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ASD Staff

Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"Conductor falls asleep on the job..."}]

Smile 26 5 28

<title>Daily Smile: Thursday, May 28, 2026</title>

Conductor falls asleep on the job...

Daily Smile: Thursday, May 28, 2026

Christian Shimabuku Headshot

Christian Shimabuku

Sports

LAS VEGAS — The Rolex watch he was sporting on his left wrist. The major preseason accolades he was voted for. The large scrum that appeared at his media availability on Wednesday. Life is good for Micah Alejado, starting quarterback for the University of Hawai‘i football team. 

Alejado only started one game in his true freshman season in 2024, a five-touchdown performance against New Mexico in the season finale. Although he was 

established as the team's starter entering the 2025 season

, he was largely an unknown commodity heading into the year. 

Despite severely injuring his right leg in Hawai‘i's 2025 

, Alejado went on to play 11 games, most of them compromised. Alejado threw for 3,106 yards and 24 touchdowns to just nine interceptions, completing 66.3% of his passes. For his efforts, Alejado was named the Mountain West Freshman of the Year. 

Alejado's decision to come back for another year, despite the annual transfer portal temptations a player of his caliber demands, was the impetus of Hawai‘i's promising outlook for 2026, with 

 the Rainbow Warriors could make the College Football Playoff. 

Prior to the 2026 season, Alejado has certainly caught the attention of college football by now. On Wednesday, he was named the Mountain West Conference's preseason Offensive Player of the Year in addition to making the preseason all-conference team. Despite all the increased attention he's received over the course of a year, Alejado is trying to take it in stride. 

"It's a blessing. It's my job to go enjoy it, but it's also my job to understand that nothing has happened yet," Alejado told Aloha State Daily of the preseason accolades. "Still no stats yet, and it's our job to go win some football games. We have to go prove ourselves. If I'm gonna be tabbed preseason Player of the Year, I gotta go play like it, right? I gotta go prove myself, and that's the biggest thing, especially as a team. We're nothing yet. We haven't earned any respect. We haven't proved anything yet in 2026. It's about going out there and winning football games. It starts at fall camp next week. So, I'm very excited, ready to attack the challenge and everything that comes with it."

When the Alejado family moved to Nevada to pursue Micah's football career, it was a true family decision, and the Alejados have made the Silver State their second home. 

"I try to come back (often)," Alejado says of Las Vegas. "Just being able to go to my bedroom, driving my car. I think those are things I took for granted because that's really my home. I love the scenery here. I love the strip. You can't get the strip in Hawai‘i. It's bright lights. I went to the 

. You go to concerts, things like that. Las Vegas has it all."

Alejado has taken on an increased leadership role heading into 2026, a responsibility head coach Timmy Chang believes is a strength. 

"I think there's so much he's got going for himself," 

 said. "He knows what it takes to win at a high level and he knows that he can't do it alone. It's great to see him grow and develop and continue but his leadership is where we want him to continue to grow, but it continues to remain one of his strengths."

As he enters his second full season as UH's starting quarterback, Alejado is ready to begin anew. If he can stay healthy, he believes there's another level that can be unlocked. 

"Definitely pain free," said Alejado, who was held out of live reps in the spring in order to rehab his foot. "(

) is working really well for me. Getting back to 100% worked really well this offseason, and I feel better than ever right now. Faster, stronger, quicker than I was before I got hurt. I was just blessed to be able to go through those six months and just to rehab and get it better and get it stronger again. I'm excited to get back and show everybody in fall camp that I'm back to normal and even better."

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Micah Alejado 071626

<title>Hawai‘i quarterback Micah Alejado embraces star status at Mountain West media days</title>

Alejado, who is set to enter his second season as UH's starting quarterback, was voted the Mountain West's preseason Offensive Player of the Year on Wednesday.

Hawai‘i quarterback Micah Alejado embraces star status at Mountain West media days

University of Hawai‘i head football coach 

 has agreed to a long-term contract extension to remain the head coach of the Rainbow Warriors. 

In a Q&A with Aloha State Daily, UH athletics director Matt Elliott confirmed that the two sides have a deal in place that includes an increased salary pool for the football team's assistant coaches, as well as two-year deals for multiple assistant coaches. Many coaches on the UH football staff operate on one-year contracts. (Click 

The deal is pending university approval and will be announced by the school upon completion, Elliott says. 

