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Hawai'i Skies

Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Sharon Goebel on a walk up to Punchbowl. "

This photo was taken on an early walk up to Punchbowl and the sun was just peeking over the horizon, creating a scene of a tree of life. I walk many times up this road, but have never witnessed this light and color. Left me in awe as I stopped to take a photo and gaze at the beauty of Hawaiʻi’s sky."

To submit your Hawai'i Skies photo, visit us 

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Sharon Goebel

<title>Hawai‘i Skies: Peeking over the horizon</title>

Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Sharon Goebel on a walk up to Punchbowl.

Hawai‘i Skies: Peeking over the horizon

Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Sharon Goebel on a walk up to Punchbowl. "This photo was taken on an early walk up to Punchbowl and the sun was just peeking over the horizon, creating a scene of a tree of life. I walk many times up this road, but have never witnessed this light and color. Left me in awe as I stopped to take a photo and gaze at the beauty of Hawaiʻi’s sky." To submit your Hawai'i Skies photo, visit us online or email: general@alohastatedaily.com For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros Headshot

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros

Aloha Spirit

Business & Tourism

James Narayan Higgins already owned eight cows in early 2019 when he had heard that Big Island Dairy was closing, forced to either sell its cows or put them to slaughter.

“We did a fundraiser and set it for just enough money to buy four cows because the space I had for them was limited,” Higgins told Aloha State Daily. “The GoFundMe went viral and raised almost $60,000. It wasn't our original intention, but I ended up getting 70 cows total from the dairy. So you can imagine, with 78 cows in total overnight, it was a crazy next four to five months.”

At that time, he had three acres to keep them temporarily, he said, adding, “But in terms of long-term pasture, I had nothing figured out. It was kind of just a big leap of faith.”

 $200,000 annual operating budget to take care of

250 bovines that graze over 500 acres of land across Hawai

. Revenues come primarily from cow cuddling, Higgins noted, which volunteers and a couple key staff members assist with.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and we needed help taking care of all these cows. It

The program runs daily from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., with people coming to visit from across the globe. It does have busy seasons, which can attract 50 to 100 people per day, and 10 to 15 people on slower days.

“I wanted to sustainably fund this and so far, cow cuddling has turned into something steady as we

’ve also built-up local clientele. We have repeat local families and friends from the other islands,” Higgins said. “But it’s worth it, even 10 to 15 people pays for the operations to run for the day."

He says another venture is in the works – Bull Safari – a driving tour that will showcase the sanctuary’s bulls. He aims to launch that sometime in February.

 is another area Higgins hopes to scale. In a nutshell, it's a win-win, he said. The dual benefits are that landowners get their grass cut and can qualify for grants or tax breaks, while his cows get fed, thereby saving on his operating costs.

“It’s only because of the power of an army of cows, and even if they do get loose, I call them and they all come running back, because of that connection I have with them,” he said.

How did he perfect his cow call? “The person I learned some cow stuff from; they had a similar call. … I just go ‘Cowcowcowcowcow’ super loud and high-pitched, and the cows come.”

In the new year, Higgins plans to expand his team and provide hands-on training for those who want to learn what he does from fencing to feeding and milking, and more. “If anyone wants to set up a franchise on one of the other islands, hit me up. That’s big picture,” he said.

He’s had his first cow, Bhumi, for 12 of her 27 years. “She’s a really rare, sweet, friendly cow. I feed her treats like papayas, bananas, anything we grow. She taught me a lot.”

When asked about the herd's growth over time, he noted that “some are born with us or people give them away, and on occasion, we’ll find a loose cow. But every year, you can expect about 20 to 30 cows come your way from other people.”

