**2. The Renaissance of Traditional Resource Management of Hawai'i**

#### *2.1. The Story of How Ha'ena Became a Marine ICCA ¯*

Recognizing the importance of customary Hawaiian management and subsistence fishing, Hawai'i enacted legislation in 1994 that allows the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) to designate community based subsistence fishing areas (CBSFAs) for "reaffirming and protecting fishing practices customarily and traditionally exercised for purposes of Native Hawaiian subsistence, culture and religion" [37]. This created a pathway to designate marine ICCA's in Hawai'i. Achieving a CBSFA designation allows community members to assist DLNR to develop and enforce place-specific management strategies/laws that regulate resources they depend on from the shoreline to one mile out to sea, or the edge of the coral reef, based on Native Hawaiian values and ancestral practices [37]. This designation allows residents to work with the state DLNR Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) to develop and enforce laws (S.B. 2501, 23rd Leg., Reg. Sess. Hawai'i 2006) [6,25]. Through traditional Hawaiian values, the CBSFA designation emphasizes the connection between the environment and communities, whereby if you care for the environment, the environment will care for you. CBSFAs represent an agency-recognized avenue for local community groups to assert their indigenous rights by proposing management measures informed by customary fishing and management practices to sustain the health and abundance of marine resources for generations in the Hawaiian Islands [38].

Like many other places in Hawai'i, land privatization, along with coastal development of vacation and luxury homes, fragmented the land in the 1960s [39], which led many long-time families to move from the area [6]. Today, the rural *ahupua*'*a* is mostly owned by the State of Hawai'i and the non-profit organization, National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG), with ~140 private residences along the coast (Figure 2A). The NTBG, *Kanaka Maoli ¯* (indigenous Hawaiian) and *kama*'*aina ¯* (place-based community) of Ha'ena (henceforth H ¯ a'ena community) persisted in the creation of rules guided by ¯ ancestral norms: *ho¯*'*ihi* (respectful reciprocity), *konohiki* (inviting ability) and *kuleana* (rights based on responsibilities) [33,40]. In 2006, the State of Hawai'i designated Ha'ena as its first CBSFA [ ¯ 25]. After this designation, the community was empowered to work with the state resource management agency to co-develop fishing regulations and secure their approval through the same onerous public process as any administrative rules promulgated by state government agencies [33].

In August 2015, after nearly ten years of planning and negotiation, over seventy meetings, fifteen rule drafts, three public hearings and multiple studies undertaken to document visitor impacts, user groups, fishery health and the importance of locally caught fish within and beyond the Ha'ena ¯ community, these rules became law [6,33] (Figure 2B). The community of Ha'ena managed to restore ¯ local-level management of their near-shore fishery by co-creating CBSFA rules to govern fishing and all coastal uses, including recreational activities based on customary practices and customary norms for the area [37]. The significance of this event cannot be understated. This was the first time in the state of Hawai'i that local-level fisheries management rules, based on indigenous Hawaiian practices, were recognized. Passage of these rules made Ha'ena the first coastal area in Hawai'i to be permanently ¯ governed by community developed, local-level rules based on ancestral knowledge and practices [33]. As the first site to work with DAR to co-create rules formally adopted as state law, Ha'ena set a ¯ precedent for at least 19 other Hawai'i communities pursuing co-management of local fisheries [37]. Many communities across Hawai'i view this effort as a larger community movement to increase self-sufficiency and restore formal local-level control over ocean resources as a food source [33].

