Honors For Malama Maunalua
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Hawaii Nature Conservancy honored Malama Maunalua recently with its 2008 Kakoo Aina award for its effort to conserve and restore a healthy and productive Maunalua Bay.
Two of its founders, Carol Wilcox and Laura Thompson, accepted the award, which was established three years ago to honor community members who have provided significant and longstanding support for conservation in Hawaii.
“It was such an enormous honor,” said Wilcox.
Malama Maunalua is a collaboration of more than a dozen partners including the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Hui Nalu Canoe Club, Malama Hawaii, NOAA, the University of Hawaii and The Nature Conservancy, working together to create a community-based marine education and resource stewardship program in the bay.
It’s vision is a Maunalua Bay where marine life is abundant, the water is clean and clear, and people take kuleana in caring for it.
“What we are trying to do is have everyone in the community collaborate - the residents, the businesses, the government agencies - to see what it takes to restore this bay,“Wilcox explained.“What we’ve been doing is evaluating the area, and what we have determined is that the big threats are sediment, overfishing and alien invasive algae. So we need to address the three of them. It’s going to take some big fixes.”
Currently Malama Maunalua conducts the monthly removal of alien algae with volunteers, and coming up next year is a project to study and create a watershed management plan for each ahupua’a, beginning with Wailupe. “The reason we’re starting with Wailupe is it’s the only area whose stream has not been lined with cement, so it has a natural bottom,” she said. “The Army is to do a flood control project, and they want to line it with cement, so they are going to do a very thorough study of Wailupe and the options for that flood control.
“At the same time we are going to be doing a study.”
To find out more about Malama Maunalua or to help, visit http://www.malamamaunalua.org.
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