

I was born and raised on the fishpond.

I was there till I was about 10 years old.

People who lived here, there with their Nagamatsu's and they lived and they operated a fishpond and they ran the fishpond.

We would see, depending on the tide coming in, the mākāhā, we would see mullet and ʻawa.

We would always want to see with how the mākāhā was doing.

If the water was swift then we would see mullet and there be mullet, like wall to wall, five or six deep.

My memories of the Huilua fishpond in Kahana was with my dad.

Basically, my dad was an environmentalist.

My first memories was going down there in cleaning up the place.

Trying to get in there and mālama, mālama the area.

They already had a fishpond caretaker out there, but we still went.

You know, not only in the fishpond, but the entire coastline.

The beaches down in Kahana.

I remember the last caretaker as Joe Kekona prior to Uncle Joe Kekona being out there, Sam Pua Haʻaheo was the fishpond caretaker that I remember.

Pretty much an extraordinary person because he was not only a sheriff on this side, you know, and a caretaker for the fishpond, but he was our koknohiki out here too, so you know, he was the overseer of the fishing practices in Kahana.

There were many, many legends that was shared with us about the fishpond when they said that the, you know, it was kapu and you could not go fishing and take any of the mullet out of the fishpond.

There was a reason for it and when people broke that kapu, mullet, or the fish would all disappear and people didn't know why.

When I look back at our days, you know being raised in Kahana, I think how blessed and how fortunate we were, even though we had to walk - there was no school bus we had to walk to Kaʻaʻawa school from Kahana, and then we walked home from Kaʻaʻawa to Kahana, you know.

I said by God there was no such thing as going to 711.

If we wanted peanuts we went down the beach and pounded kamani, you know, and the kamani nuts, were were our snacks, you know, and there's lot of guavas and so we had a lot of guavas.

And talk about husking a coconut, you know, if we were thirsty, no such thing as getting soda water.

I mean it was busting, the busting the coconut and husking it it right on the roadway and drinking the coconut water.

Kilo in English is observation or observing.

For some of the keiki this environment is not one that they see often, so getting them kind of away from the classroom setting, away from the technology setting and letting them explore outside really made them excited.

The kids learn that they have five senses.

Yeah, our maka, our iho, our waha, our pepeiau and our lima.

We also know that, from our kupuna, we also have that sixth sense or our naʻau.

Our kupuna were great kilo.

Kilo is very scientific.

I mean you can kilo the constellations, the stars, and astronomy that science you can kilo the ocean, the waves, the weather, this is all science.

Our kupuna, they are like the best scientists ever, yeah – very keen to their their world around them and how it affected them, and through observation practices were born, yeah.

So we see that through observation, practical things become daily life.

Our ancestors may have not understood the term photosynthesis, but they absolutely knew the causal relationship between the sun, the moon, the tides, and how that impacted the propagation of fish.

In the context of our loko iʻa.

They were able to understand the inter-relationships and their interdependency between mauka and makai and the ocean, and to be able to create a situation where they didn't have to be hunters and gatherers anymore.

They understood the power of being able to actually farm fish, herbivore's in a way that could sustain itself for hundreds of years.

Can you imagine that?

We're only beginning to understand all of the intricacies of how all of that work as we begin to try to restore some of these ponds.

One Hawaiian proverb that comes to my mind when we're doing the kilo was liʻu i ka paʻakai, which kind of means to preserve the ʻike of our kupuna 'cause lot of the knowledge that we are seeking our kupuna already found and they already know.

So being able to come out here and kilo and do what our kupuna did, we can find knowledge and the answers.

We really engage with Waikalua as this fantastic space of multiple lenses where I can be in this space and be thinking from a science lens from a historic lens from a mathematics lens from the lens of a cultural practitioner, they can start to explore the brilliance of indigenous and ancestral knowledge that builds the foundational base that allows for the structure of an ahupuaʻa system in a population that is roughly the same as what we have now in Hawaiʻi, but could fully sustain themselves.

No shipping, 90% of your foods in.

So now we start to dig at those those deeper kinds of questions and I really try to open it up more to the teachers that I bring or the educators that I bring here to have them start to investigate.