As a sanctuary, Higgins added that the cows are not being raised for meat or milk, but “just to live their life.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"This also ties into his Hindu beliefs."}]

Higgins added: “Cows are sacred creatures and that’s because they are Krishna’s favorite animal, so by extension, our favorite animal. We donʻt eat or kill any animals, but cows especially are worthy of being take care of and protected. And so for me, taking care of cows is an act of devotion. In my opinion, when people come in to pet the cows, they’re engaging in spiritual practice, too, because they’re making them happy. And we don’t have to talk about philosophy or politics or any of that. It’s just like connecting on the soul level, connecting with the divine, as well. It’s not just a spiritual religious sentiment. It’s the ultimate practicality.

Higgins was born on O’ahu, raised on Maui, and currently resides on Hawai’i Island. He lives with one of the herds and visits the others at least once a week, he said.

When asked if he had any prior background in farming, he said “zero background whatsoever. I was the pale and skinny kid who played video games all day.”

“I think there’s a parallel between video games and running a business. You’re building your skills, your networks, your strategies, getting feedback, and to me, I guess you don’t need to play when you’re doing it in real life.”

Hilo cow cuddler 16x9

<title>Where to find cow cuddling, bull safaris on the Big Island</title>

James Narayan Higgins of Krishna Cow Sanctuary in Hilo took a leap of faith to save cows from slaughter in 2019. Now responsible for more than 250 bovines, he shares how he incorporates his Hindu beliefs into daily operations, which include popular and new experiences for visitors and kamaʻāina alike.

Where to find cow cuddling, bull safaris on the Big Island

Stephanie Salmons Headshot

Stephanie Salmons

The ongoing eruption of Kīlauea volcano has paused again after its latest hours-long eruptive episode — which started and ended on Saturday — blanketed Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park and some surrounding Big Island communities with tephra and ash.

Episode 41 ended at 7:29 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 24, after a little more than 8 hours of continuous lava fountaining, according to the

 U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory

The summit of Kīlauea within HVNP was closed temporarily on Saturday due to unsafe volcanic conditions, according to an announcement the park’s social media, as was a section of Highway 11. The park entrance and highway reopened later that day.

 Sunday, the park said the eruption produced “huge amounts” of volcanic rock called 

“Park roads, trails, buildings, vehicles were coated in chunks of rock, ash and fine strands of volcanic glass called 

,” the update noted. “Fountain heights reached 1,575 feet and light winds caused the material to fall around the summit instead of being pushed to the southwest.”

, HVO said that an estimated 14 million cubic yards of lava erupted in episode 41 and covered about 80% to 85% of Halema‘uma‘u crater floor.

Tephra also was reported in several Hawai‘i Island communities including Volcano Village, Mauna Loa Estates, ‘Ōhia Estates, Mountain View, Fern Acres, Kurtistown, ‘Āinaloa Estates, Hilo, Hawaiian Paradise Park, Hawaiian Beaches and Pāhoa.

Kīlauea has been erupting intermittently since Dec. 23, 2024, largely from two vents in Halema‘uma‘u crater within Kaluapele, the summit caldera, HVO noted. These eruptive episodes generally last for less than 12 hours and are separated by pauses that can last two weeks or longer, HVO says.

HVO said Monday that preliminary data indicates that the next episode of lava fountaining is likely two to three weeks away.

In an announcement earlier this month, ahead of episode 41, HVNP noted that the eruption activity is in a closed area of the park but is easily seen from open viewing areas along the caldera rim.

"Stay out of closed areas!" the announcement noted, adding that hazards include volcanic gas, steep and unstable cliff edge, earth crack and falling airborne rock material.

HVNP says, too, that visitation "skyrockets" during eruptions — traffic is heavy and parking is limited. Find viewing locations, parking tips and more at the 

January also marks the 17th annual Volcano Awareness Month on Hawai‘i Island. Although the month is winding down, you can still catch a few events in the coming days, with talks planned in HVNP, Hilo and Volcano. Find more information 

Kilauea012426

<title>Kīlauea's latest eruptive episode covers park, communities with tephra and ash</title>

The volcano's latest hours-long eruptive episode — episode 41 — started and ended on Saturday, Jan. 24.