"We have a deal," Elliott said. "It's just a matter of going through those signature processes. We'll announce it very soon. But yes, we have a long-term extension.

"He and I reached a deal in the in the winter. His focus was, 'I want to get deals done for all my staff,' so that's where we spent some time. In a lot of cases, we're doing two-year deals for a lot of the assistant coaches, so kind of getting all those in place first, and now we've been just going through it, and it takes regent approval. It takes different levels of our university to approve the contract. So, it's done. It's just a matter of getting it all signed."

Chang, who was hired in January 2022, has gone 22-29 in his four seasons at the helm. The Rainbow Warriors went 9-4 in a breakthrough 2025 campaign, ending their season with a dramatic comeback victory over California in the 

Prior to the extension, Chang's contract was set to expire following the 2026 season. His initial four-year deal with the school was extended by one year in December 2024. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Hawai‘i opens its 2026 season at Stanford on Aug 29. "}]

Timmy Chang 061526

<title>Timmy Chang, UH agree to long-term contract extension, UH AD Matt Elliott says</title>

Chang's current contract was set to expire following the 2026 season.

Timmy Chang, UH agree to long-term contract extension, UH AD Matt Elliott says

Kam Napier Headshot

A. Kam Napier

Columnists

Government & Politics

If you’re a street junkie, shooting up heroin in Chinatown, the State of Hawai‘i has your back. It’ll take our tax dollars and turn them into clean needles, so you can keep on shooting safely.

Fentanyl addict? Go for it! Chances are you’ll never get busted for public intoxication (though it’s a crime), or possession (a crime), and if you overdose, the state will once again turn tax dollars into Narcan to save your life. All your emergency rooms visits? Not to worry! “The people” have you covered with their tax dollars and inflated insurance premiums.

If you’re an alcoholic, the State of Hawai‘i just doesn’t care. Legislators drink, after all, they’re not going to go after their own Heineken and Merlot. Just don’t drink and drive, that’s the only area where we see public policy put any time and money. Everyone seems perfectly confident that ID checks at the liquor store are keeping booze out of the hands of children.

Love pot? Lucky you live Hawai‘i! Hawai‘i loves pot and Hawai‘i loves you! It’s de facto legal, based on how often you can smell pot in the open. And it’s trivially easy to go the law-abiding medical marijuana route. Tell a doctor you’re anxious, get a prescription and it’s off the pot pharmacy you go. Enjoy! After all, we’ve hashed this issue out for years now and all sensible people agree that drug prohibitions never work. You have to respect people’s choices and just legalize and tax their habit.

But if you’re a smoker who’d like to quit smoking cigarettes by going to a safer but similar alternative, this same State of Hawai‘i has just two words.

, Gov. Josh Green just signed a law that as of January 1, 2027, will ban “99.9% of disposable vapes” in Hawai‘i. Flanked by public health officials and the obligatory Child For Whom We Do This, he positively beamed with pride.

Over what, exactly? Doctor Governor Green should be aware that if harm reduction works for hard drugs, it certainly does with nicotine. The UK’s NHS (formerly known as the National Health Service), which is beloved by American Democrats as an ideal model of universal health care, has 

“In recent years, e-cigarettes have become a very popular stop smoking aid in the UK. Also known as vapes or e-cigs, they're far less harmful than cigarettes, and can help you quit smoking for good. … Many thousands of people in the UK have already stopped smoking with the help of an e-cigarette. There's evidence that they can be effective. A 2021 review found people who used e-cigarettes to quit smoking, as well as having expert face-to-face support, can be up to twice as likely to succeed as people who used other nicotine replacement products, such as patches or gum.”

Our reporter asked Green about that. He replied with skepticism, saying, “The biggest problem has been getting an entire generation … innumerable middle schoolers and high schoolers hooked,” Green said. “Society has found ways to quit traditional cigarettes through medical means, through behavioral techniques; we should lean on those.”

Does he even hear himself? He said this while signing an e-cig prohibition law. Not medical means, not behavioral techniques, no, just the ban hammer. Meanwhile, actual tobacco cigarettes, the really dangerous ones we didn’t ban, remain perfectly available.

