**Noa Kekuewa Lincoln 1,\*, Jack Rossen 2, Peter Vitousek 3, Jesse Kahoonei 4, Dana Shapiro 5, Keone Kalawe 6, Mahealani Pai ¯ 7, Kehaulani Marshall <sup>8</sup> and Kamuela Meheula <sup>4</sup>**


Received: 31 July 2018; Accepted: 23 October 2018; Published: 31 October 2018

**Abstract:** Before European contact, Native Hawaiian agriculture was highly adapted to place and expressed a myriad of forms. Although the iconic lo'i systems (flooded irrigated terraces) are often portrayed as traditional Hawaiian agriculture, other forms of agriculture were, in sum, arguably more important. While pockets of traditional agricultural practices have persevered over the 240 years since European arrival, the revival of indigenous methods and crops has substantially increased since the 1970s. While engagement in lo'i restoration and maintenance has been a core vehicle for communication and education regarding Hawaiian culture, it does not represent the full spectrum of Hawaiian agriculture and, on the younger islands of Hawai'i and Maui in particular, does not accurately represent participants' ancestral engagement with 'aina malo'o (dry land, as opposed to ¯ flooded lands). These "dryland" forms of agriculture produced more food than lo'i, especially on the younger islands, were used to produce a broader range of resource crops such as for fiber, timber, and medicine, were more widespread across the islands, and formed the economic base for the powerful Hawai'i Island chiefs who eventually conquered the archipelago. The recent engagement in the restoration of these forms of agriculture on Hawai'i Island, compared to the more longstanding efforts to revive lo'i-based cultivation, is challenging due to highly eroded knowledge systems. However, their restoration highlights the high level of place-based adaptation, demonstrates the scale and political landscape of pre-European Hawai'i, and provides essential elements in supporting the restoration of Hawaiian culture.

**Keywords:** traditional agriculture; indigenous agriculture; biocultural; restoration; Hawai'i

### **1. Introduction**

Biocultural restoration relies upon understanding specific cultures and practices within an ecological context [1,2]. Increasingly, several fields are asserting the importance of using an approach that recognizes the intertwined nature of people and place to develop adaptive management strategies [3,4]. Doing so requires a holistic understanding of both the sociocultural and ecological systems, and in particular, the relationships and feedbacks that are encompassed within socioecological systems. It has been suggested that islands in general are well suited to the study of coupled natural and human systems and Hawai'i in particular has been hailed as a model system for the exploration of these complex human-environment dynamics [5]. This is because unique attributes of both the natural and social environments present ideal combinations of complexity and tractability. For instance, Hawai'i encompasses an extraordinary range of variation in climate and substrate age in a small area, but the resulting diversity in soils and ecosystems is highly organized and predictable in its distribution [6]. Similarly, Hawai'i reached a high state of political complexity and state governance prior to the arrival of Europeans, yet represents a very short timeline of human occupation and a relatively closed social system at the archipelago level [5]. Consequently, unique opportunities for understanding the development and diversity of biocultural relationships exists in Hawai'i.

Of particular interest to both research and restoration have been Hawaiian agricultural systems. Before European contact, Native Hawaiian agriculture was highly adapted to place and expressed a myriad of forms [7]. The development of unique resource management practices evolved to local environments maximized efficient productivity [8–14]. This led to highly specific, place-adapted indigenous knowledge that powered the political evolution of the ancient Hawaiian state. In the past few decades there has been an increasing recognition of the high value of this knowledge in contemporary resource management and land stewardship, and growing efforts to preserve and revitalize such knowledge. Restoration of these place-adapted systems has proven challenging due to significant loss of traditional ecological knowledge.

In reviewing efforts to revitalize traditional agricultural techniques, we see several commonalities between organizations that are undertaking these efforts; in particular, the application of highly interdisciplinary, non-linear approaches that rely on strong relationships between players across different disciplines and epistemologies. We suggest that oversimplification of the diverse, place-based requirements and practices associated with traditional Hawaiian agriculture has impeded in-depth understanding of traditional Hawaiian agriculture, and consequently, has also impeded the restoration of these systems. Furthermore, we suggest that examining these agricultural efforts within a landscape-level socioecological context is essential to understanding their function and roles in both the past and the present. While exploring these theoretical underpinnings, we also discuss practical components of conducting biocultural restoration.

#### *Understanding Environmental and Social Adaptation in Hawaiian Agriculture*

In illustrating the adaptive nature of socioecological systems, this paper presents a novel treatment of the evolution and function of one core biocultural coupling—agriculture. As concepts of biocultural management grow, it is important to exemplify how form and function of socioecological couplings are a product of both the environmental and the social landscape. Even common and essential elements, in this case of agriculture, manifested differently within the larger socioecological landscape in the past, and similarly manifest differently within the contemporary efforts to restore these systems.