Kīlauea's latest eruptive episode covers park, communities with tephra and ash

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Government & Politics

Crime & Courts

The highest court in the country heard arguments against a Hawai‘i gun control law on Tuesday.

In 2023, Hawai‘i amended its gun control laws to include a rule referred to as the “vampire rule”: in much the same way that a vampire cannot enter a home without first being invited, the law prohibits people from bringing concealed firearms onto private property without the clear consent of the property owner.

Other places prohibited by the law include beaches, parks and restaurants that serve alcohol.

Gun advocates quickly challenged the new law, with three Maui residents — Jason and Alison Wolford and Atom Kasprzycki — along with nonprofit Hawai‘i Firearms Coalition filing a suit that, eventually, reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

All three individual plaintiffs possess licenses to carry concealed handguns and, 

, have been able to carry concealed firearms on private properties such as beaches, parks and restaurants without issue.

Attorney Alan Beck, representing the plaintiffs, told the Supreme Court 

 that Hawai‘i has “run roughshod” over the Second Amendment without sufficient precedent to justify the law.

On the other side of the argument, attorney Neal Katyal said “there is no constitutional right to assume that every invitation to enter private property includes an invitation to bring a gun.”

A sizable chunk of Tuesday’s discussion revolved around whether Hawai‘i's law has any precedent: whether any state had ever imposed their own prohibitions against the carry of firearms onto private property without the owner’s consent.

According to Hawai‘i's court filings, those laws existed: an 1865 law in Louisiana and a New Jersey law enacted in 1771, more than a decade before New Jersey even became a state.

But Beck raised concerns with these examples. The Louisiana law was part of America’s infamous “Black Codes,” law passed immediately following the abolition of slavery to impose restrictions on newly freed Black citizens.

“It is somewhat astonishing that Black Codes which are unconstitutional are being offered as evidence of what our tradition of constitutionally permissible firearm regulation looks like,” Beck said.

And, apart from the fact that the law predates the country itself, Beck said the New Jersey law was an anti-poaching measure focused on preventing the use of guns on specific enclosed lands.

However, while Katyal agreed that the Black Codes arose from “a shameful period,” he said they still carry important legal precedence.

The Court did not issue a verdict on Tuesday, but one is expected in the coming months.

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Court Building 16x9

<title>U.S. Supreme Court hears "vampire rule" gun law arguments</title>

Wolford v. Lopez challenges 2023 gun law prohibiting concealed firearms on private property.

U.S. Supreme Court hears "vampire rule" gun law arguments

Arrasmith Portrait

Perry Arrasmith

Hawaii History

Columnists

I found myself walking down a stretch of the King’s Highway in Waikōloa a few months ago. The graveled lava rock was a little unstable, but the relatively flat and straight path in a decent pair of shoes was pleasant.

It was a quiet and clear morning. There were few clouds. The golf courses around the trail were empty. A solitary Japanese tourist lingered behind me some hundred-or-so yards back on the ground. He stopped to take a break at some unknown point and disappeared.

The heat made my haole skin sweat in short order. There were no trees along the brief trail. Although it was morning, the sun already felt harsh among the volcanic rock. The only sound was the crunch of the small volcanic rocks.

While staring up mauka towards Mauna Loa, a dead writer started talking to me.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Journey of 300 Miles"}]

Bob Krauss passed away in Honolulu in 2006. More than four decades earlier, he had joined a crew of well-supplied pilgrims to trek across the entire island — a span of approximately 300 miles.

My little walk was less than a percentage point of their journey. Waikōloa was towards the end of his original route across the entire island.

The route started in Kailua-Kona, but trailed in the opposite direction to the southernmost tip of the island before turning towards Hilo, proceeding to the northernmost point of the Island near Waimea before turning south again back towards Hilo.

There was no music to block Bob’s thoughts on the walk. His thoughts were all he had on the walk, and so he kept meticulous notes. Those notes inspired the publication of "

 in 1975. As its subtitle explains, the book evolved into an account interspersed “with inquiries into Island behavior and an Island approach to our global future.”

