Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
id588086349
Our history is deeply rooted in the town of Lahaina. Before we were a state, before we were a territory, when we were the Kingdom of Hawaii, it was our capital.
✏️ The beginning.. an independent land with natural resources, residing beside a behemoth empire nation. 🔗 View Highlight
id588086423
At the turn of the twentieth century, sugar barons, far-right American businessmen, and oligarchs diverted water illicitly from Lahaina to irrigate the land they stole for monocrops, for sugar.
✏️ Enter the capitalists, colonizing the land by usurping its natural resources for their own products. 🔗 View Highlight
id588086481
Alexander & Baldwin. Those are two of the original “Big Five” missionary families, from centuries ago. Today it’s the largest corporation, landowner, and political donor, or among the top donors, on Maui. So it persists: they get vast profits off the diverting of our resources and the control of our politicians.
✏️ Centuries later, members of the oligarchical and missionary families that setup in the land are still there… represented as the largest corp, the largest landowner and the largest political donor. 🔗 View Highlight
id588087088
As they diverted water away from kalo farmers and family farmers, they built subdivisions for new residents moving into Maui. They build hotels, and then they say, “We can’t give you water back because this community relies on it,” so they pit you against them — and “we can’t give you water back because this hotel and therefore all the workers and the union that represents those workers would’’t appreciate that.”
✏️ Back then, as they diverted water for their own gains, and as they built new accommodations and hotels, they then tell the original landowners (the native Hawaiians), “Sorry, we can’t give you back your water. That would hurt these new residents and workers and community.” They pit locals against each other. 🔗 View Highlight
id588087326
people were getting charged $500 for watering their lawns during a drought while the hotels continued to have their waterslides and fountains or pools filled.
id588087342
the people who play here and see Hawaii as their playground are treated better by our government that we fund than the citizens of Hawaii.
✏️ What happens when you turn a local land into a tourist destination, with no regard for the locals. 🔗 View Highlight
id588087748
Lahaina was once a lush wetland with sprawling Loko I’a fish ponds, some of the earliest systems of aquaculture, where you could take a boat around the famous Waiola Church — which unfortunately burned down. That water was diverted for hotels and monocrops by the original colonizers, and now our economy — which is held up by the pillars of tourism and land speculation — can only function with the diverted water.
✏️ The ecological damage is damning, permanent and steeped in colonialism. Where once was a long-standing aquaculture, with native wildlife and local institutions, you now have hotels and monocrops. The economy and the natural resources are now firmly tied to the things that destroyed the land, the culture and the civilization. What’s most insidious and paradoxical though, is that the new economy of tourism and real estate is dependent on preserving the natural beauty and resources that are being developed/destroyed out of existence. It can’t be sustained. 🔗 View Highlight