Opinion ID: 2607272
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Pele Defense Fund v. Paty: judicial recognition of traditional access and gathering rights based upon custom

Text: Pele involved, inter alia, the assertion of customarily and traditionally exercised subsistence, cultural, and religious practices in the Wao Kele `O Puna Natural Area Reserve on the Big Island. For the purposes of summary judgment, we held that there was a sufficient basis to find that gathering rights can be claimed by persons who do not reside in the particular ahupua`a where they seek to exercise those rights. Pele, 73 Haw. at 621, 837 P.2d at 1272 (reversing summary judgment and remanding for trial on this issue). We specifically held that native Hawaiian rights protected by article XII, § 7 may extend beyond the ahupua`a in which a native Hawaiian resides. Pele, 73 Haw. at 620, 837 P.2d at 1272. In so holding, we explicated the discussion of gathering rights in Kalipi by recognizing that a claim based on practiced customs raises different issues than assertions premised on mere land ownership. Unlike Kalipi, [Pele Defense Fund] members assert native Hawaiian rights based on the traditional access and gathering patterns of native Hawaiians in the Puna region. Because Kalipi based his claims entirely on land ownership, rather than on the practiced customs of Hawaiians on [Moloka`i], the issue facing us is somewhat different from the issue in Kalipi. Pele, 73 Haw. at 618-19, 837 P.2d at 1271. Although we later mentioned other requirements of Kalipi  with approvalimplicitly referring to the undeveloped lands and no actual harm requirements of Kalipi, see 73 Haw. at 621, 837 P.2d at 1272our holding in Pele was not intended to foreclose argument regarding those requirements in future, unrelated cases involving assertions of customary and traditional rights under HRS § 1-1. In Kalipi, we foresaw that `[t]he precise nature and scope of the rights retained by § 1-1 would, of course, depend upon the particular circumstances of each case.' Pele, 73 Haw. at 619, 837 P.2d at 1271 (quoting Kalipi, 66 Haw. at 12, 656 P.2d at 752).