Sunset off Ha‘ena.

This concludes our journey through Ha‘ena--a journey through space and time. In departing, here are some closing thoughts from our Guides on what can be learned from the works of Ha‘ena's people, past and present:

"Because of the abundant resources that were available here in this ahupua‘a," Chipper points out, "and the fact that Hawaiian people were able to live here in harmony with them, and utilize them but not deplete or destroy them, this is one of those places that it believed to have been used all the way from early contact, all the way up continuously. A lot of places were used, and then abandoned.

"If you walk up and look at those lo‘i, they have been used conservatively for 800 consecutive years, but how? The soil should be depleted! The key here is to malama. If you can get into being inside of that ecosystem, from the Hawaiian perspective, be a part of it, you become part of that balance. And the problem I think we have with our society to day is, we don't thing of ourselves as part of the ecosystem. We think of ourselves as above it. You know, this is ours to dominate or exploit. Then things get really out of balance that way."

"Gotta be in you," Samson adds. "If it's in you, it'll work. If you can change the mind, then it'll work. Otherwise it's only talk. So, people talking about resource conservation, if it's not in the people, then you got to listen to them more, so you can surrender to that idea. Because if you never live like that, you cannot do that. For a person that when they talking about it, they really never go through the mental process of making it so. For me, if going through the mental process and you accept that approach, then okay, then it will happen. But if you never go through the mill, then never going happen."

Mahalo nui; a hui hou.