It was more than a travelogue full of opinionated visions. In fact, his semi-religious odyssey was an unwitting political vision for Hawai‘i’s future. As a result, it resides as a forgotten fever dream. While it is long out of print, maybe you can find a copy at the annual Friends of the Library book sale in Honolulu.

As I walked along that trail for less than an hour, I started to wonder where an island way would take Hawai‘i in 2026, and whether we need more people to walk along that journey.

There is a clear and present case for taking Bob Krauss’ walk across Hawai‘i Island, in part thanks to its enduring influence over Hawai‘i’s culture.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Island Way and Palaka Power"}]

Perhaps no figure reconciles the vision of "The Island Way" with Hawai‘i’s political journey than former Governor John D. Waihe‘e.

Waihe‘e’s involvement in state politics took shape in the ’70s, and was indelibly shaped by the meeting of the Island Way with David Hagino’s tract "Palaka Power." The latter tract appeared shortly before the 1978 Constitutional Convention, and would go on to provide a framework for delegates like a young Waihe‘e, who himself was raised along the Hamakua Coast of Hawai‘i Island.

While Krauss wrote Island Way a few years before Hagino’s manifesto, the two were products of the same decade of political, economic, and socio-cultural transition in the young State of Hawai‘i.

“Politically speaking, David [Hagino] was the first person that clearly articulated that dichotomy, and Bob Krauss was writing a book in a political context,” Waihe‘e explains. “Bob Krauss was doing it more as a social-cultural expression, but they both were heading to the same place.”

Krauss, through "The Island Way," also provided a critical political lens that had been lacking in the State of Hawai‘i up to that point. More than three years after its publication, "Palaka Power" expressed Hawai‘i’s unique political culture through the working-class fabric of cloth adorned by plantation workers, dock laborers, and paniolo.

To some, its succinct and sharp tone could be seen as divisive in how it sought to distinguish Hawai‘i’s people and culture from the rest of the United States. Meanwhile, Krauss produced a long, expressive, and observational tome that neutralized the provocative manifesto.

“'The Island Way,' for me, was like a diplomatic version of 'Palaka Power,'” explains Waihe‘e.

"The Island Way" foregrounded the uniqueness of Hawai‘i in greater depth. “There was a difference between how we live and function on an island versus how we live and function on a continent,” he clarifies. “David [Hagino] went on to discuss, in 'Palaka Power,' how that philosophy was being represented — or challenged —by various institutions politically in our society.”

Waihe‘e interpreted "Palaka Power" to argue that the values of Hawai‘i’s institutions needed to be grounded in an island context, not a continental context. His reading of "Palaka Power," however, is only underlined by "The Island Way."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Limitations of An Island Society"}]

"The Island Way’s" philosophy is informed by the transformation of the world into a singular island community, where globalization left people more reliant and vulnerable to global trends. Naturally, such a shrinking world needed to treat the world’s resources in a finite capacity.

While Hawai‘i was becoming more like America, the world was becoming more like Hawai‘i.

There were variants of an Island way of living to be found in the high cost of island living, the politics of dealing with people, the role of the individual, religion, environmental destruction and environmental renewal, housing, warfare, and even romance.

They were all informed by the limited resources and communal nature of an island society.

“Our basic reality of an island is limitation,” Krauss concluded in 1975.

 found Krauss to be bombastic in his diagnosis of society’s ills. “At times,” Warren Iwasa of the Observer wrote, “he allows a commonplace incident or a mildly worrisome set of circumstances to conjure up the specter of a futurist nightmare.”

The Hawai‘i Island explored by Krauss was subject to limitations. “Rising land prices all over reflect an island limitation to land. Re-occurring shortages in grocery stores and shopping centers and gasoline stations are clues to limitations of food, oil, fertilizer, metals, paper, rubber, and all the rest. Limitation to space has prompted concern and disputes over zoning, shoreline development, population control, protection of the environment and exploitation of the ocean.” 

