Land and People

Co-hosts Melissa Chimera and Clay Trauernicht reflect on the past two seasons of Land and People, the most poignant and most difficult moments in the podcast, as well as their shared work at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa in helping to reduce wildfire risk across the Hawaiian landscape.

Billy Kinney is a storyteller, cultural practitioner, connector and land back advocate whose family traces its lineage, care and kuleana to Kauaʻi’s north shore. Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s during Hanalei river’s “boating wars,” Billy unpacks the challenges and opportunities for local people to connect and reconnect with ʻāina amidst unrestrained tourism and development, thereby redirecting the future of sacred places like Hāʻena. As the Assistant Director of the Hui Makaʻāinana o Makana he carries forward the group’s mission to interpret, restore, care and protect the natural and cultural resources within the Hāʻena State...

Justin Hite has worked with some of Kaua‘i’s rarest forest birds like the ʻAkekeʻe and the ‘Akikiki, down to the last individuals in the remote ʻAlakaʻi rain forests. As the former field supervisor of the Kaua‘i Forest Bird Recovery Project over a decade, he helped track and collect eggs of these incredibly rare birds for captive propagation to establish “emergency” populations in the event of their extinction in the wild. His career as a birder spans decades across multiple continents and countries to Kauai where he spent over 1,000 field nights camping in remote terrain. He talks about h...

Melissa Chimera, co-host of the Land and People podcast is a Hawai‘i Triennial 2025 visual artist whose work consists of research-based investigations into species extinction, globalization and human migration. In this interview, Melissa talks with Dr. Jaimey Faris, Associate Professor of Contemporary Art and Theory at UH Mānoa on how environmental justice can be expressed through “undisciplining” or pursuing the links between art, science and ethics of deep care. They talk about how her paintings (Inheritance: Maui Nui, Not Even the Fiercest Wind, Endless Blue: Mauna Kahalawai) address endangered species, the Maui fires and the transformative potential of Chimera...

Nic Barca grew up on Kaua`i and learned to hunt while in his teens. His hunting experience ranges from bow and arrow, to dog and knife hunting pigs, goats and most recently shooting black tail deer. For the past 17 years, he has worked as The Nature Conservancy’s Field Coordinator trapping and hunting animals from the far reaches of the Alaka`i plateau’s bogs to Wainiha valley. He reveals his insights into seasonal animal movements, the evolution of efficient trapping and snaring programs, and the importance of documenting invasive animals–from determining what they are eating, how often...

Conservationist Trae Menard has spent decades protecting Hawaiian native ecosystems, with special attention to his home island of Kaua`i for the past twenty years. As the former program director of The Nature Conservancy’s Kaua`i program, his experience is that of an ecologist who moved to Hawai`i from the east coast--first for graduate school in geography at University of Hawai`i at Mānoa, and then later as a natural resource manager. Trae tells us how Kaua`i has seen the seismic shift from opposition to fencing for conservation purposes, to support for the establishment of the...

Lisa Hadway Spain has worked in Hawaiian native species and ecosystem conservation and education for more than three decades. She first entered the field as a zoology graduate student studying endangered land snails at University of Hawaii at Mānoa, eventually transitioning to the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Forestry and Wildlife and obtaining the top position as the division administrator overseeing statewide programs. Lisa shares with us her experiences working at the forefront of shifting paradigms in forestry as well as the controversy over critical habitat designation on private lands. Her perspective is that of a w...

Keith Robinson of Kaua`i comes from a multi-generational, large land-owning family who has been in Hawai`i for more than 200 years. The Robinsons (descendants of the Sinclairs) owned and operated sugar plantations and cattle ranches across many thousands of acres in Kaua`i, including the entire island of Ni`ihau. A self-described "black sheep", Keith's varied interests range from Ni`ihau defense operations, to ranching and native plant restoration. His passion is as a one-man operation in growing, planting and helping to sustain in some cases rare plant species across Robinson-owned land. He shares his unusual upbringing, as...

