February 8, 2025
Welcome to Adventure Blog #92
This has been an amazing week! Indrajit, my coconut scholar and practitioner partner arrived on Monday and we have had a very busy, but rewarding week. Every day we went out to various places here in Hana looking for indigenous rare Hawaiian coconut varieties for our gene bank. We found quite a few new varieties and Jit made a new gene bank waiting for sprouting and eventual planting here. We went to various farms and some special locations not to be divulged at this time.
We finally have our non profit— Koali Niu. We had our first board meeting on Friday/yesterday and adopted our by laws. We have a small but congenial and hard working board: James Pu, President, Indrajit Gunasakra Vice President and me Secretary and Treasurer. I am really “over the moon” that this finally happened.
Our mission is a cultural revitalization project focused on coconut agroforestry. This project is a partner of Niu Now, a Hawaii based community organization that envisions “niu as a relationship rooted in the community and aloha ‘āina.” Koali Niu Project is a non-profit that operates under a larger umbrella that is focused on revitalization of the Hawaiian ancient uluniu centered agroforestry system. . Currently, the Koali Niu Project is supported by the Kaulunani Grant Program under the Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Green Grant from the County of Maui, as well as private and public donors. Koali Niu is located on an ancient system of lo’i, in the ahupua‘a of Koali in Hana. Following are pictures of our various visits over the week.
Below Jit has his drone filming the tree with the smallest coconuts we have ever seen. On the right is Jit with Beth at her Lau Lima farm getting nuts out of one of her trees.
For Bob’s architecture thesis he envisioned a taro (halo) research center here. We will also continue to plant as much taro as possible replanting the ancient taro lo’i.
Monday is planned to finally get the water tank moved and gutters re attached properly. This week I got four more solar panels which raises the output 40%. Thinking about adding one more battery before the technology changes.
All the four legends are doing well and are happily enjoying the sunny days after last weeks storm.
Happy dreams to everyone! The first part of one of my dreams happened this week. Dreaming and working towards that dream makes things happen.
One of the next dreams is a film documentary on my Wave Woman book. Here is a film trailor for funding.
Aloha Nui,
Vicky
Wave Woman: The Life and Struggles of a Surfing Pioneer by Vicky Durand 