The Global Ahupua'a

Aloha,

In Hawai'i, our ancestors created the ahupua'a system. This was an efficient and sustainable land and natural resource management system. This solved the problems of exploitation, poverty, homelessness, and starvation. A wedge shaped land divided into smaller land divisions ran from the mountain to the sea. Each was designed carefully to provide within its borders the natural resources required to meet its districts needs economically, culturally, and environmentally. I am proposing a self sustaining, community lifestyle to save our "island earth", and to solve the issues today. One ahupua'a could feed and house one million people. The ahupua'a will restore unity and sustainability in today's society. We will restore our society and our earth. We will restore spirituality  and responsibility in individuals and communities. We will sustain our environment, cultures, and economies, while providing for our families and communities.

Mahalo

Kinion

Look To The Past: Today, many countries that were once 100% self sustaining are now countries that rely 90-100% on importing foods and necessities. For example Hawai'i, is now solely reliant on imports when it once was isolated yet prosperous.

Current Issues:  The system in Hawai'i was awarded the most successful land system, yet today we are 85+% reliant on imports from China and the U.S. Along with this, 15,000 citizens are homeless. Poverty and unemployment are increasing and families are starving. This is a global issue, unfortunately, for our indigenous and aboriginal peoples. Many factors cause these issues. A disconnect with society, the land and with God or a higher power. Exploitation and greed. People seeking personal gain over sustainability. Forgetting to preserve and perpetuate culture, the environment, and human interaction. Sustainability is meeting the demands of the present without jeopardizing the necessities of the future. With a society focused on mass production and business, grows selfishness and disunity. 

Future: We must come together, refocus our priorities, and restore the system and technology of the past for a sustainable and reliable future.

 Before the westerners arrived, there was no concept of individual land ownership in Hawai’i. Hawaiians adhered to an efficient and sustainable land management system called Ahupua'a. A wedge-shaped land division that usually ran from the mountains to the sea. Each was carefully designed to provide within its borders the natural resources a community required to meet its own needs. Each individual specialized in a occupation. The community worked together to sustain the land, trade with one another, and thrive economically. Engineered irrigation canals, farming lands, and coastal fishponds, were technologies used to connect our resources in a recyclable and prosperous way. For example, the watershed upland travels in streams and irrigation to the farms and crops, then to fishpond where fish is farmed. The algae that grew upland is used in the fishponds to feed the fish. Certain regions such as the mountains were off limits to construction to preserve the ecosystem and resources. This system worked for centuries before the westerners imposed their monetary system. A piece of tangible paper was not considered valuable to our ancestors. Truth is, currency is made from the earth's naturally resources. It seems as though the monetary system became the catalyst to poverty.

This system requires a community that works together to sustain and trade. However, indigeneous and aboriginal societies in the Pacific, Africa, Central and South America, and Native American communities would thrive the most due to their cultural practices and sustainable belief systems. This system can work in any environment, and any culture that is willing to work together. I would like to travel the world sharing my ancestors knowledge and technologies that will benefit other cultures. Each community will lay the foundation of the ahupua'a system and have the opportunity to add technologies and practices their ancestors used to sustain life and the environment to adapt to their land division. This solution will create a community, where everyone works together to thrive as a ahupua'a, as a nation. The ahupua'a system will provide an abundance of food and resources to solve starvation, poverty, and homelessness. For hundreds of years this system brought peace to the land, since everyone is building there community. 

The ahupua'a system thrives on small scale producers with access to inputs, capital, and knowledge to improve yields while sustaining productivity of land and seas. As I mentioned above, each farmer, fisherman, and small-scale producer does his/her share to harvest and provide sustenance. The resources used are all distributed fairly and in a sustainable way. We use the water from the upland in our farms which leads to the coastal fish farms and other producers. Instead of a large scale business which utilizes harmful chemicals to fulfill mass production. We use the abundant natural resources to prosper and sustain.

Our solution is one founded in the past by our ancestors and fitted for us today to resolve the worldwide issues of homelessness, starvation, poverty, and a non-sustainable world. It will give the opportunity for communities to come together to solve the issues in their own community with a successful blueprint of a land management and natural resource management system at the foundation. Big corporations invade indigenous lands worldwide with their eco-harmful businesses. Companies that desecrate our lands, steal our water, pollute the air and the waters and the ecosystems with factories and pesticides. All this can be solved with indigenous knowledge and creating bio-healthy and eco-friendly companies with indigenous knowledge and technologies at the core leading us in this point. 

