What Can YOU do?
Outreach & Education – Help us educate visitors at various community events and locations (farmers markets, canoe races and other sporting events,the beach parks, etc.). Volunteers help set up and break down pop up tents, and educate visitors to the tent about the Kailua ahupua’a, how mauka and makai are connected and our efforts to restore abundance to the Kailua near shore fishery.
Biological Monitoring – Conduct fish counts, monitor coral health and water quality, and observe and document fish/coral-human interactions on a regular basis. This information will provide a running yardstick of near shore ocean health.
Human Use Monitoring – Conduct people counts and document use observations. and keep track of how the MLCD is being used. Our volunteers count (swimmers, snorkelers, beachgoers, divers and fishers and more. Over time, this information helps us identify peak use times and provide carrying capacity information
Beach Cleanups – With thousands of visitors to Kailua’s beaches and trails everyday there’s never a shortage of opala (trash) left behind, both on the shore, along side the trails and in the water. Kailua-Kaohao has miles of trails and shoreline to malama so lets get busy and help organize and implement rubbish removal events. And do it wearing our logo schwag to remind the community of who we are and what we do.
Native Hawaiian Plant Restoration – (Coming Soon) Help reduce erosion and sedimentation by removing invasive weeds and shrubs, and re-plant with indigenous vegetation. thousands of native Hawaiian Plants in their place. If you like working with plants, landscaping, weeding, or if you just like being in the dirt, join us to help save the coral and restore balance to both mauka and makai ecosystems. Proposed restoration targets include Kailua and Kaohao shorelines, the Kaiwa ridge trail, and na Mokulua.
Together, we can honor and value the reef ecosystem as our kuleana, instead of allowing it to be taken for granted and unwittingly harmed. We can treat our ecosystem as part of our cultural history and identity – one that is both a food source and a source of rich history, and in return we can become true stewards who care for it.
Our reef ecosystem was once one of abundance that fed and protected the Kailua Community. Together we can honor that space by treating it as part of our cultural heritage and identity. By embracing this kuleana to truly steward the reef with a generational mindset, we can restore our reef to a place of abundance again.
By promoting, and ultimately helping to implement, sustainable fishing practices in our local community, we restore reef ecosystem health and become a leader in contributing to our own and our childrens’ futures.