In this paper, we first present a review of the evolution of agricultural form in Hawai'i based on local environments, and illustrate the knowledge specificity and system functionality that existed in the past. We then consider recent efforts to expand the form of agricultural restoration from that which has dominated the last 30 years of effort by describing several organizations and their efforts. These organizations were selected as, to the authors' expert knowledge, the leading efforts on Hawai'i Island to expand the form of traditional agriculture restoration. We explore common elements of the efforts, how they differ from previous efforts, and how these differences are manifested within contemporary social and political movements.

Importantly, we utilize indigenous methodology that directly engages those intimately involved in the efforts. This includes participants from both western and indigenous science perspectives. All participants are highly experienced experts that, in a traditional ethnographic study, would be treated as human subjects within a study rather than given the opportunity to tell their own story directly. It is important to note that all the authors have been intimately involved with the restoration of these systems in different capacities and speak from immersed experience in the process; 11 of the

15 participants and six of the nine authors are native Hawaiians. All involved are highly experienced in traditional agriculture in a myriad of forms.

#### **2. Evolution and Restoration of Traditional Hawaiian Agricultural Forms**

The unique and highly diverse biophysical landscape of Hawai'i compared to the southern Polynesian islands supported the development of new agricultural practices that were not found elsewhere in the Pacific. Hawai'i is the only Polynesian group north of the equator, the only islands with mountain peaks over 4000 m, and the only islands with constant and current volcanic activity, resulting in a denser and more diverse array of soils and ecosystems. The most salient division in land types, recognized even by ancient agriculturalists, were 'aina wai (inundated, wet lands) and ' ¯ aina ¯ malo'o (non-flooded, dry lands).

'Aina wai and ' ¯ aina malo'o supported distinctly different forms of agriculture. In particular, ' ¯ aina ¯ wai primarily supported lo'i—flooded, irrigated agriculture akin to rice paddies but focused on kalo (taro, *Colocasia esculenta*) (Throughout this paper we use the Hawaiian crop names to emphasize that, although they are common tropical species found over broad ranges, the landraces with which the Hawaiian culture coevolved are unique Hawaiian cultivars. The names and encoded knowledge that accompany this specific group of cultivars sets it apart from the species as a whole; cultural restoration arguably could not occur, and certainly could not occur to the full extent, with just any taro species, but only the specific cultivars that are appropriately referred to as kalo.) Hawaiians deliberately created and altered 'aina wai specifically for lo'i cultivation through the building of terraces, excavating of ¯ lands, and construction of dams and canals. In contrast to the relatively tight coupling of 'aina wai to ¯ lo'i cultivation, 'aina malo'o supported a broad range of agricultural strategies that included home ¯ gardens (k¯ıhapai), agroforestry (mahi 'ulu l ¯ a'au), intensive dryland farming (mahi 'ai), and a range of ¯ other strategies (see Lincoln and Vitousek 2017 for an overview). Additionally, there were "hybrid" systems that developed from diverting water from wet areas to irrigate dry lands intermittently, or dry lands that were intermittently wet on their own through seasonal rivers and springs.

In sweeping terms, archaeologists and anthropologists consider lo'i agriculture to be high in *landesque capital* [15], requiring significant infrastructural investment to construct terraces and canals to control the flow of water. Following construction, lo'i agriculture produced a significant surplus, as the flowing water reduced labor demands for weeding, fertilization, and watering of crops while supporting high productivity [16]. This form of production was also resilient against natural perturbations, such as drought, and social disturbances, such as war. In contrast, agriculture practiced on dry lands is presented as having less infrastructural development and higher labor costs, resulting in lower surplus production and, therefore, higher vulnerability to social disturbances [17]. Such systems, being dominantly rainfed, are also inherently more variable in their production, both spatially and temporally; therefore agriculture on 'aina malo'o has been considered more vulnerable to natural ¯ disturbances as well [12]. However, these generalizations are built upon sparse investigations into traditional agricultural systems, and none of them on operational systems in Hawai'i. As described, the forms of agriculture on 'aina malo'o are too diverse for easy generalization. Recent research by ¯ the authors identifies such systems that have minimal infrastructural investment and minimal labor requirements [10], extremely high infrastructural investment and moderate labor requirements [18], and moderate infrastructural development with high labor requirements [13].

Although the iconic lo'i systems are dominantly portrayed as traditional Hawaiian agriculture, agriculture on 'aina malo'o was, arguably, more important (especially on the younger islands): they ¯ produced more food than lo'i, at least on the younger islands; they were used to produce a broader range of crops with resource crops for fiber, timber, and medicine grown almost exclusively in dryland conditions; they were more widespread across the archipelago, occurring everywhere Hawaiians inhabited; and they formed the economic base for the powerful Hawai'i Island chiefs who eventually conquered the archipelago [17,19–21]. Documentation and modeling of rainfed agriculture in the

state conservatively indicates that, in terms of land area, agriculture on 'aina malo'o exceeded lo'i ¯ agriculture at least five times [19,20].