How does this become the classroom space?

How do we start to see this one place as the example of the wealth of knowledge that all of our communities provide?

I think the revitalization of ponds is kind of like a part of a whole interconnected movement that's happening not just here in Hawaii, but all around the world.

You know, people becoming more connected to their places and wanting to be more involved with those places.

And I think, just like, uh, remembering of how reliant we are on the places where we live, both physically for physical sustenance and health, but also like for our mental and spiritual and emotional health too.

Huilua has been a place where recently we’ve had a push in really restoring that space.

It's been a really big period of growth for us and seeing that we're all trying to learn, yeah, and so we always take the cue from Huilua.

Hui means to join Lua means two.

So to join two things together and for us when we think about that and we makawalu and see that name in all perspectives - it's the joining of things, yeah?

So the joining of people to make this wall.

The joining of people and hands together with everyone's effort.

At Kānewai Spring it was a long effort to actually get the ownership.

We didn't start out owning the spring.

For the community to actually get ownership we started by approaching the former owners and saying if we can have access for our community, can we mālama this spring and that’s how things started.

And a lot of the effort, it wasn't some big organization.

It was very grassroots was the longtime families from this area.

As community rallied around to save the spring, and also to mālama the spring, then you could see the reflection change and the spring water came clear.

I lived in this neighborhood for seven years and I didn't have the slightest idea that this fishpond existed.

Hundreds of school children and local community people have been here over the past few years working on cleanup days.

And I'm very excited in the time that I'm going to have here to see it develop and see if we can actually turn it back into a working fishpond.

We are very excited at the opportunity to work with local ʻAiea community organizations, Hawaiian civic clubs, local schools and other community members to develop and help enrich this aspect of the Hawaiian heritage and culture.

My goal for this project is to heal relationships, not only with Department of Defense and Native Hawaiians, but with the community as a whole, because that's the only way we can move forward as a society.

It's awesome.

I mean, I've seen them work real hard removing the mangrove trees.

That's a huge job, but to see actually the pond itself itʻs like magic.

It’s powerful, the relationships that are created here.

The friends that you make who you just started by bending down in the pond and pulling mangrove and next thing you know you're feeding each other and sharing time with each other and loving each other.

And that's one of the outcomes that's not going to be in a plan that is written, that comes from each of us coming with open heart, pure Heart.

And it's a beautiful space for that.

We talk about kia’i loko i’a and a kia’i is someone who takes care of a space.

So when we think about the kia’i loko i’a or fishpond caretaker, we're very blessed that the pōhaku niho or the foundation stones that were there still remain.

We still have knowledge from kupuna that used to work there and their knowledge is from kupuna before them.

So it's a building on of knowledge that kupuana, yeah, like our kupuna they kupu things and it's that give and take of mo’olelo, experiences and stories, that continue at Huilua.

When I think of the role of kia’i loko, I think of guardians of tradition, the knowledge of your kupuna.

And as the built environment changes, as things get more urbanized, as Hawaiʻi develops, that role becomes all the more important.

Because once the buildings go up, there is less of a connection to the place.

Being a Guardian of that knowledge and a caretaker of it is a critical role.

Being in Kahana has always been a puʻuhonua, yeah, a safe place, a place of refuge for me to come to.

And as much kuleana we do carry here , uhm - it's somewhere I can never I leave.

I spent time in this area as a child because my grandmothers lived here and I did not know about Paʻaiau or even the name of the ahupuaʻa Kalauao growing up, so discovering that there were places like Paʻaiau meant a lot in terms of figuring out what my role is in the moku of ʻEwa as a community member in Kalauao.

And there's not a lot of spaces, or kīpuka, where you can.

Connect with kupuna so learning about Paʻaiau and becoming more active has provided the space to listen to kupuna and my ancestors.

I grew up in Kāneʻohe ahupuaʻa and I never knew that this pond existed until I was 40 years old.

For me personally to understand what the pond meant to the ahupuaʻa and having a higher sense of place and understanding of belonging.

We hear all the time the phrase ma ka hana ka ʻike - in the work there is the knowledge, and this is so key over here that this is actually our classroom.