**Figure 2.** Ha'ena study site. ( ¯ **A**) Ha'ena land use and community based subsistence fishing area ¯ (CBSFA) marine refuge boundaries and (**B**) The opening *pule* (prayer) prior to the public hearing in Hanalei for the Ha'ena CBSFA package rules. ¯

Traditional coastal management in Ha'ena relied on protecting key spawning and feeding areas for ¯ fishes [25,40]. One of the largest fringing reef systems in the main Hawaiian Islands is found in Ha'ena, ¯ where a large lagoon formed by the back-reef provides wave sheltered nursery habitat for culturally and economically important soft and hard bottom target fish species [3,33,41]. The reefs provide daily fish protein for many Hawaiian and other local families, as well as for '*aha*'*aina* (feasts commemorating events including weddings, birthdays, funerals and graduations) and other celebrations on Kaua'i [6]. Therefore, among these rules, a marine refuge (*Makua Pu'uhonua*) was designated in the sheltered lagoon of Makua to protect a key fish nursery area (see Figure 2A). By closing this area to fishing and all recreational use, the community successfully created a refuge grounded in indigenous practices and knowledge [11]. This closure protects culturally important fish species from being captured by fishers or disturbed by snorkelers, kite boarders, stand-up paddlers and others during vulnerable life stage (spawning) and behavior (feeding) [25].

### *2.2. The Story of How Ka'up¯ ulehu Became a Marine ICCA ¯*

Ka'up¯ ulehu is both commercially and residentially more developed than H ¯ a'ena, with two large ¯ luxury resorts, a golf course and several private residences along the southern end of the coast (see Figure 3A). Few lineal descendants and longtime residents of Ka'up¯ ulehu live within the ¯ *ahupua'a* but many live nearby, maintaining strong connections to their ancestral lands [14,36]. The entire *ahupua*'*a* is owned by the largest private landowner in the state of Hawai'i, Kamehameha Schools (KS–an indigenous Hawaiian educational trust and the State of Hawaii's largest private landowner), which was established for the benefit of *Kanaka Maoli ¯* [34,36]. KS seeks to balance multiple economic, educational, cultural and environmental goals [34,36,42,43]. Cultural and place-based values are of high priority for KS and *kama*'*aina ¯* of Ka'up¯ ulehu, (henceforth Ka' ¯ up¯ ulehu community) are involved in ¯ resource management advisory councils, educational programs and cultural restoration projects in the *ahupua'a* [36]. Environmental outcomes, including groundwater recharge and restoring abundant nearshore fisheries, are also highly valued for cultural and economic purposes, as groundwater is the main water source statewide and fisheries are used for subsistence [44].

**Figure 3.** Ka'up¯ ulehu study site. ( ¯ **A**) Ka'up¯ ulehu land use and marine reserve map; ( ¯ **B**) Gathering for the opening *pule* prior to the public hearing for the 'Try Wait' fishing rest area in Ka'up¯ ulehu. ¯

Given that the scarcity of water resources limits agriculture, marine resources gathered historically from the ocean played a vital role in the diet of Ka'up¯ ulehu families and their subsistence practices [ ¯ 45]. The families that lived (and live) in Ka'up¯ ulehu were experts in their resources and knew how to ¯ survive within these rugged lands [45]. However the community has observed drastic declines in their coastal resources within the past 40 years, with the opening of the resort and the Ka'ahumanu Highway in 1975 thereby requiring and providing easier access to the isolated waters of Ka'up¯ ulehu [ ¯ 45]. In response, the community sought to maintain and restore coastal and marine life health along with their interconnected traditions, before the system could no longer recover and all knowledge was forgotten. In 2015, after nearly ten years of planning and negotiation and over 350 community meetings and multiple studies undertaken to document fishing impacts and coral reef health, the community of Ka'up¯ ulehu initiated a law implementing a 10-year fishing rest period known as 'Try ¯ Wait' (see Figure 3B), which adopted a term in the local pidgin language meaning, "Let's wait a moment." The protected area extends out to 120 feet deep (or 36.6 m) along a large portion of the coastline. This resulted in the protection of the entire fringing reef (see Figure 3A). Providing full protection of the nearshore reef for a 10 year period while the community develops their long-term management plan is a management strategy grounded in indigenous practices [11].