The rhetorical division of palaka power — when layered over the ideals of the Island Way — is what appeared to power the energies and vision of the 1978 Constitutional Convention. There was a need to preserve Hawai‘i from an apocalyptic future beset with cultural erasure and environmental decay. History seemed to suggest that the antidote to society’s complexity was the past’s simplicity. 

The answer was the Island Way. Simplicity could be realized by a return to the Island Way, or perhaps through the development of a new Island Way through such documents as the 1978 Constitution. 

It’s a feeling confirmed by Waihe‘e. “I think the idea that planet Earth is an island, in my opinion, is as compelling as the idea that Hawai‘i was an island and needed to be treated as such in 1978.”  

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Taking a Walk"}]

Some hours after my walk, I relaxed a rain forest on the other side of Hawai‘i. A mist gently floated down to the earth. I stood on a beaten path masquerading as a road for automobiles. Dense thickets of invasive guava formed walls along the path. 

Few people in this world are ever afforded the opportunity to trek across the island of Hawai‘i. We never get to live like Bob Krauss and survey all the towns and people of our islands in minute detail. We are not afforded such opportunities by the conveniences of a continental lifestyle and the subsequent demands set on such finite resources as time. 

Perhaps more people need to make a trek across Hawai‘i in the same vein of such pathways as the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage route in Europe that ends in the Spanish town of Santiago de Compostela. One popular version of the route starts in France, spanning about 500 miles.

I had no time to take a walk around Hawai‘i. Instead of treking down towards the South of the island from Waikōloa and then beating back up towards Na‘alehu and the Puna district, I drove a car across the island. The car itself was imported from the continental United States, along with the gasoline that enabled me to make the trip in a few hours. 

I try my best not to see Hawai‘i as a mystical place. It is another island in the Hawaiian archipelago, albeit a unique one. If I was not careful, O‘ahu could feel continental, a place dominated by reliance on Costco shipments. 

While Hawai‘i Island is much larger than O‘ahu (and every other island in the archipelago), it also relies on Costco shipments, too. In many respects, the islands are more continental than they’ve ever been. Like people in Honolulu, people in Hilo and Kailua-Kona live continental lives, too. While Hawai‘i has arguably become more connected to the United States, the world has also become more of an island.

To an O'ahu urbanite, the Hawai'i of Bob Krauss is a foreign place. It was not accessible by car or plane. It was a romantic vision of the past and a political ideology enshrined in such living documents as Hawai‘i’s Constitution. 

When Krauss was walking across Hawai‘i in 1973, the 

 of Hawai‘i Island stood at 76,400 residents. Today, it surpasses more than 200,000 residents. The islands are taking new paths. 

We’ve embraced the necessity of weighing natural limits to an island lifestyle, but we also enjoy the luxuries of continental connection. We’ve embraced the Island Way, but only on a selective basis. 

In many respects, understanding the evolving nature of these islands requires pilgrimages in the style of Krauss. “I think it would be great if someone did an update of it because what his book was about was getting to know people–getting to know Hawai‘i,” Gov. Waihe‘e notes. 

We should spend some more time getting to know Hawai‘i. There are still pieces of the Island Way among the living, even if it is difficult to survive under absolute island conditions.

I can’t say how hard it is to find the Island Way, but I think it is worth a try.

Krauss HI Observer Image 1975 16x9

<title>The Pilgrimage of Bob Krauss</title>

A half-century ago, legendary journalist Bob Krauss joined a 300-mile trek across Hawai‘i island, inspiring his 1975 book, "The Island Way." In it he explored "an Island approach to our global future" that was influential on local politics at the time and very much worth revisiting today.

The Pilgrimage of Bob Krauss

Over the next four years, researchers from The University of Hawaiʻi John A. Burns School of Medicine will begin gathering stories from the community, including physicians in rural areas, to improve health care and attract more doctors on the Neighbor Islands with the help of Artificial Intelligence.