History has proven that our indigenous ancestors worldwide lived successful, environmentally wealthy, and economically secured lives. The Polynesians, the Native Americans, The Mayans, Incas, the Aboriginals worldwide, and the African tribes, to name a few, all had one thing in common, powerful and sustainable civilizations that thrived for centuries, even millennia. Sustainability is, thriving in the present without jeopardizing the next generations safety and success. The large corporate companies that overrun our indigenous peoples lands, they destroy our ecosystems to get gain and mass production now, leaving the future empty and destroyed. 

We can thrive in the present and the future sustainably with our indigenous wisdom and technologies.

A few technologies are extremely important to restore and create. 

First, irrigation channels connecting fresh water traveling through the land to the sea is a great source of managing fresh water, farming, and prevents flooding. In ancient china, You, was the man who discovered irrigation channels rather than dams to solve the issue of the flooding Yellow River. We can create irrigation channels that divert flood waters, mountain waters into our farms and down to the sea or to lakes, rivers,  so a cycle of fresh water is abundant and all crops and produce are watered.

We need to create filters for our sewage plants. In Hawai'i our sewage plants send thousands of gallons of sewage water into canals and the ocean. We need to create more reverse osmosis filters so those waters are purified and can redirected to dry lands that need fresh water for farming, or for storage. This is an issues worldwide. Our landfills and sewage plants are overrun and polluting our lands and water. Our society mindset is, "if you don't want it, throw it away". We need to change that to reduce and reuse what we have. 

Our ancestors recycled and reused. Not one part of an animal they hunted was wasted. In addition to the meat and hides, fat was be used for cooking and candles, bones were carved into tools . Traditional ways became replaced in the modern throw-away society. 

The ahupua'a system is used in Hawai'i. I listed a link of examples today that are thriving. Watershed management is the key technology to the ahupua'a. Some watersheds in Hawai'i are only 2 miles deep, compared to the rainforests of the central and south americas, Africa, and other indigenous lands. Using this system of management and irrigation can feed millions of people, and provide housing, clothing, medicine, and recreational resources.

Please watch the following videos to gain a visual understanding and deeper knowledge of my ancestors ahupua'a and watershed management system. This can and should be applied globally.

Thank you and Aloha.

An ahupua'a system will provide communities with a sustainable and environmental wealthy society. Families who are homeless, or about to get evicted can come to an ahupua'a and live off the land, work in a community, and thrive as one. Agriculture and aquaculture will provide sustenance for hundreds and thousands to eat and drink and be sustained. 

Our solution can serve thousands. In ancient days, the ahupua'a could feed thousands of Hawaiians. We plan to feed thousands and I believe once we introduce this system to other indigenous cultures we can feed millions worldwide. Imagine, all Pacific islanders, Africans, Northern, Central, and Southern Americans, Alaskan aboriginals, and other groups around the world from Asia to the middle east to europe. A world of sustainability, and 'ohana (family). In the ahupua'a each 'ohana, family fulfilled their role to cooperatively provide for the greater community. We were consecrated to honor God and take care of all mankind. Unity in diversity is achieved when we see ourselves as children of God, aboriginal people to our land, a egalitarian society. Problems of world hunger, poverty, and inequality among genders and races will be solved. We will preserve good health and well-being, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, create sustainable villages, cities, and communities, and re-establish responsible consumption and production of natural resources. We will provide work and an environmental economic growth. Perpetuating culture and restoring pride and purpose into individuals, na 'ohana (families) and communities. 

 All the ahupua'a farmed and fished according to their climate and landscape.  However, we adapt to our environment and use the ahupua'a system to manage our native resources, provide food, shelter, and sustenance for our residents, and preserve our lands and cultures for the future. The land, sea, and the heavens above reflect our communities sustainability and affect our identity. 

I plan to resolve these challenges through existing, ancestral knowledge, concepts, and management systems. I plan to impact minorities, aboriginal and indigenous peoples. I plan to resolve world hunger, poverty, and desecration of our environments. As we replicate ancient communities that thrived for centuries pre-european contact, we can and we will restore balance to this earth, order amongst communities, and righteously manage resources economically, culturally, and environmentally.