#### **3. Developing Scientific Tools through Collaboration Grounded in a Hawaiian Approach**

Collaborative research among scientists and local communities has the potential to overcome limitations of often-practiced 'expert' driven, narrowly focused scientific research. Collaborative research incorporates the dynamic interactions between people and nature, rather than viewing people only as "managers" or "stressors" [26], and positive outcomes for social-ecological management have been documented (e.g., [46]). Processes to define research questions and objectives based on collaborative approaches can also empower indigenous people and communities [26] and generate possibilities for complementary use of scientific and traditional knowledge [13,15,26]. This type of research requires understanding linkages and feedback loops between nature and people to inform local management in those particular places [26].

Our research process included five main steps and involved managers, scientists and the stewards of the land at different stages: (1) Problem formulation; (2) scenario design; (3) conceptual and model development; (4) scenario modeling and analysis; and (5) informing land-sea planning (Figure 4 and Table 1). Both communities were interested in restoring a ridge-to-reef approach to address contemporary environmental issues, including coastal development and fishing pressure impacts on coral reefs combined with bleaching from climate change. In collaboration with local landowners and communities, we developed a decision support framework grounded in Native Hawaiian culture by adopting the traditional *ahupua'a* lens to assess the impact of coral reefs under projected land use and climate change scenarios, combined with the marine closures. Key collaborators included local community members (e.g., landowners, care takers and active nonprofits), managers with jurisdiction across the ridge-to-reef ecological unit and local experts and scientists. Through local leaders (e.g., K.B.W. and M.B-.V. at Ha'ena, who are co-authors on this paper) and previous work with community ¯ members, we identified environmental concerns, ground-truthed models and identified solutions to mitigate local threats. Managers at the state level included the Hawai'i Department of Health (HDOH), which manages water quality from ridge-to-reef and ensures compliance with the Clean Water Act. Scientists and local experts from multiple disciplines, including terrestrial and marine ecologists, social scientists, economists, modelers, hydrogeologists and geographers were involved at different stages of the process to identify and link all the key processes and components that are important in the decision-making process spanning the top of the mountains to the sea and the community in between.

**Figure 4.** Collaborative science process. The collaborative science process involves stewards/care takers, managers and scientists, or a combination at multiple stages (see Table 1 for roles fulfilled by each group of actors).


**Table 1.** Roles of multiple actors in a collaborative science process. Stewards/care takers, resource managers and scientists, or a combination play multiple roles at multiple stages.

First, we formulated the problem and key policy questions by consulting community members (e.g., landowners, caretakers and active nonprofits), managers with jurisdiction across the ridge-to-reef ecological unit and local experts and scientists to define the decision contexts. Second, we designed scenarios in partnership with local communities to capture their concerns, which included increases in coastal development and climate change impacts on coral reef habitat (e.g., corals and turf) and associated culturally important fisheries (e.g., surgeonfishes, parrotfishes and jacks) and the potential recovery from the recently enacted marine closures. We reviewed zoning documents produced by the County of Kaua'i of Hawai'i and the Office of Planning related to coastal zone planning to determine where coastal development was allowable and feasible to project future land-use change. At the same time, we compiled all the existing data at both sites to calibrate the land-sea models. The database from the HDOH was used to inform the calibration of land-use nutrient loadings rates (e.g., the wastewater injection well loading rate). A local non-profit (The Nature Conservancy) and research group at the University of Hawai'i (Fisheries Ecology & Research Lab) provided empirical data to calibrate the coral reef models at Ka'up¯ ulehu and H ¯ a'ena, respectively. Wedetermined the impact of ¯ co-occurring human drivers on coral reefs by coupling the human driver scenario analysis (climate change, coastal development and marine closures) with the development of a novel linked land-sea modeling framework for Ha'ena and Ka' ¯ up¯ ulehu ¯ *ahupua'a*. Local ecological and expert knowledge about the coral reef benthic habitat and key fish distributions was used to ground-truth our coral reef indicator maps under present conditions, resulting from the model development phase. For example, the first version of the models provided some outputs that were not consistent with local observations, which led to revisions of the modeling framework until consistency was reached. Subsequently, the downstream fate of nutrients from upstream sources was modeled and projected impacts on coral reefs was assessed under the different scenarios to identify areas on land where managing human-derived nutrients can promote coral reef resilience [3,47]. The modeled scenario outputs were evaluated against the local communities' observations about the location of re-occurring algae blooms and bleaching impacts. Based on the community and managers' feedback, our findings are currently being used to shape place-based management solutions grounded in a ridge-to-reef approach and the indicators can be monitored to track the policy effectiveness. The HDOH also funded the dissemination of these research findings through a statewide conference in 2018 (July–August).