Then Green put Lola Irvin on the spot for further comment on our question. Irvin is administrator of the state Department of Health’s Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Division. As we reported, she said adults who have concurrently used traditional cigarettes and e-cigarettes are less likely to successfully quit smoking, while young people who begin using e-cigarettes are more likely to transition to smoking traditional cigarettes.

[{"type":"text","text":"So much for harm reduction!"}]

Irvin seems unaware of the NHS findings I shared above about people successfully using e-cigs to quit tobacco cigarettes or reduce their intake. There are other studies.

Efficacy and Safety of E-Cigarette Use for Smoking Cessation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

,” for example, published in 2023 at The American Journal of Medicine. Conclusion: “Nicotine e-cigarettes were associated with increased smoking abstinence in comparison with non-nicotine e-cigarettes. Furthermore, nicotine and non-nicotine e-cigarettes increased abstinence compared with conventional smoking cessation therapies, and the absolute risk of [Serious Adverse Events] was low across all trials. Overall, these data suggest e-cigarettes appear to be more efficacious than conventional nicotine replacement or behavioral smoking cessation therapies.”

, published last November. “Nicotine e-cigarettes can help people to stop smoking for at least six months,” it concludes. “Evidence shows they work better than nicotine replacement therapy, and probably better than e-cigarettes without nicotine. They may work better than no support, or behavioral support alone, and may not be associated with serious unwanted effects.”

As for her arguments that e-cigs and vaping makes teenagers more likely to take up smoking real tobacco cigarettes, there are indeed studies that find teens given to try vices will try both vaping and smoking, sometimes in that order, sometimes the other way around. These studies find they’ll often also try pot and booze.

When you measure what youths actually do, however, the astonishing and wonderful fact is that 

peaked in 1997 at 36.4%, considerably higher than the adult rate that year of 24.7%. By 2021, the youth smoking rate dropped to just 3.8%, well below the adult rate of 11.5%.

That’s an 86% decline in just 24 years, across all ethnicities, sexes and grade levels.

And it has dropped even more since then, despite the arrival of e-cigs and vaping. As of 2024, according to the 

, just 1.4% of high school students reported any use of tobacco cigarettes.

, found that from 2022 to 2025, e-cigarette and tobacco cigarette use among youth further declined while nicotine pouch use remained low and stable.

In other words, we won the war on youth smoking, without any prohibitions at all. When our governor says that "an entire generation … innumerable middle schoolers and high schoolers" have just been "hooked" on nicotine, he is flat out lying. The exact opposite is true. 

Rather than declare victory and keep on with existing, obviously effective policies, Hawai‘i snatched a crisis from the jaws of success and enacted this ban.

Because they did so in part to “protect our keiki,” they had a student speak at yesterday's press conference, Maya Butts. The bathrooms at her school, Kalaheo High School, she said have become just “places to vape.”

That’s surely against school rules and is certainly already illegal, so this sounds like an enforcement problem to me. Except the enforcers failed to uphold existing law. Then she said:

“I’ve watched my smart, athletic friends completely lose their motivation. They got hooked on these devices that taste like candy, move on to other substances, then lose their spark altogether.”

I hate to break it to Butts, but if vaping makes her schoolmates lethargic and lazy, they aren’t vaping nicotine. They’re vaping pot.

But the ban is about more than health and protecting kids, Green said, and the text of the legislation argues. It’s about protecting the environment. In each disposable vape is a battery and these batteries are getting into the environment, they asserted, without data.

Setting aside the fact that I’ve never seen the gutters lined with thrown-away vapes the way one used to see cigarette butts, I’ll just note that this is the same state government that is forcing us to import batteries by the tons for our carbon-free solar future. A half-ton battery in every EV. Batteries the size of a Matson cargo container for the solar farms. All with no plan for their disposal or recycling.

OK, so if you dig into facts and find that there is no youth smoking crisis, and the stated rationalizations for the ban range from transparently bogus to logically inconsistent, what’s really going on here?

