num_pages: 272
description: The tide is rising ahead of the early morning sun on the northeast coast of the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Waves rush singing onto the outer reef where two throw net fishermen stalk the surge. An elderly woman with her silver hair in a kerchief makes her way toward shore two octopuses tucked in her mesh bag. Within hours two hundred tourists will snorkel sunbathe and teeter on the coral few ever knowing that people fish here or that their catch sustains an entire kaiulu (community) connected to this stretch of reef. This coast is known as a playground for tourists and backdrop for Hollywood movies but catch from small local reefs and the sharing of this abundance has sustained area families for centuries helping them to thrive through tidal waves hurricanes an influx of new residents and economic recessions. Yet fishing families are increasingly invisible and many have moved away threatened by global commodification and loss of access to coastal lands that are now private retreats for star entertainers investors and dot-com millionaires. Building on two decades of interviews with more than sixty Hawaiian elders leaders and fishermen and women Kaiulu shares their stories of enduring community efforts to perpetuate kuleana often translated to mean rights and responsibilities. Community actions extend kuleana to include nurturing respectful relationships with resources guarding and cultivating fishing spots perpetuating collective harvests and sharing maintaining connection to family lands reasserting local governance rooted in ancestral values and preparing future generations to carry on. An important contribution to scholarship in the fields of natural resource management geography Indigenous Studies and Hawaiian Studies Kaiulu is also a skillfully written and deeply personal tribute to a community based not on ownership but reciprocity responsibility and caring for the places that shape and sustain us all.
language: None
title: Kaiaulu: Gathering Tides
publisher: Oregon State University Press