#### **4. A Novel Linked Land-Sea Decision Support Tool for Local Management**

The framework links land to sea through groundwater and tracks changes in abundance and distribution of multiple benthic and fish indicators under each scenario (Figure 5) (see [3] for more details). For each site, natural driver data, including topography and bathymetry, and rainfall and wave patterns, were included in the ridge-to-reef modeling framework to represent the natural disturbance regimes specific to each place (Figure 5A). The terrestrial drivers modeled included groundwater flow and nutrient fluxes, incorporating natural and human-derived nutrient flux. The marine drivers characterized the marine habitat conditions and were derived from the SWAN wave model and LiDAR bathymetry data with GIS-based models (Figure 5F). The coral reef predictive models were calibrated on local coral reef survey data [41,48]. To measure proxies of ecological resilience, which also represented important cultural resources to the local communities, the coral reef models focused on four benthic groups, known to change under land-based runoff and bleaching impacts, and four fish indicator groups subject to fishing pressure. The benthic groups were crustose coralline algae (CCA), hard corals, turf and macroalgae (Figure 5G). CCA and corals are active reef builders which provide habitat for reef fishes. CCA also stabilize the reef in high-wave environments. Abundant benthic algae can be a sign of high nutrients and/or low numbers of herbivorous fish, and can harm coral health through competition for space. Herbivorous and piscivorous fish identified as important by the communities (e.g., surgeonfishes, parrotfishes and jacks) were modeled based on their feeding modes and ecological role: (1) browsers; (2) grazers; and (3) scrapers; along with (4) piscivores, which are key fishery species and indicators of fishing pressure [49] (Figure 5H).

The human driver scenarios included coral bleaching, coastal development and marine closures [50]. Two future coastal development scenarios were based on current land zoning from the Hawai'i State Office of Planning and utilized the three commonly used types of wastewater treatment systems in Hawai'i (cesspools, septic tanks and injection wells) (Figure 5B). Nitrogen and phosphorus fluxes were modeled under each coastal development scenario and diffused in the ocean using a GIS-based coastal discharge model (Figure 5E). Two coral bleaching scenarios were derived from projected coral bleaching impacts for the region (Figure 5C). The marine closure scenario assumed removal of fishing pressure within the marine closure boundaries (Figure 5D) [38,44]. The climate change scenarios were applied in combination with the coastal development and marine closure scenarios [51,52]. Under each scenario, our land-sea models predicted the change in nutrient flux and associated abundance of the coral reef indicators (Figure 5G,H). Based on predicted changes, this approach informs place-based solutions rooted in the *ahupua'a* approach, by identifying priority areas on land where management can promote coral reef resilience to climate change (Figure 5I). The development of this new technology necessitated a collaborative process, which leveraged both scientific and local knowledge by involving scientists, community members and resource managers.

**Figure 5.** Linked land-sea modeling framework. The framework accounted for (**A**) natural and human drivers of coral reefs. Human drivers consisted of (**B**) land-based (coastal development) and (**C**,**D**) marine-based (bleaching and closure) scenarios. (**E**) The terrestrial drivers included submarine groundwater and nutrient discharge. (**F**) The marine drivers characterized the marine habitats. Under each scenario, coral reef models track changes in (**G**) benthic and (**H**) fish indicator abundance. This approach identified (**I**) priority areas on land where management can promote coral reef resilience to climate change through a collaborative process. Adapted from [3,47,53].