The project is funded by a $1.1 million from the 

American Medical Association’s Transforming Lifelong Learning Through Precision Education Grant Program

, which in total awarded $12 million nationwide to advance technology and strengthen the physician workforce, it was announced Tuesday.

Leading the initiative, Project HANAI (Health and Nurturing Artificial Intelligence), is 

, the medical school’s Native Hawaiian Center of Excellence principal investigator and director. For this program, she will oversee a core team of five people and is looking to expand.

“It just seemed like a really great marriage of Artificial Intelligence, as well as providing opportunities for education in the state for our physician trainees. And so, the call was put out there, people within the medical school suggested that we write a grant for it, … [and I] thought that it would be a great opportunity to instill cultural values into the AI and just try it out,” Hosoda said of the application process.

In terms of execution, she said the next six months will look like “bringing people together to collect data and talk story.”

’s an investment into our future and will support trainees who are going to serve our communities of most need, which is really what the funding is going to, as well as supporting those physicians who are already practicing,”

she holds a Ph.D. in information computer sciences from the University of Hawai

, where she studied natural language processing and learned how to use AI to improve search engine algorithms for the Hawaiian language.

“For the AI, we plan to create our own localized model – we

not pulling ChatGPT off the shelf – but getting it trained specifically on all of those stories that we

re collecting,” she said. “AI can be seen as a scary tool, but it's an opportunity to amplify voices that are not usually heard and create efficiencies.”

People will be involved in the project, too, she said, adding that the “culturally responsive AI” will be used more as "a guiding tool."

The overall goal, she says, is developing individualized learning plans for JABSOM

“We're approaching it differently and curating how we're teaching the AI,” Hosoda said. “I think that is why the AMA was very excited for our project because it has this opportunity to be a pilot project that can serve all of our rural communities throughout the nation. … More locally, I think that this could go on to any system that is using AI.

“For us, the intention to pursue rural practice in Hawaiʻi is really our benchmark of success in these four years, right? I don't think we're going to be able to to increase the number of physicians in rural practice within four years, just because the training process takes so long," she continued. "The fact that people have that desire and intention to go to those types of communities and have it at the forefront of their mind is really what we're after in this first four years.

For more information about Project HANAI, formerly named “Developing Culturally Responsive AI for Rural Health: Utilizing Precision Education and Precision Coaching to Strengthen Hawaii’s Rural Physician Workforce,” visit 

JABSOM AI

<title>JABSOM aims to create AI that will help recruit physicians</title>

One solution to Hawai’i’s physician shortage, particularly in rural areas, is being tested thanks to a recent grant awarded to The John A. Burns School of Medicine Native Hawaiian Center of Excellence from the American Medical Association. Meet the team of researchers who will be carrying it out.

JABSOM aims to create AI that will help recruit physicians

Leinaala Ley WEB

Leināʻala Ley

Viewpoints

Answer, o Natives, those who seek wisdom.”

Welina! This inaugural “Nā ʻŌiwi ʻŌlino” column is designed to keep our lāhui updated on the work of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ (OHA) Public Policy team. Mahalo to the late Aunty Mālia Craver who gifted the name to OHA in the early 2000s for its Native Rights Campaign. She shared that the intention behind the name was “to have the [lāhui] be people with knowledge and wisdom in everything they do.”

In this spirit, we will spotlight advocacy issues that OHA is currently working on and invite you to join us in taking collective action for our lāhui.

Our team advocates year-round at the county, state, and federal levels, in both agency and legislative forums, to ensure Native Hawaiian perspectives and rights inform important policy decisions.

The state legislative session that opens on the third Wednesday in January is particularly important for advancing policies that improve the conditions of Native Hawaiians and defending against attacks on Native Hawaiian rights.

For the 2026 legislative session, OHA’s trustees have approved the following six bills for our team to champion. We hope the lāhui will join us in supporting these bills.

