Hawaiian Knowledge And Western Science: A Recipe For Reef Recovery?
January 06, 2025
Kahaluʻu Bay on the Big Island has become a focal point for blending science, tourist education and cultural know-how. So far, hopeful signs abound.
By Paula Dobbyn/ December 31, 2024
A daughter of the Big Island’s Kailua-Kona region, Cindi Punihaole remembers when the ocean was teeming with life.
“My father taught me how to throw a net,” recalled Punihaole, now 74. “The sea was our ice box.”
A daughter of the Big Island’s Kailua-Kona region, Cindi Punihaole remembers when the ocean was teeming with life.
“My father taught me how to throw a net,” recalled Punihaole, now 74. “The sea was our ice box.”
Punihaole left the Big Island for college on the mainland and did not move home again for 30 years, until her aging parents needed her.
What she found on her return shocked her. Far fewer fish. A degraded reef. Resorts, golf courses, overtourism and urbanization — all of it pouring millions of gallons of polluted runoff into the ocean daily.
Practically overnight, Punihaole became an environmental activist. She committed to saving Kahaluʻu Bay, one of Hawaiʻi’s most popular snorkel spots.
Located about five mi les south of Kona, the shallow-water bay features tropical fish, marine mammals, coral heads and clear blue water protected from big swells by an ancient stone breakwater called the Menehune Wall. In the Hawaiian belief system, the Menehune were small but skilled builders , who created structures such as fishponds and heiau — places of worship – in a single night.
Seeing Kahaluʻu damaged by some 400,000 tourists every year was both heartbreaking and unacceptable to Punihaole.
“People were stepping all over the reef without realizing they were causing a lot of harm to it,” she said.
In her work since then at Kahaluʻu, Punihaole has combined Western science with her traditional Hawaiian knowledge — a nexus increasingly recognized as a powerful tool in saving reefs.
In coordination with the Kohala Center, scientists and land managers, Punihaole established a year-round visitor education program. Through multilingual signage and one-on-one conversations center staff and volunteers teach tourists how to snorkel without damaging the reef, identify coral and understand the cultural significance of Kahaluʻu Bay.