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Playlist: Hawaii

Compiled By: Marieke McArthur

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Hawaii Tax Assistance Programs Underway

From Ben Markus | 03:12

AARP Tax Aide, the country's largest is helping low income seniors navigate a complicated tax system--for free.

New_image_small It's still 7 weeks until taxes are due, but programs across the state are already busy helping seniors and those with low income.  HPR's Ben Markus reports how the nation's largest volunteer porgram is faring so far.

Ancient Hawaiian Farmers Offer Lessons in Sustainability

From Heidi Chang | 03:09

Explore Limahuli Garden and Preserve on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where scientists believe the legacy of ancient Hawaiian farmers can show the world how to care for the planet.

Limahuli_taro-hale-mtmakana-1080_img_6171_ntbg-700x467_small In celebration of Earth Month (April) or Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (May), let’s take a look at how the state of Hawaii is incorporating indigenous culture into its conservation initiatives.  A shining example of this is Limahuli Garden and Preserve on the island of Kauai.

Kawika Winter enjoys introducing people to one of Hawaii’s natural treasures through guided tours.  He’s been director of Limahuli Garden and Preserve on the island of Kauai for more than a decade.  “When you first come into the valley, you see all these terraces that are remnants of the ancient agricultural complex that dates back almost a thousand years. So the original inhabitants of this valley built these walls and left them to be able to grow taro on the land,” says Winter, pointing to the evidence of successful, sustainable farming in valley.


Exploring the verdant tropical valley makes you feel like you’re stepping back in time. Winter notes while most of Hawaii’s food is now imported, once upon a time, valleys like this one nourished the whole community.  “If you’re to take the time to walk through the jungle over here, you’d find terrace after terrace after terrace, all the way down to the ocean. So this valley was definitely feeding a lot of people in the old days.” In fact, its name – Limahuli – in Hawaiian, means turning hands, and Winter says it might refer to the people who once turned their hands here to work the earth.


Ancient land management system

Limahuli Garden and Preserve is one of four gardens in Hawaii run by the National Tropical Botanical Garden. Winter says it’s also one of the few places in the state where people can learn how to manage resources based on the ancient Hawaiian ahupua`a system. He explains, “An ahupua’a is basically a land section that extends from the top of the mountains, out into the ocean and it’s within the borders of an ahupua’a that Hawaiian communities were developed and managed.”

Today, Hawaii is the endangered species capital of the U.S. Winter says Limahuli plays a leading role in saving native species with its approach to bicultural conservation.

“There’s upwards of 40 species that are on the verge of extinction that exist in our valley. And we’re working to do ecological restoration to prevent extinction of this precious biodiversity that exists in this valley,” Winter says. “Some of the species are only existing in this valley, and some of them are down to a few individuals in the wild.”

Lessons for sustainability

The Hawaii botanist says he hopes that by coming to Limahuli, visitors will learn some valuable lessons from the ancient Hawaiians who worked this land: whatever you do on the land affects the life and ecosystem of the ocean, and that fresh water is the secret to everything. These days, Limahuli Stream remains one of the last pristine waterways left in the Islands.

Kawika Winter believes Limahuli Garden and Preserve can show the world how to care for the planet. “You know a lot of us in Hawaii are trying to move towards a more sustainable lifestyle. It’s really big buzzword now, sustainability. But from our perspective, instead of reinventing the wheel, all we need to do is look back to a system that worked in Hawaii for at least a millennium and quite possibly more. And our hope is that we can be a model of sustainability and we can show that the ahupua’a system can offer viable solutions to our contemporary issues regarding sustainability in Hawaii and the globe.” 

 

Blue Water Cowboys

From Outer Voices | 22:39

“Blue Water” sailing is the kind where there’s no land to be seen, hopefully for days or weeks on end, and there’s a rare group of people who contrive everything else in their lives in order to be at sea for as long as possible. These are the Blue Water Cowboys, Outer Voices scrambled on board a sailing cargo ship, the SV Kwai, microphone in hand. as it made its way through the far flung islands of the Pacific nation of Kiribas, and finally north back to Hawaii. Here's the story.

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The nation of Kiribati is a comprised almost entirely of water, with small pieces of land barely an interruption to the powerful wash of the equatorial currents and the trade winds that blow through them. One group of Kiribati islands, called the Line Islands, lie barely north of the equator and due south of Hawai’i, and that’s where I met up with the SV Kwai.  The Kwai is a sailing cargo ship that travels thousands of miles through the Pacific Ocean every year to bring much needed supplies to the people who live in this far flung part of the world. Line Islanders get double use out of the Kwai, turning the cargo ship into a ferry to get from place to place.

I got on board with them at Christmas Island, sleeping on the deck with them between Christmas, Fanning and Washington islands.  After the passengers were gone, I stayed on board for the long journey home to Honolulu. While on board, I had my microphone on as much as possible, though it wasn’t always possible.

The crew of the Kwai and the people of the Line Islands are defined by the shape of the sea – a tough shell protects a gentleness not far underneath. The lives of passengers and crew are intertwined with each other, and with the elements of sea and sky that they share – something common to so many people I know who live their lives, by fate  or by design, on the open ocean.  These islanders, this crew, and all the people like them, these are the Blue Water Cowboys.

Blue Water Cowboys  is the at the center of three radio pieces about them, and the ocean that weaves them together.

VoiceBox: Hawaii Song-O: On the Art of Hula Singing

From VoiceBox | 58:01

n Hawaiian Hula, singing and dancing going hand in hand. Join Patrick Makuakane, director of Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu, a hula school and performance company based in San Francisco, and VoiceBox host Chloe Veltman, for a journey into this ancient artistic tradition.

Hula_small n Hawaiian Hula, singing and dancing going hand in hand. Join Patrick Makuakane, director of Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu, a hula school and performance company based in San Francisco, and VoiceBox host Chloe Veltman, for a journey into this ancient artistic tradition.