The five Island Burial Councils (IBCs) play an integral role in implementing the state’s Historic Preservation Law (HRS Chapter 6E) and protecting iwi kūpuna, including by approving burial treatment plans and recognizing lineal and cultural descendants. Currently, several IBCs have been limited in their ability to carry out these essential functions due, in part, to difficulties recruiting candidates and meeting quorum requirements for voting. This bill proposes reducing static quorum requirements, authorizing OHA to provide per diem stipends for regional members, and extending the timeline for filling mid-term vacancies from 30 to 75 days.

Act 293 (signed in July 2025) expanded an existing loophole in the state’s Historic Preservation Law by exempting projects on residential properties in so-called “nominally sensitive areas” from review. This new category of properties could be interpreted to cover large developments in areas known to contain a high concentration of iwi. The term “nominally sensitive” could be interpreted to include construction sites where work commenced prior to the enactment of legal mandates to survey or inventory properties for burials. This bill would close this loophole by removing the “nominally sensitive” language and limiting the residential exemption to projects without a ground-disturbing impact.

The Land Use Commission (LUC) is responsible for placing all land in Hawaiʻi in one of four categories (conservation, rural, agricultural, urban), and ruling on petitions to reclassify land, usually from a lower to higher classifications to enable development. This bill would mandate that at least one LUC member have expertise in water resource management and empower OHA to recommend candidates for the existing Hawaiian land use and cultural practice expertise seat. This would ensure critical water expertise informs land use decisions early in the planning process and give OHA – and beneficiaries – a role in nominating candidates to the Hawaiian expert seat.

Protect reef fishes from commercial aquarium collection

This bill would permanently prohibit extraction of Hawaiʻi’s nearshore marine life for commercial sale as aquarium pets and ornamental aquarium displays, with exceptions for scientific and educational institutions. The proposed ban is consistent with OHA’s existing duties to advance Native Hawaiian traditional and customary rights under Article XII, section 7 of the Hawaiʻi State Constitution as aquarium collection is associated with the decline of targeted fish species, including those used by Native Hawaiians for cultural and subsistence purposes.

Amend the Hawaiʻi State Constitution to prohibit live-fire military training

The public land trust is comprised primarily of former crown and government lands of the Hawaiian Kingdom. This proposed constitutional amendment gives the people of Hawaiʻi the opportunity to protect public trust land from further harm through a question on the 2026 ballot asking: “Shall the Constitution of the State of Hawaiʻi be amended to prohibit destructive live fire military training – defined as the discharge of large caliber munitions employing standard, incendiary, high explosive or inert rounds, whether portable, crew-served, or vehicle- mounted – from occurring on the public trust lands identified in Article XII, section 4?”

Because Hawaiʻi does not have a citizen-initiated ballot process, the only way to place the live fire issue before the electorate is by passing a bill through a two-thirds supermajority of House and Senate members. If this bill passes the legislature, this question will go before voters next November.

Median rents in Hawaiʻi increased by approximately 80% between 2019 and 2023, contributing to Hawaiʻi’s affordability crisis. Unaffordable housing is a primary driver for the out-migration of residents and decreases the quality of life for the 52.5% of Native Hawaiian families in Hawaiʻi that spend more than 30% of their income on housing. This bill will establish a 3% cap on rent increases, consistent with the average annual cost of living increase received by wageworkers but provides exemptions for owner-occupied properties.

This article is reprinted with permission from 

OHA's Ka Wai Ola newspaper: "Summary of OHA’s 2026 Legislative Package" by Leināʻala Ley, OHA Chief Advocate, in its

 January 2026 issue, Vol. 43 No. 1. Read more at 

Queen looks upon the state seal

<title>Community Voices: OHA’s 2026 Legislative priorities</title>

"The state legislative session that opens on the third Wednesday in January is particularly important for advancing policies that improve the conditions of Native Hawaiians and defending against attacks on Native Hawaiian rights."

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