[{"type":"text","text":"Class warfare, that’s what."}]

Vaping nicotine is, by and large, a lower-middle class and working-class vice. Construction laborers, single moms working two or three jobs, people who ride the bus. People who rent. They have ambitions and aspirations constantly thwarted by Hawai‘i high cost of living and ridiculously unnecessary housing shortage.

They’re tired, they’re stressed. They turned, at some point in their lives, to Kool Milds and Marlboro Lights to deal with it all. They know smoking is bad, though, but quitting is hard. Smoking is a pleasure, it’s a consolation. It both calms anxiety and sharpens concentration.

Then, miracle of miracles, technology gave them a better choice. Tobacco-free nicotine they can inhale for the same soothing, sensual pleasures they got from smoking, with none of the known carcinogens, none of the pilau smell.

On the other hand, we have the upper-middle class and those who aspire to that status. Your governors, legislators, health department careerists and high school faculty. People with social capital and clout, if not vast wealth beyond the equity in their home that they own. Few to none of these white-collar, college-educated professionals ever smoked, or quit years ago. They know better.

[{"type":"text","text":"They took one look at vaping and thought, in unison:"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“That looks stupid. That looks tacky. That looks low-class.”"}]

That’s it. That’s the whole mindset. All the people who pushed this ban won’t say it, because they know how it sounds. No one wants to be seen as a snob and a Karen, they want to hide that. So they prop up children as human shields, gin up a non-existent crisis and use health and the environment as fig leaves.

All those smiling faces at that press conference? That’s the look of people gloating in triumph.

[{"type":"text","text":"“We took something stupid away from the stupid people! Yay, us!”"}]

That’s all that happened yesterday, and Hawai‘i is a better place as a result. For them.

A. Kam Napier is editor in chief of Aloha State Daily. His opinions in Pipikaula Corner are his own and not reflective of the ASD team.

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Vapes i Stock 2232713126 16x9

<title>Pipikaula Corner: Hawai‘i's fraudulent vape ban</title>

On Tuesday, Hawai‘i Gov. Josh Green signed into law a ban on "99.9% of disposable vapes." It's a move totally at odds with the harm reduction strategies the state uses for all other vices, argues ASD Editor in Chief A. Kam Napier. And it's in response to a non-existent crisis, in that teen smoking and vaping is the lowest it's ever been in a quarter century.

Pipikaula Corner: Hawai‘i's fraudulent vape ban

Lopaka and Tanya Kapanui

Lopaka Kapanui and Tanya Kapanui

Hawai‘i History

“War shall cease on Hawaiʻi when one shall come and shall be laid above on the altar of Puʻukoholā, the house of god.”

This was the prophecy of Kapoukai of Molokaʻi when Kamehameha inquired how he could successfully control the island. By the death of Keōua, all of Hawaiʻi Island came under Kamehameha’s rule.

Years before that, Kalaniopuʻu was aliʻi nui of Hawaiʻi. His sons were Kīwalaʻo and Keōuakūʻahuʻula, and his nephew was Kamehameha. When Kalaniopuʻu died, he left the rule of the land to Kīwalaʻo and his war god, Kūkaʻilimoku, to Kamehameha. Kīwalaʻo offered some land to his uncle, Keawemauhili, leaving his half-brother, Keōua, with nothing.

Eventually, the death of Kīwalaʻo left Hawaiʻi Island divided between the rival claims of the three aliʻi. Keōua ruled over Kaʻū and much of Puna in the south, Kamehameha controlled Kohala and Kona in the west, and Keawemauhili held Hilo in the east. Regardless, Kamehameha continued his conquest by invading Maui, Lānaʻi, and Molokaʻi.

While on Molokaʻi, the kahuna Kapoukahi prophesied that war would end and the land would be his if Kamehameha built a heiau at Puʻukoholā and dedicated it to the war god Kū.

Historians say that aside from women and the kapu aliʻi, Kealiʻimaikaʻi, Kamehameha’s sacred brother, every person was involved in building the heiau, including Kamehameha himself. The kāhuna selected the site and determined the orientation, size, and arrangement, and the people formed a human chain nearly 20 miles long, passing the stones from person to person from Pololu Valley to Puʻukoholā.

In order for the heiau to be acceptable to the gods, the construction was under strict kapu, and every stage of progress was met with ritual and ceremony. Any person who was unfortunate enough to break the kapu, even by accident, paid with his life.

