What’s Happening in Our Mana`e Mountains?

Community Contributed

By Walter Ritte, Aha Moku Planning and Consultation

There will be a Mana`e Moku Meeting this Friday, Sept. 20, starting at 7 p.m. The highlight of the meeting will be a report of a new watershed plan for most of the mountains from Kamalo to Halawa. The plan is to fence off the mountaintops. This will have a major impact on the people and lands of Mana`e.

The meeting will also be a chance to meet some of your new Moku leaders and new ahupua`a leaders, as there are 37 ahupua`a in the Mana`e Moku. There should be at least one representative from each ahupua`a, although there could be more. The representatives today are volunteers until elections are held at a later date.

There will also be time to make a list of issues the people of Mana`e would like to present. This will be the first of many more Mana`e Moku meetings under new leadership with the goal of gaining more control over the future of their lives. The Moku structure gives a “bottom-up” ahupua`a-based governance system based on Hawaiian traditions.

Mana`e needs to gain control of the resources, mauka and makai, in their Moku (from Kamalo to Halawa) and each ahupua`a will have a voice. This planning process is part of a new state law. If there ever was an opportunity to solve our own problems and make things right, this is it!