Aunty Sabra Kauka  is founding member and past-president of grassroots nonprofit, Nā Pali Coast `Ōhana, dedicated to preserving natural and cultural resources of the Nā Pali Coast State Park. Her work and that of the volunteers centers around the ancient Hawaiian village, Nu`alolo Kai, once a thriving, rugged and isolated community on the north shore of Kaua`i. Sabra shares with us the wide scope of her travels and experiences across the continent to Alaska and then back home to Hawai`i where she has held anthropology and journalism positions, and taught Hawaiiana and cultural protocols for decades.

Jeremie Makepa is a captain for the Kaua`i Fire Department for more than 2 decades in fire prevention side and as a fire fighter. His is a multi-generational Hawaiian homesteading family and most recently he serves as a land steward with the non-profit `Āina Alliance, formed in 2021. His work and that of his partners is award-winning: he’s been recognized by the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement with an E Ola Empowering O`iwi Leadership award for his “community partnerships rehabilitating areas that have been abused and neglected" particularly in Anahola, on the north shore of his home island.

Melissa and Clay pivot this season to the oldest island in the Hawaiian archipelago--Kaua`i. They revisit one of their earliest LAND & PEOPLE interviews with retired botanist Steve Perlman, of the Kaua`i Plant Extinction Prevention Program (PEPP). Steve talks about his love of Pacific island peoples in remote places, his start with the National Tropical Botanical Garden, the thrill of discovering new plants, and climbing the highest sea cliffs in the world to save the last of a species.

William (Willy) Kostka is a long-time conservationist and islander who was born and raised on the island of Pohnpei, in the Federated States of Micronesia. In 1998, he helped found and became the first Board Chairman and Executive Director of the Conservation Society of Pohnpei, and then transitioned to lead the Micronesia Conservation Trust for 17 years. He has helped to bridge, fund and formulate island ecosystem stewardship and marine protected commitments from islands and countries across the nearly 7 million km2 of Pacific Ocean. Willy speaks to us about growing up in Pohnpei, as well as the traditional land tenure and...

Ann Singeo is a founding member and Executive Director of Ebiil Society, a non-profit organization that promotes environmental education and conservation in Palau. She holds a Masters Degree in Communications for Social Change from University of Texas in El Paso which enabled her to learn from and work with subsistence communities across Micronesia. For two decades, she has helped to facilitate stewardship learning by young people in Palau in both science and traditional knowledge.  Students and researchers are involved in everything from giant clam and sea cucumber restoration, dugong and turtle monitoring, fish weir restoration, marine debris removal, to w...

Craig Santos Perez is a poet, essayist, university professor, and American publisher born in Mongmong-Toto-Maite, Guam (Guåhan) Island, formally considered a U.S. territory. His literary distinctions are many. In 2023 he won the National Book Award for poetry,  2015 American Book Award and the 2011 PEN Center USA Literary Award for Poetry. He immigrated to California when he was fifteen, thus sparking his life-long exploration into what it means to be of a tropical and culturally rich place, and then separated from his CHomorro  homeland. His poetry and scholarship settles into the question of identity, navigating place and also challenges man...

Part II of a two-part conversation with Jermy Uowolo, who was born and raised on the island of Fais in the State of Yap, in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Jermy's background is as a Micronesian cultural practitioner, anthropologist, historian and Hawaiian ecosystem restoration specialist for the Mauna Kea Forest Restoration Project. He shares with us the value of gathering and recording knowledge from Micronesian elders and culture keepers, as well as the challenges and opportunties of his own immigration story--from Yap to Guam and eventually Hawai`i Island. 

Part I of a two-part conversation with Jermy Uowolo, who was born and raised on the island of Fais in the State of Yap, in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). He received his bachelors degree from University of Hawai`i at Hilo and served as a conservationist for the Watershed Alliance in Hawai`i, the Mauna Kea Forest Restoration Project and is the President of the Micronesians United – Big Island (MU-BI) organization in Hawai`i. His knowledge spans the remote atols of his home state, to Guam, Palau, the Mariana Islands and beyond. He shares with us the pr...

