We have organized to share some interesting land use prototypes that we in OUR OHANA are pioneering. We feel we must try out some new solutions because we are deciding we need a more versatile kind of approach to survive. The old development policies deny us the flexibility we need to grow food, control local power, and therefore have the water we need to make our community more deeply ready.

The situation is

We live on an island with a very fragile infrastructure. We are almost completely dependent on off-island resources. We can no longer afford to close our eyes to the mounting global threats. The rising fuel prices, global warming, economic collapse, pandemic plagues, nuclear terrorism are some of the more virulent of the dangers could easily leave us stripped bare.

Our basic survival needs for food, water, and power are at total risk. The gardens we had in the fifties are gone. Our water system has collapsed. Our giant fossil fuel power plant is the most at risk ever in its history. This all needs to get turned around and soon. We are taking the actions we believe are necessary to protect our community and our future and will give us a chance to live in the beautiful Hawaii we love.

In the not too distant past, the inhabitants on this island used to enjoy life by what they could cultivate, hunt, or make. Once upon a time there was an agricultural community here that could sustain itself. This self-reliant population and food making wisdom has dwindled to nearly nothing. Almost all of us depend now on available on-the-shelf food supplies, for which there is less than a week on hand. In any crisis, the immediate response is to hoard which causes supplies to be reduced faster. This is a formula for civil unrest. None of our grocers have a realistic idea of what to do if they get rushed. We have talked to them all.

And you must know we are aiming for way more than survival. That is only phase one. Then comes sustainability and then comes the dream of living in the paradise we all know is possible if we change our minds and our present ways of operating. So we are moving into that future as step at a time beginning with self-reliance.

At the very core of our vision is the state motto
to hold our lands in righteousness.

Our mission is to bring forth the ways to stay true to that motto. North Kohala has a historic legacy of being the first to do new things. North Kohala has been called the land of destiny. We therefore see our Kuleana as being the district on Hawaii island that does things first to preserve what we believe is beyond ordinance. We are a natural to prototype the next most valuable way to organize ourselves on the land.

We intend to invent and transmit new land use ideas to all who have a stake in our collective future. By virtue of our natural inheritance of soil and water we may be the deepest connection to the ultimate survival of this island during hard times. We take our history as the deep pocket food reserve seriously …as well as the idea that we are the servants of the land and in sacred communion with the land.