Ola i ka wai = Water is Life

Hawai‘i is growing a deep-rooted movement to restore native streams and end plantation-era water diversion and waste. We are shedding the injustices of the past and restoring a shared natural and cultural resource for the future.

 

**Call to action to support Maui Komohana’s Water Resources**

In Hawaiian culture, wai (water) is more than a resource. It’s the economy (waiwai, meaning wealth), it’s society (kānāwai, meaning the law), it’s family and deity (the embodiment of the ancestral god Kāne). It’s life itself!

Despite long-standing legal protections for wai as a public trust resource, many of Hawai‘i’s life-giving rivers and streams have been drained for over a century by sugar plantations and their successor companies seeking to maintain their stranglehold on our most precious resource.  But the communities that have been starved of water all these years are standing up for justice.

A wave of change has been building to uphold the public trust and restore the flow of freshwater from ma uka to ma kai (mountain to sea) and the ways of life that depend on this connection. Now spanning several generations and communities across the pae ‘āina (archipelago), this movement combines legal action and “taro-roots” community power to return the waters to the people and revitalize the living Hawaiian culture.

More about us

**Call to action to support Maui Komohana’s Water Resources**

In Hawaiian culture, wai (water) is more than a resource. It’s the economy (waiwai, meaning wealth), it’s society (kānāwai, meaning the law), it’s family and deity (the embodiment of the ancestral god Kāne). It’s life itself!

Despite long-standing legal protections for wai as a public trust resource, many of Hawai‘i’s life-giving rivers and streams have been drained for over a century by sugar plantations and their successor companies seeking to maintain their stranglehold on our most precious resource.  But the communities that have been starved of water all these years are standing up for justice.

A wave of change has been building to uphold the public trust and restore the flow of freshwater from ma uka to ma kai (mountain to sea) and the ways of life that depend on this connection. Now spanning several generations and communities across the pae ‘āina (archipelago), this movement combines legal action and “taro-roots” community power to return the waters to the people and revitalize the living Hawaiian culture.

More about us

 

Our core pillars

Ho‘iho‘i

Ho‘iho‘i

Restoration

Restoring ma uka to ma kai flow sustains our native stream life, wetlands, and estuaries, traditional farming and fisheries, and drinking water supplies.

Kaiāulu

Kaiāulu

Community

Communities across the islands rise up for their values and ways of life, driving this movement for change both in the law and on the ground.

Kaulike

Kaulike

Justice

Upholding the public trust is about justice: redressing a century of wrongs from the past, and realizing a vision of stewardship for the future.

Kuleana

Kuleana

Obligation / Privilege

We unite around our kuleana to protect our waters—and hold private diverters and government trustees accountable to that same kuleana.

Frontline Communities

 

Click on a map marker to see how our communities are taking action!

Ola i ka Wai News & Events

Community Challenges Governor Green’s Appointment to the Water Commission in Court

Community Challenges Governor Green’s Appointment to the Water Commission in Court

Instead of naming one of the two highly qualified candidates on the original list from the Nominating Committee, Governor Green sidestepped the law to redo the list and named his preferred candidate for the loea…

Watch the Second Nominating Process for the Loea on the Water Commission

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Watch the Second Nominating Process for the Loea on the Water Commission

Despite all of our best efforts to urge him to pick a loea from the current list of candidates, Governor Green decided to proceed with a second  nominating committee to vet candidates for the loea…

Together, we can restore Hawai‘i’s waterways.

Learn about our frontline communities