The prophet also proclaimed that the heiau would possess the mana (spiritual power) necessary to fulfill the prophecy only if a high-ranking individual were offered in sacrifice. So, after completing the heiau in 1791, Kamehameha invited his cousin, Keōua, to Kawaiahae with an offer of peace.

It is said that Keōua knew he was about to die. As his party traveled to Kawaihae by canoe, they made one last stop. In a pond called Luahinewai, he performed ʻūmuʻo, a ritual circumcision.

Ideally, when a man is meant to be sacrificed to the gods, his body could not be damaged. Keōua’s self-mutilation made him an imperfect sacrifice. His final act of defiance to Kamehameha.

As Keōua was about to step ashore at Kawaihae, he was killed by one of Kamehameha’s aliʻi. Thus, he became the first sacrifice of Puʻukoholā, but not the last. With Keōua dead and his supporters either killed or captured, Kamehameha became the aliʻi nui of Hawaiʻi Island, leading to the eventual conquest and consolidation of all the islands under one rule.

In 1972, the Queen Emma Foundation donated 34 acres of land around the Puʻukoholā Heiau, including the John Young Homestead, establishing the Puʻukoholā Heiau National Historic Site. This landmark sees thousands of visitors each year, making it one of the most significant historic sites in Hawaiʻi. But not all of those visitors are among the living.

He pō Kāne kēia, ke māʻau nei nā ʻeʻepa o ka pō. 

This is the night of Kāne, for supernatural beings are wandering about in the dark.

This ʻŌlelo Noʻeau (Hawaiian proverb) is said of those who go wandering about at night. It is believed that on the night of Kāne — the night of no moon — ghosts, demigods, and other beings wander about among the living. Pō Kāne is often referred to when speaking of the legendary huakaʻi pō, also known as the night marchers.

The most common description of the night marchers is a group of ghostly warriors marching in a haunted procession. Their announcement comes in several forms: the sound of the pū (conch shell), the pounding of distant pahu (drums) getting closer, the music of the ‘ohe hano ihu (nose flute), the sound of stomping feet, or a line of torch lights traveling along a path. Some say that they have felt the earth shake or caught the scent of sulfur, and some have said that they witnessed a column of mist moving across the land.

If you are in the way of the oncoming procession, you should run. If it is too late to run, you must lie flat on your stomach, cover your head, and shut your eyes tight. If you know it, it would be helpful to chant your moʻokūʻauhau, your lineage, and pray that an ancestor walks among the dead to speak for you.

One woman shared her story about the huakaʻi pō that traveled through Kawaihae Hawaiian Homes. Their house was built near a path that the night marchers are said to travel. Her family is descended from the men who built the heiau, and now walk with the ghostly procession on the nights of no moon.

As a child, she remembers staying up late at night, listening for the sounds of marching feet. She saw no torch lights, as some people say, but she could hear the sounds. Once the marching grew closer, so did the sound of drums. She said that she stood near her window and peeked out, and just as her grandfather told her they would, the men walked past their house on a long-forgotten path toward Puʻukoholā. Knowing she had ʻohana in the procession, she was filled with wonder more than fear.

No matter how much time passes and how much the scenery changes, our ancestors continue to walk unhindered and uninhibited. After all, the land still belongs to them.

Puukohola Heiau

<title>Huaka‘i Pō at Pu‘ukoholā</title>

It is said that Kamehameha himself helped build the Pu‘ukoholā heiau, a massive undertaking that involved a human chain 20 miles long passing stones from Pololu Valley to Puʻukoholā. Once completed and consecrated, Kamehameha's kahuna had said, the heiau would mean the successful end to Kamehameha's wars of conquest. Naturally, tales of night marchers — Huaka‘i Pō — still haunt the area.

Huaka‘i Pō at Pu‘ukoholā

Stephanie Salmons Headshot

Stephanie Salmons

Tuesday marked the filing deadline for prospective political candidates to submit their nomination papers to run for office in the 2026 elections. 

