Thank you T&C Surf Designs!

Your gift of time and attention in 2023 to help raise awareness for the Punahoa Heritage Forest, as well as the very welcome proceeds from the collaboration, are much appreciated.

Pū‘ā Foundation was asked by The Friend to write briefly about the Punahoa Heritage Forest (PHF). To set context, an understanding of Hawai‘i’s land system is provided, taken in part from W.D. Alexander’s A Brief History of Land Titles in the Hawaiian Kingdom (1891) including the description of land by island (mokupuni), districts (moku), and divisions (ahupua‘a).

From our partners at Hawaii Conference United Church of Christ

On Tuesday, April 11, Pūʻā Foundation and friends gathered for a blessing of the Punahoa Heritage Forest. The Pūʻā Foundation has been working to protect and preserve this important forest land it was given in 1996 as part of the Hawai‘i Conference's apology and redress.

Thirty years ago, the United Church of Christ apologized for its complicity in the 1893 overthrow and transferred thousands of acres of land and millions of dollars to a community-based nonprofit.

That nonprofit, the Pūʻā Foundation, is now preparing to use a portion of that land as a gathering place for Native Hawaiians and for those who embrace Hawaiian culture.

In April 2023 we received the first results from the aerial survey for Punahoa Heritage Forest. The survey uses modern mapping technology to help identify physical elements such as ground elevation, tree height, o’hia detection, and land cover. To get an initial benchmark, we were able to obtain maps using 2019 survey data.