This is a place where young people, and even people like myself, I'm 56 years old learning about what was over here as we do the work, right, and that intergenerational impact is so valuable, we don't have enough opportunities for our young people to learn from kupuna, from kupuna to learn from young people.

And for all of us to learn from the land, which is really the ultimate teacher, is this Paʻaiau is the one teaching us who we are, why we're here, and where we gonna be.

What we have to do in this generation is to be able to nurture minds and to be able to educate and allow opportunities for us to build bridges and connect the dots between traditional wisdom and ecological knowledge with contemporary science and technology so that we can begin to, hopefully in the, in the not in maybe in my lifetime.

But in the in the next generation and the next generation be able to actually propagate fish, restore the bay, restore the limu, and restore the eco system.

We have trained teachers from all over the islands and even beyond our state.

We are always mindful about our piko and our immediate kuleana to the schools and the children that live in this area.

Because the expectations for our students are going to be far beyond what our life experiences are or have been up to this point and the more opportunities that we can give them to be able to be those critical thinkers work well together and help solve problems starting from their own communities.

We're all going to be better off.

We are going to be better as a community as a people and as a state and as a planet.

I got involved with this program because I was looking for a way to educate my keiki while giving them an opportunity to work with their community and build a sense of place.

And I wanted them to feel like they were significant in their land that they come from.

This fishpond isn't a working fishpond yet, but it is working our minds and and that's just as beneficial where we can come back and Hui together and make sure you know that we're all collaborating so that one day this fishpond is something that is going to be a working fishpond.

And and it's everyone's collaboration that helped make it so successful.

Here in Hawaiʻi, our ancestors really had a great idea about how you increase food production.

We need to mālama ʻāina in every section again.

What did our ancestors know and how can we use that information.

I think it's a great time for us to see how we're going to survive and thrive.

Today we have many of our Hawaiians that are educating themselves not not only in fishponds and who's the caretakers of the fishpond and getting involved and trying to bring all that back because that is a sense of place for all of us as Hawaiians.

Fishpond plays a very important role in all.

The ahupuaʻa is just as important in us as us getting to the land and planting our taro.

Times are different today than they were 500 years ago.

At one time there were 25 or so fishponds that line Puʻuloa.

And so you can imagine the great abundance that was readily available to the people.

Now they're only three that can be restored fully at this time.

So what I envision is that we do that, we do the best we can to rebuild so that the next generation can come forward and do the best they can to rebuild and down the road.

Another eight generations maybe then weʻll be eating the fish again?

So that's a long term vision in the near term though, it's actually a transformational moment for all of us.

We'd like to see this become a healing space.

For example, we have a lot of warriors who return from war with really severe illnesses.

More and more people are aware that returning to ʻāina and working with traditional practice can actually have a very strong healing effect too, so we're hoping that in the near future will be able to have practitioners down here Western and Traditional, working together with our soldiers and their families.

I'd really like to see Huilua fishpond become the fishpond it was way back then and I would like to see it back to its original glory if you will.

I want my keiki to see it.

I want my son to be able to come to this fishpond and be able to see this.

I want his future kids to see it and I want this to be something where you know you can go back and you're you're able to say, Well, well, my great Tūtū did help and was a part of it.

And it's not just building a sense of place in yourself, but it's starting that journey through your ʻohana and it's something so special and so important that you have to do it.

You know you're not doing it just for yourself, you’re doing it for for your future ʻohana too.

For anyone not being familiar with the Hawaiian culture when you kind of begin to understand how they were using fishponds, it’s, itʻs fascinating, it’s innovating and it's kind of inspiring to know that people here figured this out a long time ago.

You know, and you bring in all this technology now and they pretty much already had it figured out along time ago.

And what a perfect way to sustain a culture and a community by managing these resources.

And Hawaiians are the only ones that have figured out how to kind of manage the fish resources at the ocean's edge.

It's part of our history.

Like anything else.

You know And I think if you recognize what part it played in the history of Hawaiʻi you can appreciate it.

You can protect it for other kids behind in back of you.