Archie Kalepa Is a retired ocean safety officer who served the County of Maui for 32 years. Archie is not only a world renowned ocean safety expert and dedicated advocate for Hawaiian culture with decades of experience in rescue operations, cultural preservation and team leadership. He is a pivotal leader in West Maui, as one of the first responders on-scene after the Lahaina fires organizing the ocean delivery of needed food, water and essentials to people stranded and desperate for help. While his big wave surfing and ocean rescue accolades are many, he tells us about how helping and connecting...

Abigail Romanchak was born and raised on Maui and is a native Hawaiian printmaker who conveys the Hawaiian environment–the sounds, bird songs, human footprints across Haleakalā–through the medium of printmaking. She has both a Bachelors and Masters in Fine Art with a specialty in printmaking from the University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa and her work has been shown and collected by museums and institutions throughout the world. She takes her inspiration from uncovering the hidden, sometimes minute patterns in nature and art–from nearly invisible watermarks made by Hawaiian kapa beaters on wauke (or mulberry) to the rings...

In this live recording for the 2024 Hawai‘i Conservation Conference, co-hosts Melissa Chimera and Clay Trauernicht interview keynote speakers Kapuaʻala Sproat, professor of law at the William S. Richardson School of Law and Kekai Keahi, Maui Komohana community leader in the opening session “What Water Rights in West Maui Can Teach Us About Fire & Conservation."  In an emotional interview for 1,400 attendees, they revisit the 2023 Maui fire catastrophes one year later, recounting historical land care battles dating back more than a century, as well as their own personal struggles, triumphs and lessons. They demonstrate how the fight for land, people...

Born and raised on Maui, Hina Puamohala Kneubuhl is an artist, co-founder of Kealapiko clothing, rare plant botanist, Hawaiian translator and scholar. Her knowledge base spans both conservation and the humanities, as her lineage of healers and musicians includes her great-grandmother Nana Veary and her grandmother, renowned Hawai`i singer Emma Veary. We traverse many worlds--from her work in Hawaiian language translation, her work in rare plant conservation to her recent activism against the proposed military telescopes atop Haleakalā, Maui. She connects economic and environmental sustainability for all of Hawai`i's people to the importance of indigenous sovereignty both i...

Co-hosts Melissa Chimera and Clay Trauernicht give you a *sneak peak* of Season 3 coming up very soon!

Scholar and historian Dr. Davianna Pōmaika`i McGregor is a founding member of the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa's Ethnic Studies Department and a pivotal force in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement beginning in the 1970s. Now retired, she taught oral history, environmental and cultural review and assessment to many students for 49 years. She speaks to the importance of upholding basic living standards for Hawai`i's people and how her work spans countless struggles across ethnic lines--from her involvement with the Protect Kaho`olawe `Ohana which helped successfully transfer the former bombing range to indigenous stewardship by na...

Dr. Gerry Carr, Emeritus Professor of Botany at the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa has studied and taught the evolution of plants in the silversword alliance, a unique group of Hawaiian plants encompassing an extraordinary diversity of forms and habitats. In this episode, we talk about the importance of plant taxonomy in understanding the interrelations between seemingly disparate species and get into harrowing and fun stories of his fieldwork--from Haleakalā, Maui to Ohikilolo in the Wai`anae mountains of O`ahu. His passion for photographing the unique features of plants spans many decades and can be found he...

Entomologist Dr. Ken Kaneshiro at the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa has studied and taught Hawaiian evolution and biology to countless generations of students through the story of the 1,000+ species of Hawaiian drosophila, picture-wing fruit flies descended from a single ancestor. His passion for conservation biology began as a dishwasher on the drosophila project, and has extended to his founding of the Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology Graduate Program which has trained many of today's conservation stewards in Hawai`i. As the Program Director for the Center for Conservation Research & Training at the Pacific Biosciences Research Center, h...