A barrier I have is money. In todays monetary society, we need money to even propose good ideas. Unfortunately if one doesn't have money, people in "power" or who have a "higher status" will not even consider our idea. Unforutunately without money, and copyrights, people's ideas are stolen and others take credit for someone else work and idea. Money will provide me the legal rights and help provide me with the funds needed to travel and share our system. Another barrier is that we need land. Many indigenous peoples homelands were taken from them, we need to adapt in our current circumstance but the wrongs that were done to our peoples worldwide must be made right and restore aboriginal to their native homelands.

I am grateful for philanthropies and sponsors to provide financial assistance throughout this process. The ahupua'a system can work in any environment. Educating people worldwide to reconnect with their local ecosystems and environment will provide each community with the understanding of their land and sea to know how to prosper and protect the environment and population amongst all living things. Education is power. Once people understand the oppression the minorities and aboriginal and indigenous peoples face worldwide, we can rise as one voice to restore our people to their rightful ancestral homelands. We the people was created in the constitution so that we the people come together and fight for what is right, not for what is convenient for those in "power". We the people keep political and other government officials in check. We do not own this earth. This earth is created by God, not man. Our ancestors have inhabited our local communities for millennia. We should be able to live on our ancestral homeland where we are spiritually connected. 

E Ala E Hawaiian Cultural Center 

Leihua Stewart: (410) 733-1787 Manager

Kinion Carroll (me)- (808) 212-3930 (Hawaiian Language and Cultural Educator)

My manager Leihua Stewart is a Hawaiian cultural educator with her masters degree in Urban Planning with a concentration on Hawaiian land management and work. I am a undergraduate student studying anthropology with a concentration on environmental sustainability. We  both graduated from a Hawaiian historical high school founding during the time of our beloved Hawaiian Kingdom in 1887. Our non-profit organizations mission is to educate society on our Hawaiian ancestral ways of life, including the ahupua'a system, language, and cultural practices. We are based out of Arlington, VA. We live by the Hawaiian values of 

• Aloha: spiritual recognition of the sacred breath of life from God in everyone, caring, compassion for others, love, affection.
• Ha`aha`a: humility, .
• Ho`omau: preserve, perpetuate, continue.
• `Ike Pono: righteous knowledge, to know, to feel, to understand.
• Kokua: help, assist, comfort, support.
• Kuleana: privilege, responsibility, title, job.
• Kupa`a: stand firm, steadfast.

These are a few of our core Hawaiian values that we live by and teach. We are looking for ways to share our 'ike (wisdom) and to make the voices of our Hawaiian people heard. Our people have wisdom, we have successful ways of life, we also have challenges and are  oppressed similar to many other aboriginal cultures. We want to educate to create change, and we want to find solutions to help our people rise up and be prosperous and sustainable.

We are funded by Kamehameha Schools, a very prestigious school in Hawai'i which supports education of Hawaiian culture and language. We also are funded through the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, an organization that funds and supports Hawaiian cultural advancement.

We are applying because we know our solution will bring change in todays society that will solve the issues of homelessness, starvation, and desecration of our island earth. We know that communities and nations will come together if they implement our ancestral system of the ahupua'a. Ecosystems and communities will thrive and restore balance to nature and civilization. Cultures may add their ancestral knowledge to our Hawaiian system and create innovative technologies and solutions added upon the ahupua'a system. This will restore cultural pride in each civilization and awareness of their ecosystems. Millions will be fed, housed, clothed, and have medicine and necessities provided by their homes natural resources. We will not only save the earth, but humanity as we come together to work and solve our communities individual and collective challenges. We will save cultures as we unite and practice traditional values, in a traditional and modern work system coupled to progress sustainably. To thrive today without robbing the future of resources.

I want to particularly serve the minority population and all aboriginal and indigenous communities including refugees with a Pu'uhonua, (a place of refuge) in Hawaiian where we can create a 'ohana (family) cooperation community to restore communities and give all people a better sustainable and secure life.

We are partnered with Hawaiian educators and organizations that are already educating and implementing this ahupua'a system. We can take this to a larger scale and begin to share with other aboriginal and indigenous nations to benefit from our island way of life. This earth is what we call, our "island earth". Although our landscapes and ecosystems are each unique and different, the concepts of sustainability, (cultural resource management, environmental resource management, and economic resource management) are the core foundation to a thriving ahupua'a in Polynesia as it can be in Africa or any other nation.  

We will need funding to travel and share our system as well as the means to rebuild the ahupua'a structures in communities globally.

We would like to partner with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Kamehameha Schools, the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Maui, and Hilo, and with Native American tribes, and aboriginal tribes worldwide to adopt the ahupua'a system.