, city and county council seats are up for grabs across the Islands this year, along with mayoral races in Maui and Kaua‘i counties. These races are nonpartisan. Here's who filed as of June 2, according to information from the state 

The 2026 primary election is set for Aug. 8 with the general election following on Nov. 3. Here's who filed:

Waikele, Kunia, Wahiawā, and North Shore to Kahaluʻu)

[{"type":"listItem","content":[{"type":"text","text":"Matt Weyer (incumbent)"}],"text":""}]

Hawai‘i Kai, Kuli‘ou‘ou, Niu Valley, ‘Āina Haina, Wailupe, Wai‘alae Iki, Kalani Valley, Kāhala, Wilhelmina Rise, Kaimukī, Kapahulu, Diamond Head and Waikīkī)

(Portions of Kakaʻako, Downtown Honolulu, Chinatown, Punchbowl, Papakōlea, Pauoa Valley, Nuʻuanu, Iwilei, Liliha, ʻĀlewa Heights, Kalihi and Kalihi Valley)

Aiea, Waimalu, Newtown, Pearl City, Seaview, Crestview, Waipi‘o Gentry, Koa Ridge, Mililani Town and Mililani Mauka

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[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"District 1 (Hilo, Hāmākua, portion of Waimea)"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"District 2 (Hilo, portions of South Hilo)"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"District 4 (Lower Puna, Pāhoa)"}]

(Kā‘u, portions of South Kona, Volcano)

[{"type":"text","text":"Holeka Goro Inaba (incumbent)"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"James Hustace (incumbent)"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"underline"}],"text":"Maui County"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mayor"}]

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[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"East Maui"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"West Maui"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"Wailuku-Waihe‘e-Waikapu"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"Kahului"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"South Maui"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"Makawao-Ha‘ikū-Pā‘ia"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"Upcountry"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"Lāna‘i"}]

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[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"underline"}],"text":"Kaua‘i County"}]

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Honolulu Hale 020525

<title>Here's who's running for office in 2026, part 2</title>

Tuesday marked the filing deadline for prospective political candidates. Here's who's on the ballot for city and county elections this year.

Here's who's running for office in 2026, part 2

Rose Angelo

Viewpoints

Aloha Spirit

I’ve always wondered why groceries are so expensive in Hawaiʻi — given that its climate is suited to year-round agriculture — and what local communities (and I) could do about it. So, I decided to learn about Native Hawaiian self-determination, mālama ʻāina, and food sovereignty from experts in Maui County.

Today, 1.4 million people live in Hawaiʻi. And, according to the Hawai‘i Food Bank, 43% of Native Hawaiians suffered from food insecurity in 2024. But this wasn’t always the case.

Prior to western contact, the ahupua‘a system produced food for a million people. This system established a reciprocal relationship between people and land and was completely self-sufficient.

Georgia Pinsky, director of the Maui Farmer Support Network, lives off grid in Kaupō, Maui, with her husband and son. They steward their home farm with a passion for organically grown and sustainable foods. “The Hawaiian Islands import 90% of their food, making the islands’ food supply system vulnerable to supply chain disruptions,” Pinsky noted.

How has there been such a drastic change in food production and security in Hawaiʻi, and how can Hawaiians come together to steward the land and their communities?

For more than a century, the historical — and contemporary — colonization of Hawaiʻi has made access to agricultural land, and the freshwater necessary to grow crops, extremely difficult for traditional farmers.

The dispossession of Native Hawaiians from the land, and diversion of streams for corporate sugar and pineapple plantations, undermined the ahupua‘a system, degraded soil health, disconnected communities from their ancestral lands, and complicated Native Hawaiians’ ability to steward land and produce food self-sufficiently.

Over time, limited access to land and water affected traditional food production and the adoption of processed, imported western foods created health disparities for Native Hawaiians.

“A lot of the health issues that we see in our rural communities are a direct result of the food they’re consuming — or the food they’re not consuming,” Pinsky said. Reestablishing widespread cultivation of, and access to, traditional foods such as kalo, ‘ulu, and mai‘a (banana) can help close the health gap.

On Maui’s southeastern coast is the rural community of Kīpahulu. There, the Kīpahulu ‘Ohana, a community-run nonprofit, is stewarding state lands and restoring lo‘i kalo. Utilizing the traditional ahupuaʻa system, they are producing food for their geographically isolated community while also providing protected environments for native and endemic species.