### *4.1. Place-Based Models*

Due to direct exposure to the prevailing trade winds, Ha'ena ¯ *ahupua*'*a* receives very high rainfall (4040 mm·year<sup>−</sup>1), resulting in large fluvial and groundwater inputs [54] (see Figure 6A). Dominated by steep cliffs, the Ha'ena ¯ *ahupua*'*a* is 7.3 km2 and spans 1006 m elevation from the summit of Ali'inui Mountain to the sea, with two flowing perennial streams in the Limahuli and Manoa valleys. ¯ On the other hand, Ka'up¯ ulehu ¯ *ahupua*'*a* receives much less precipitation (ranging from 1350 to 260 mm·year−<sup>1</sup> from ridge-to-reef) due to its location in the rain shadows of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea mountains [55]. Geologically young, the surface is less eroded with poorly developed ephemeral stream channels and groundwater seeping along the coast [56] (see Figure 6B). The *ahupua*'*a* covers 104 km<sup>2</sup> and spans 2518 m elevation from the summit of Hualalai Mountain to the sea. High rainfall in Ha'ena results in nearly three times more groundwater discharge (10,279 m ¯ 3/year/m) compared to Ka'up¯ ulehu (3085 m ¯ 3/year/m), which also means that nutrients are more diluted (less concentrated) than Ka'up¯ ulehu, which is much drier. Our groundwater models showed that groundwater in ¯ Ka'up¯ ulehu has higher levels of nitrogen from natural sources (38,900 kg/year or 7.08 kg/m/year) ¯ compared to Ha'ena (29,200 kg/year or 6.02 kg/m/year). H ¯ a'ena is rural with limited development ¯ and agriculture, so most of the nutrients come from natural processes, with the exception of land areas to the east of the *ahupua'a* where nutrients are largely human-derived (human-derived nutrients: N: 7.8% and P: 5.5%), compared to more developed Ka'up¯ ulehu (human-derived nutrients: N: 24% and ¯ P: 35%). The key sources of human-derived nutrients were wastewater from houses on cesspools at Ha'ena and the golf course and wastewater from the injection well at Ka' ¯ up¯ ulehu. ¯

**Figure 6.** Illustration of the groundwater system at Ha'ena and Ka' ¯ up¯ ulehu. ( ¯ **A**) Ha'ena is located on ¯ old, wet, wave exposed coast of Kaua'I; (**B**) Ka'up¯ ulehu is young, dry and wave sheltered. ¯

Due to its older geological age and exposure to marine erosion from oceanic swells at Ha'ena ¯ (nearly one order of magnitude higher than Ka'up¯ ulehu) has over time carved wider and shallower ¯ reef flats and produced shallow lagoons protected from the swell by well-developed reef crests [57]. The back-reef areas form lagoons that are protected from wave power by well-developed reef crests and support a benthic community dominated by corals and macroalgae [41]. The benthic community on the wave-exposed fore-reef is dominated by crustose coralline algae (CCA) and turf algae [58,59]. Our coral reef models showed that high wave power at Ha'ena has shaped the living community of the ¯ reefs, which are dominated by CCA and turf algae with many grazers and less scrapers (see Figure 7A). The Makua lagoon area is an exception where corals are able to grow, sheltered from powerful waves by a well-developed reef crest. In comparison, the coral reefs of Ka'up¯ ulehu are younger and form a ¯ relatively narrow fringe on the steep slope of that island [57]. Because the reef is sheltered from large winter waves, its slopes are dominated by corals and have high habitat complexity, which supports higher fish biomass, particularly scrapers, while the shallow reef flats are dominated by turf algae with some CCA and support lower fish biomass (see Figure 7B) [48]. Browser abundance was low at both

sites. Our coral reef models also showed that land-based nutrients from groundwater can increase benthic algae, suppress coral and CCA and decrease numbers of locally important fish at both sites.

**Figure 7.** Illustrations of the coral reefs. (**A**) Coral reefs in Ha'ena are characterized by a reef crest ¯ dominated by crustose coralline algae (CCA) and turf algae and back reef with abundant corals and macroalgae with many grazers and less scrapers and (**B**) Coral reefs in Ka'up¯ ulehu are dominated by ¯ corals on the slopes and turf algae on the reef flats with many scrapers.
