DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Volunteers from Waianae, Chaminade University and Kapiolani Community College hauled 14 tons of coral rock to shore up the walls of Heeia Pond during a community workday Saturday. Working on the wall were Jeremiah Johnson, left, and Micah Stephenson from Chaminade. Volunteers play a vital role in maintaining the 88-acre pond on Kaneohe Bay.

Moi harvest highlights Heeia pond traditions

A caretaker's cottage is the next big step in upholding ancient aquaculture practices

During the hundreds of years that fishponds were a key food source in Hawaii, each had a caretaker who lived nearby and oversaw its aquaculture operation.

The group that now manages Heeia Pond wants to revive that tradition by building a modest but modern caretaker's cottage by the 88-acre fishpond on Kaneohe Bay.

The building would allow someone to live on site and guard against poaching of fish, crabs and limu in the pond, said Mahina Duarte, executive director of Paepae O He'eia, the nonprofit group that has managed the fishpond since 2001 in cooperation with landowner Kamehameha Schools.

The need for such a building is highlighted by the harvest this week of Paepae O He'eia's first crop of moi from the pond, said Keli'i Kotubetey, one of seven "core members" of the group of mostly 30-something professionals of native Hawaiian ancestry.

The current harvest will be at most 900 fish, Kotubetey said, because that is how many 3-month-old moi fingerlings were supplied nine months ago by the Oceanic Institute.

When the fish are caught and weighed, Paepae O He'eia will learn how much their moi grew during nine months in Heeia Pond, Kotubetey said.

Eventually Paepae O He'eia might explore growing other species of fish in the pond, but for now moi, or Pacific threadfin, is a good choice "because it is available, ono and marketable," Duarte said.

How much fish can be sustainably produced there remains to be seen, as the nonprofit group continues to blend ancient ways passed down by kupuna (elders), modern scientific methods and the trial and error of "learning from the pond," Duarte and Kotubetey said.

"We're ecstatic about the sale. It's a milestone in our vision and our mission," Duarte said.

Kamehameha Schools hopes to put a 900-square-foot caretaker's quarters on the second floor of a new building, then use the first floor for storage and to provide bathrooms and showers for fishpond workers, said Kamehameha Schools project manager Jo Anne Hanada. The building will be hooked up to the city sewer system, ending the need for portable toilets, she said, and a run-down Quonset hut now used for storage will be demolished.

The new building will not be visible from the pond access road, Ipuka Street, or from Kaneohe Bay, keeping the educational-cultural operation low-profile in its residential neighborhood.

Kamehameha Schools is optimistic it will get permits for the project this year and be able to begin the building in 2007, Hanada said. The working budget for the project is $350,000 for planning and permitting and $400,000 for construction, all of which will be covered by Kamehameha Schools, she said.

Kamehameha Schools values Heeia Pond as an example of aina mole (an ancestral taproot), said Ulalia Woodside, Kamehameha Schools land legacy resources manager.

Since undergoing strategic planning with community members in the late 1990s, the trust seeks to manage such places with a "multiple bottom line, not just economic as one may see for Windward Mall" or other commercial properties, Woodside said.

"We're also looking at environmental, cultural, educational and community returns," Woodside said. "Heeia fishpond is a perfect example of attempting to achieve those multiple bottom lines, with its classroom without walls, work to remove invasive species and reintroduce Hawaiian limu, taking care of the physical structure of the pond, as well providing as a source of sustenance for our people."

Heeia is one the state's largest remaining Hawaiian fishponds and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The pond, more than 500 years old, is encircled by a wall of basalt and coral.

The first recorded owner of the pond was High Chief Abner Paki, the father of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, founder of Kamehameha Schools, according to a history of the pond on the Kamehameha Schools Web site.

In recent times the pond and nearby lands avoided development as a golf course, marina or residential housing.

In the 1990s moi was raised commercially in the pond by former tenant Mary Brooks, who guided major restoration efforts with volunteers -- including Duarte.

"I want to help people to see the beauty of the place, the ingenuity of the place," Duarte said.

Duarte sees Hawaiian cultural and universal values learned at the fishpond by workers, volunteers and students that include stewardship, responsibility, family and love of place.

"There are few places left that we as a larger community can come together for a collective purpose," Duarte said.

Paepae O He'eia divides its work into three main programs:

» Ku Hou Kuapa: Refurbishing the kuapa (walls) of the fishpond includes removing invasive mangrove trees and mending the basalt and coral wall around the entire fishpond. This is where most volunteer help is used.

» Ka'ai Kamaha'o: Educational programs, including regular classroom sessions at the fishpond from Kamehameha Schools, King Intermediate and three public charter schools. Project-based teaching covers subjects ranging from art and culture to science, math and communications skills.

» 'Aina Momona: The fish-farming aspect of the pond is a community-based economic development program, which hopes to be a model for sustainable harvest of seafood from a Hawaiian fishpond.

The Heeia group also participates in a statewide consortium of Hawaiian fishpond caretakers, Hui Malama Loko I'a.

Among the group's recent sources of support are a $50,000 grant from the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs and a $130,000 grant from the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Kotubetey, who has a business degree, said his job at the fishpond is fulfilling because "I use what I learned in high school and in college, but I'm not the teacher. I'm a student of the fishpond, of traditional aquaculture.

"I'm always learning."