Dr. Scott Rowland has studied and taught geology at the University of Hawai‘i volcanologist for 41 years, having earned teaching distinctions including the Board of Regents and President’s awards. He shares with us his research into remote-sensing volcanology to help determine the ages of different lava flows across the Hawaiian Islands. We also revisit the processes that caused the 2018 Kīlauea volcanic eruption which devastated homes, roads, beaches and harbors in Hawai‘i as well as several destructive Hawaiian earthquakes in the 19th and 20th century. Through his telling, we gain an extended sense of time from the formati...

As the Hawaiian Islands Land Trust's Director of ‘Āina Stewardship, Dr. Scott Fisher has worked for two decades to restore the coastal sand dunes and wetlands of Waihe‘e on Maui. His unusual background is that of an infantryman in Kuwait during the Gulf War where he witnessed unparalleled ecological devastation. In war torn Papua New Guinea he pursued his PhD in peace and conflict studies focused on indigenous knowledge as a means of social and environmental sustainability. He bridges local Maui communities and Hawaiian indigenous knowledge with the study of the ancient ecology of coastlines to help bring life...

Native Nursery on Maui is one of the largest Hawaiian native plant growers in Hawai`i founded by lifelong friends and partners Ethan Romanchak and Jonathan Keyser. With twenty years of experience in native species horticulture, rare plant propagation and ecosystem restoration, their business now includes growing citrus to help re-claim and make productive once more thousands of acres of former sugar lands in the central valley. We talk to them about growing up on Maui, running a business together, and witnessing the massive changes in Maui--from commercial development to environmental challenges including the recent fires.

Dr. Kalehua Krug is a mea kākau (traditional tattooist), musician, activist and school principal at the Hawaiian immersion school Ka Waihona o ka Na`auao in Nānākuli, West O`ahu. His advocacy for land and indigenous philosophy not only stems from his personal journey into Hawaiian identity, but his desire to improve kānaka (Hawaiian) health and educational outcomes, and to expand aloha `āina (love and connection to land) to all. We gain an understanding of how his activism, art and language is rooted in research, learning through practice and an urgency for greater environmental sustainability that...

For over five decades landscape designer, sculptor and naturalist Leland Miyano has connected people to Hawaiian native ecosystems through his gardens in Kahulu`u, at the Bishop Museum and at The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu. In 2019, he created an award winning double hulled canoe installation comprised of invasive guava branches which reflects a Hawaiian sense of place while acknowledging the massive ecosystem transformations Hawai`i has undergone.  He shows us his native Hawaiian garden at the Atherton Halau, his work in stone and wood, and talks about his life-long passion for endemic species from snails to plants as an e...

Hannah Kihalani Springer of Hawai`i Island is a storyteller, environmental activist, and scholar of Hawaiian history for many decades. As a former trustee for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and advocate for land and sea conservation, she has headed up the nonprofit `Ahahui o Pu`u Wa`awa`a which advocates for the conservation and management of forest systems including endangered Hawaiian plants. Her perspective and that of her husband retired fire fighter Michael Tomich is one of hybridity--in their support for ranching and sheep herding in fire prone grasslands while at the same time restoring native species...

Emily and Ann Fielding, the mother-daughter marine duo of Maui have both lived and worked in Hawai`i to help educate and conserve the ocean, its creatures, coral reefs across the Pacific. Ann's experience is as an underwater naturalist where she introduced visitors, kama`aina and students to the abundance of Maui's coral reefs and their creatures. Emily has worked in many capacities from helping to protect one of the largest marine protected areas in the world--Papahānaumokuākea--to conserving the marine life of the Hawaiian archipelago as The Nature Conservancy's Hawai`i Marine Conservation Director. Together they bring us...

For nearly four decades, Department of Land and Natural Resources aquatic biologist Skippy Hau has been in and out of Maui's oceans, estuaries and streams surveying for Hawaiian fish, shrimp, snails, corals, limu (seeweed) and nearly every living thing he could observe underwater. Growing up as a fisherman's son in Kaneohe, O`ahu, Skippy's love of the sea and streams extends to his on-going survey work, research projects, and his students. He paints the picture of his team's painstaking biology which advocates that diverted water be returned to streams, not only for the benefit of both fresh and salt...