Communities like Kīpahulu prove that reestablishing Native Hawaiian stewardship practices encourage abundant and healthy ecosystems, while providing physical, cultural and spiritual benefits.

Beyond, its power to heal the land and its people, restoration of ahupua‘a practices can also benefit climate resilience.

 is a professor at Maui College and the director of ‘Āina Stewardship for the Hawaiʻi Land Trust (HILT). One of their projects includes restoring loko i‘a (fishponds) at Waihe‘e Refuge. Fisher explained that sea level rise and intensifying storms, precipitation, and drought all affect coastal capacity for agri- and aquaculture.

By restoring loko i‘a, sediment deposition from freshwater runoff into the ocean is reduced by 93%, protecting coral reefs and surrounding marine life. As a result, healthy reef systems can better mitigate coastal damage from intensifying storms.

Self-determinism is tied directly to the revival of Hawaiian cultural practices. Bobby Pahia owns 300 acres in Waikapū, Maui, that he leases to individuals and commercial farmers below market rate to increase community food production. “We need to build a mindset around kākou,” Pahia said. “Excessive individuality broke the Indigenous mindset of cooperation.”

As exemplified by individual and community action on Maui, Hawai‘i’s current ecological conditions necessitate reestablishment of ahupua‘a practices. Doing so will not only increase self-determination and the self- sufficiency of Hawaiian and local communities, but also support food security, environmental resilience, cultural preservation, and environmental conservation.

Reestablishing food sovereignty for Hawaiʻi is a kākou effort. Everybody can — and should — mālama ʻāina and take steps to increase their individual capacity for self-sufficiency.

To start, Pahia encourages the community to acknowledge past injustices and move forward. “Don’t be mad at the system. Fruit of bitterness doesn’t bear good fruit,” he said, adding that the duality of acknowledging wrong while moving forward to create a better system makes space for self-determination, mālama ʻāina, and continuation of culture.

Pahia believes that harboring resentment and bitterness regarding the injustice of past and present colonialism prevents forward progress toward achieving more food-sovereign communities.

He also points out the need to adapt traditional knowledge to modern colonial landscapes. In his work, Pahia has created a “sphere of regenerative knowledge” to encourage his lessees to work with the land and soil biology, rather than utilize commercial and extractive methodologies.

On Molokaʻi, Hanohano Naehu, head kiaʻi loko of nonprofit Hui o Kuapā, lives by the ʻōlelo noʻeau, “He ali‘i ka ʻāina, he kauwā ke kanaka; the land is chief, people are its servant.” Emphasizing that the ahupua‘a system created sources of abundant food and environmental benefits, he uses fishponds as educational tools for the island’s youth.

Another way to establish food sovereignty is to support and engage with local food producers by participating in fruit stand systems to share the abundance.

“Fruit stands emulate ma uka to ma kai exchange, keep food within rural communities, and reduce food waste and rural community dependence on grocery stores in central Maui,” said Pinsky. Fruit stands increase food sovereignty by allowing communities to dictate methods of food acquisition, rather than reinforcing our reliance on imported food.

Finally, Pahia emphasizes that active political engagement at both the local and state levels will increase pressure on politicians to support, and pass, environmentally and socially beneficial policies.

“We need to encourage local communities to vote,” he said, noting that voting community-oriented Native Hawaiians into government positions can increase government support for environmentally beneficial policies.

Editor's Note: This article is based upon research for the author’s undergraduate honors thesis, “Creating a Food Sovereign Maui: Indigenous Land Management and Agricultural Practices.” Author can be reached at 

This article is reprinted with permission from 

Mālama ʻĀina and Food Sovereignty in Maui Nui

" by Rose Angelo, in its May 2026 issue, Vol. 43 No. 5. Read more at 

Kipahulu Ohana

<title>Community Voices: 'Reestablishing food sovereignty for Hawaiʻi is a kākou effort'</title>

Adapted from an undergraduate research thesis, student Rose Angelo talks with Maui community members about Hawaiʻi's "drastic change in food production and security, and how can Hawaiians come together to steward the land and their communities."

Daily Smile: Thursday, May 28, 2026

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