Stones

It’s now been more than a year since it happened, but I think it’s useful to recall the Pani i ka Puka event. Such a truly wonderful demonstration of human collectivity and cooperation. From the Paepae o Heeia webpage:

The call was made. You responded. And what a morning it was! On December 12th between 7:30a and 12:30p, nearly 2,000 people from across the street, across our island chain and even across the Pacific joined us to turn a vision and dream into reality. The 50-year old puka in Heʻeia Fishpond is a puka no more. The human chain line spanning 2,000 feet moved several tons of coral and rock and the final mākāhā without it ever touching the ground. In our estimation, this feat and outpouring of community strength on behalf of fishpond restoration has not been seen in Hawaiʻi in over 200 years.

The message of the day is so powerful. Friends, families and strangers coming together, moving stones small and large to repair an 800-year old wall, in order to restore local food production. 800 years is a very long time, and it’s the kind of timeframes in which we need to be thinking, planning and imagining our island. In order to mount the kind of massive redesign that our island needs to face the challenges of climate change and resource management, we’ll need to continue coming together to fill the gaps.