We bring together the family and colleagues of Dr. Lloyd Loope, Maui research biologist and ecologist based at Haleakalā National Park who passed away in 2017. We reflect on his legacy as the cornerstone for Hawaiian invasive species management as we know it today and mentor for so many in island ecosystem conservation.  Pat Bily of The Nature Conservancy, Teya Penniman of the Maui Invasive Species Committee, Chuck Chimera of the Hawai`i Invasive Species Council and Lloyd's daughter Brook and son Marshall speak to his unmatched intellect and laser focus, his grace and humility, and above all, his extraordinary de...

Keahi Bustamente is the field coordinator for the Maui Nui Snail Extinction Prevention Program. He works across three islands--Maui, Moloka`i and Lāna`i--searching sometimes all day in the steepest, most remote mountains for a single individual. He speaks candidly about the logistical, physical and knowledge challenges in this work as well as the gift his mentors have given him in showing him the species and places most will never see. His kuleana is that of husband, father and professional mentor to others, while recognizing that this essential knowledge is likewise passed down to the next up and c...

In this episode, co-host Melissa Chimera brings together stories of women in the field from Kerri Fay, terrestrial program manager with The Nature Conservancy and Ane Bakutis, Moloka`i coordinator for the Plant Extinction Prevention Program. Together they share their perspectives as women working in physically demanding jobs across remote locations, managing the logistical and interpersonal complexities of people and land, while simultaneously raising children and advocating for malama `āina in their communities and respective places.  They share an honest reflection on the female perspective of those in mid-career conservation, specifically the challenges and opportunities of the past twenty fi...

Hawaiian land and water activist Ke`eaumoku Kapu of West Maui is descended from a long line of kalo (taro) farmers and care takers of his ancestral home in Kauaula. He and his family's hard won land-back struggles and stream water repatriation in the face of powerful corporate interests serve as the backdrop of his current efforts to help his community in the aftermath and the re-build of Lāhaina town which was completely burned to the ground in August 2023.  He not only speaks to the difficulties ahead and long road to recovery, but also paints a vision of Mo...

Hank Oppenheimer is a field botanist in Hawai`i for more than 30 years, re-discovering plants thought to be extinct and finding species new to science. He is the Maui Nui coordinator for the Plant Extinction Prevention Program which aims to find, stabilize and help recover the rarest of the rarest Hawaiian plants. Hank has also been witness to significant fires--not only the Lāhaina catastrophe of August 2023--but other fires impacting communities and ecosystems that up until recently escaped the public's attention. We talk candidly about the hardships he and others experience in Maui Komohana (West Maui) and what t...

Dr. Chris Schuler, a researcher with the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa’s Water Research Resources Center is a hydrologist and ground water modeler who experienced first hand the impacts of wildfire on Maui in 2023 where he and his family live. In his work which spans from American Samoa to Hawai`i, he speaks to the importance of applied environmental research serving communities directly. In his work and that of his collaborators, he helps test for potential pollutants most importantly in drinking water, which underscores how science can give agency to affected people and places experiencing incomprehensible tra...

Since 1991, Hawai`i water and environmental policy and planning expert Dr. Jonathan Likeke Scheuer has helped people seek a shared, sustainable prosperity for the communities and `āina involved, including the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, the Hawai`i State Land Use Commission, the Hawai`i Land Trust Board, and the O`ahu Island Burial Council. In the aftermath of the August 2023 wildfires on Maui, Melissa and Clay talk with Jonathan about the 2021 book he co-authored with Bianca Isaki WATER AND POWER IN WEST MAUI. We come to understand how water in Hawai`i is inextricably tied to the transformation o...

Dr. Tom Giambelluca, University of Hawai`i (UH) at Mānoa geography and environment professor has been studying and teaching Hawaiian weather and climate in relation to the land and water across the archipelago for 46 years. In the aftermath of the devastating fires on Maui, we ask him to unpack the local atmospheric trends of the past and future, specifically how climate warming is creating greater risk for more wildfires in Hawai`i.  As director of the UH Water Resources Research Center, we get to ask him how different land covers (native and invasive) affect the hydrology of a gi...