Someone said that you don't mālama a place unless you have Aloha for it and I think that is so wise.

It is absolutely important that, again, we incorporate and we be the bridge for this traditional wisdom, which we're still learning about and at the same time, being creative and innovative with all of the tools that we have today to figure out how we can nurture ourselves in a pono way with Aloha.

People from all of the world now are coming here to be able to understand and experience that because there is value to it and it is important for us to continue to be able to impart that knowledge and that value with our own people here so that that can continue for the next generations, on and on and on.

Taking care of the fishponds is not a job, it's more of a kuleana and responsibility, and everyone that comes here they do it because there is this sense of spirituality and you can feel the mana as soon as you enter.

You're not alone.

You can feel the kupuna here and they’re in everything that happens here.

I do feel kupuna at the pond.

I feel the presence of Pua Haʻaheo.

Even today, you know all of our kupuna that we've lost - sometimes when I'm out on my porch, I can hear them singing.

You'll definitely feel the presence of our ancestors.

Spirituality is something that I would say has always been here, but has been re-awakened with the community coming in and community comes here.

They always come to pay their respects.

An offer a hoʻokupu to the pōhaku to the kuʻula stone.

And that's just a practice that has always taken place here.

You know before you would go fishing or gather you would always pay your respects before and offer hoʻokupu.

I think it's kind of the idea that we're not only here for ourselves and weʻre we're thinking about the greater community, so that's the idea behind it, I think.

When I see the aukuʻu returning and feeding and the aeʻo coming back to this area, I see my kupuna coming back.

They're blowing around us right now.

You can see them in the wind.

How the the water ripples what comes to greet us?

I think they're always been here waiting for us, and kupuna have told me this beautiful proverb.

That said, the ancestors are waiting at the mouth of the river for the descendants to return.

And in this case, the descendants are all of us, together with the Navy coming together to restore peace and abundance to this place.

You cannot really understand Aloha ʻĀina to be able to love the place and to persevere through all of the challenges to restore and preserve a place like this without really having that spirituality that power of love that for me only comes from Akua.

We always make a circle whenever we start this because it reinforces the idea that collectively when we share that Aloha in that kind of way that Aloha Kekahi I Kekahi i that there is nothing that we cannot do.

And that we are actually connected to part of something that is much greater than us.

For me personally, that is Aloha.

From the first Kiaʻi or the first people that decided to build that fishpond, it continued on.

Maybe maybe we lost a few not kiaʻi, but maybe we lost our way a little bit or the practice a little bit, but the foundation still remains that when we come back we can still look at it, build upon it.

We still have knowledge from kupuna that used to work there and their knowledge is from kupuna before them.

We have documented over 488 of these ponds that were built over 800 years on the eight major Hawaiian islands, and we have maybe 10 to 15% of them left.

So they are on the verge of vanishing from the landscape in our lifetime.

We need to hold on to this because they are connection to the past and that wisdom is still something that empowers us today and nourishes us today as we move into the 21st century.

I think it's it's so important for communities to know the value in the land that they are in.

I'm definitely always amazed by our ancestors at how well they were able to create such such amazing feats in our islands.

It really is a breathtaking experience to be in these spaces and to take it all in and you know, you just have to stand here at one point and and you look around you and it's just you really are in a sense of awe where you really are amazed you feel so proud that you come from a line of people that that just thrived on these islands.

The revitalization of the fishponds that people are doing now is very important.

It's recapturing a piece of cultural history that's pretty much been lost over the years.

A lot of the fishponds have been landfilled, they've been destroyed for just various reasons on all of the islands.

And to actually restock ponds now, to rebuild the ponds and restock them, is showing us how Native Hawaiians use the ponds and they understood completely the cycles of the fish, the marine environment and exactly how all of this operated.

For every one of us, it is our hope that our children and our grandchildren will pick it up and carry it and move forward.

You come over here and it's come with almost like a sacred ground.

At least it was held in high esteem by people.

And I think we should keep that as much as we can.

I feel peaceful when I'm here and gazing out to the water watching the fish swim by and seeing the different birds.

My heart feels awesome.

It feels so warm to know that this is here.

It'll be here forever.