**The** *Moku* **System: Managing Biocultural Resources for Abundance within Social-Ecological Regions in Hawai'i**

**Kawika B. Winter 1,2,3,\*, Kamanamaikalani Beamer 4,5,6, Mehana Blaich Vaughan 3,4,6,7, Alan M. Friedlander 8,9, Mike H. Kido 10, A. Namaka Whitehead ¯ 11, Malia K.H. Akutagawa 5,6, Natalie Kurashima 11, Matthew Paul Lucas <sup>12</sup> and Ben Nyberg <sup>2</sup>**


Received: 31 July 2018; Accepted: 1 October 2018; Published: 4 October 2018

**Abstract:** Through research, restoration of agro-ecological sites, and a renaissance of cultural awareness in Hawai'i, there has been a growing recognition of the ingenuity of the Hawaiian biocultural resource management system. The contemporary term for this system, "the *ahupua*'*a* system", does not accurately convey the nuances of system function, and it inhibits an understanding about the complexity of the system's management. We examined six aspects of the Hawaiian biocultural resource management system to understand its framework for systematic management. Based on a more holistic understanding of this system's structure and function, we introduce the term, "the *moku* system", to describe the Hawaiian biocultural resource management system, which divided large islands into social-ecological regions and further into interrelated social-ecological communities. This system had several social-ecological zones running horizontally across each region, which divided individual communities vertically while connecting them to adjacent communities horizontally; and, thus, created a mosaic that contained forested landscapes, cultural landscapes, and seascapes, which synergistically harnessed a diversity of ecosystem services to facilitate an abundance of biocultural resources. "The *moku* system", is a term that is more conducive to large-scale biocultural restoration in the contemporary period, while being inclusive of the smaller-scale divisions that allowed for a highly functional system.

**Keywords:** Hawaii; biocultural resource management (BRM); ahupuaa; social-ecological community; social-ecological zone

#### **1. Introduction**

The small size of many Pacific Islands, coupled with the frequency of catastrophic natural events (i.e., hurricanes, tsunami, drought, flooding, lava flows, etc.) resulted in the development of social-ecological systems around the anticipation of and rapid recovery from environmental change. For this reason, Pacific Islands have been a focus of research into social-ecological system resilience, especially in light of global climate change [1–3]. Understanding traditional approaches to resource management has been a key component of such research. It is apparent that some Pacific Island cultures exceeded resource limits and exhausted their island's carrying capacity early on, while others adapted to resource limitations by adopting conservation measures and, therefore, persisted [4,5]. The Hawaiian archipelago in the era prior to European contact in 1778 (pre-contact era) is a prime example of the latter, making Hawaiian resource management in that era a particular topic of interest with global ramifications.

The "biocultural resource management" (BRM) approaches developed and employed by Hawaiians to manage an archipelago-scale social-ecological system—in the pre-contact era—sustained an abundance of resources for more than a millennium [6]. This state of biocultural resource abundance is known in the Hawaiian language as, "'*aina momona ¯* ", and is a term that was particularly attributed to lands that employed aquaculture technologies to increase fish biomass [7]. The word, "'*aina ¯* ", is a derivation from the word, "'*ai*",which means, "food, or to eat", with the nominalizer "*na*" added to literally mean, "that which feeds" [8], but is generally used as a noun meaning, "Land, earth" [9]. The word, "*momona*", is an adjective meaning, "Fat; fertile, rich, as soil; fruitful...", [9]. Thus, the term '*aina momona ¯* is commonly translated in the contemporary period as, "fat land", or, "abundant land", in the context of food production. '*Aina momona ¯* was achieved and maintained through careful management on a landscape scale, which extended from the mountains to the sea [6,10].

Through research, restoration of agro-ecological systems, and a renaissance of cultural awareness in Hawai'i, there has been a growing recognition of the ingenuity of Hawaiian biocultural resource management systems. These systems effectively adapted to local conditions, while accumulating a body of knowledge in response to observed effects of management—both successes and failures—in order to sustain resource abundance over time. Researchers [11–16], policy makers, K-12 educators, and others, frequently refer to the Hawaiian system of biocultural resource management as, "the *ahupua*'*a* system." In this vein, *ahupua*'*a* are frequently described as self-sustaining units, and put forth as models for sustainability in Hawai'i today [17,18]. *Ahupua*'*a* have been equated with watersheds, and described as being in alignment with Western scientific management approaches such as "ridge to reef", and ecosystem-based management [19,20]. Our research indicates that while some of the notions aligning Western scientific approaches to resource management with Hawaiian approaches to biocultural resource management may be valid, attributing them to the *ahupua*'*a* scale does not stand up to scrutiny. For example, some key resources (e.g., adze for felling trees and carving canoes) did not naturally exist within each *ahupua*'*a*, and the population dynamics of key species managed for the survival of human populations were not confined to *ahupua*'*a* boundaries. In fact, there are many examples of biocultural resources that were often managed at the scale of larger land divisions. These nuances, discussed in more detail below, refute the notion that *ahupua*'*a* were self-sustaining. Furthermore, only 5% of *ahupua*'*a* have boundaries that actually corresponded with watershed boundaries [15], whereas other land-division scales more closely align with this concept (discussion below). There are also land-locked *ahupua*'*a*, which do not have boundaries that touch the ocean, and coastal *ahupua*'*a*, which do not have boundaries that extend to the mountains [15]. Therefore, the notion that *ahupua*'*a* were watershed-based, self-sustaining units is not supported. As such, limiting the contemporary application of Hawaiian biocultural resource management to the *ahupua*'*a* scale is not conducive to effective, large-scale restoration.

In recognition of knowledge gaps in the understanding of how Hawaiian biocultural resource management strategies functioned and adapted on a system level, this research aims to fill those gaps by synthesizing 21st century research on the topic and coupling that with contemporary understandings

about population dynamics of key biocultural resource species. We aim to build a more nuanced understanding of the inner workings of the Hawaiian biocultural resource management system in the pre-contact era, and how it was able to foster long-term biocultural resource abundance. We do this through an examination of six aspects of biocultural resource management. We also aspire to use a more complete understanding to determine a more accurate term to describe this complex system as to be applicable in the contemporary period for large-scale (i.e., system level) biocultural restoration.
