Comm 26-033 - LOS 26-06 Gregg, Makani

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Comm 26-033 From:Makani Gregg To:PONC Testimony Subject:PONC Nomination Ï Shoreline of Hakalauiki (TMK 329002001) Date:Tuesday, March 3, 2026 1:43:51 PM Aloha mai e PONC Commission, I am writing in strong support of the PONC nomination submitted by Kmaulihou for the purchase of a conservation easement over the shoreline of Hakalauiki, encompassing the beloved fishing and gathering grounds known as Manamana. I offer this testimony both as an individual and on behalf of Phaku Pelemaka, a community-based nonprofit working to protect and steward the cultural, historical, and natural resources of the Puna coastline. I write not as a distant observer, but as someone with direct and personal kuleana to this nomination. I am currently a student in Kmokuhlii, the advanced in-person cohort of Hlau hia Ï Kumu Kekuhi Kealiikanakaole's Hawaii Ecological Kinship training program based here in Hilo. Through Hlau hia I am actively engaged in the very practices Ï kuahu, oli, hula, kaao, kilo Ï that Kmaulihou intends to bring to life at Hakalauiki. Next month I have the profound honor of dancing in the Kpaepae, the ceremonial opening of the 63rd Merrie Monarch Festival, as part of Hlau hia. That ceremony is itself a living expression of what this ina nomination is about: the revival of Hawaiian ritual practice, rooted in place, carried in the body, and transmitted to the next generation. Kumu Kekuhi's vision for Hakalauiki Ï an hia corridor blooming from the pali to the sea, manamana springs flowing clean to the kai, community gathering in seasonal ceremony Ï is not aspirational language. It is a living curriculum. I know this because I am learning it. Her teachings have transformed how I understand my kuleana as a steward, a scientist, and a Puna resident. The work she does through Hlau hia has trained hundreds of conservation professionals across Hawaii and the world. If Kmaulihou is entrusted with this ina, Hakalauiki will become one of the most important sites of biocultural education and ecological restoration in the state Ï and I will be among those doing that work. Our work at Phaku Pelemaka through the Kahu ina Hawaii program mirrors, in spirit and in practice, what Kmaulihou is building at Hakalauiki. At Kaakepa and Pohoiki in Puna, we steward wahi pana under pressure Ï from visitation, from development interest, from the slow erosion of community access to coastlines that have fed and sustained families for generations. We know firsthand that the nomination before you today is not just about one parcel of land. It is about whether our communities retain the right to care for the ina that cares for us. The urgency is real. This parcel is actively listed for $3.4 million. Without public acquisition, the half-mile shoreline of Manamana Ï with its two perennial streams, abundant fisheries, remnant coastal strand, nesting hawksbill turtles, and generations of cultural memory Ï could be permanently enclosed by private interests with no relationship to this place. We have watched this happen along our coastlines again and again. The PONC process exists precisely