“When you have a solid upbringing and a strong sense of place, that sustains you. My sense of home never leaves me.” – Lyle Lovett "Sense of place is about identity and relationships: the identify of a place and the relationship that people have with it. Sense of place is subjective, but not necessarily abstract." – Preservation In Pink

1. `Āina (Land) and Wai (Water) are inseparable elements. Within each Moku (District) are
Ahupua`a (Land Divisions) extending from Mauka (Mountain) to Makai (Sea). Each
Ahupua`a is self-sustaining, following a river or stream, the water source, along a natural
watershed, from the mountain to the sea.
Just as the beginning of the twentieth century was a time of great change,
so change marks the end of that century. A look at the past is essential in
fact, s we step into the future. One can admire the vision and initiative of
the early sugar planters while at the same time mourning the loss of water
resources and authentic Hawaiian lifestyle. The era dominated by sugar
gives way to new times, new challenges, and new opportunities. Amon
them is a chance to manage water resources wisely for future generations.
With the contraction of the endlessly thirsty sugar industry, there is now an
opportunity to consider restoring a watershed management concept to
Hawaii – where water is managed with the context of the ahupua`a, where
a modern konohiki thinks globally, acts locally.12
ALEXANDER & BALDWIN (A&B)
EAST MAUI IRRIGATION (EMI) [SURFACE WATER]
HAWAIIAN COMMERCIAL & SUGAR COMPANY (HC&S) [GROUND WATER]
On 23 June 1908, Alexander & Baldwin formed the East Maui Irrigation Company. Its purpose
was to develop and administer the surface water for all the plantations owned, controlled, or
managed by Alexander & Baldwin. The EMI boundaries were from Nahiku to Maliko gulch and
included all the area where surface water was developed. West of Maliko gulch was HC&S. In that
same year, A&B gained control of Kihei Plantation.
The water source was primarily surface water runoff from a total watershed are of 56,000 acres. Of
this watershed, EMI owned 18,000 acres – the 38,000-acre balance belonged to the State of Hawaii.
The state issued four licenses, named Huelo, Honomanu, Keanae, and Nahiku, to EMI for water
arising on government land. Each license was initiated at a different time and dealt with differing
conditions. The value of water was determined by its accessibility and distance from the fields, and
the price was tied to the price of sugar. The state’s share was determined by the percentage of rain
falling on government land.
The last of the four state-issued water licenses to EMI expired in 1986.
EMI currently has four parallel levels of water development ditches, running from east to west
across the East Maui mountains. From mauka to makai these are the Wailoa, New Hamakua,
Lowrie, and New Hamakua ditches.
1 Carol Wilcox. Sugar water: Hawaii’s plantation ditches. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 1997. Print.
2 “Konohiki: Headman of an ahupua`a land division under the chief, land or fishing rights under the control of the
konohiki.”

2. EMI’s collection system had 388 separate intakes, 24 miles of ditch, 50 miles of tunnels, and twelve
inverted siphons as well as numerous small feeders, dams, intakes, pipes and flumes.
East Maui Irrigation controlled only surface water to HC&S – ground water was controlled by
HC&S itself.
Source: Carol Wilcox. Sugar water: Hawaii’s plantation ditches. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press,
1997. Print.
EMI - WAILUKU WATER COMPANY (WWC)
HC&S’ sister company, East Maui Irrigation (EMI), operates a ditch system which collects surface
water (rainfall) on the east side of the island and delivers it to HC&S’ fields in Central Maui.
The West Maui ditch system collects water from the Iao, Waihee, Waiehu and Waikapu streams. It
is co-owned and operated by HC&S and Wailuku Agribusiness [Wailuku Water Company, LLC
(WWC)], originally serving Wailuku Sugar’s and HC&S’s sugar fields in Central Maui.
[Clarification Supplied]
Source: HC&S. http://hcsugar.com/keeping-maui-green/water-conservation/
Web Accessed: December 18, 2016.
AQUIFER SYSTEMS
MAUI
[PACIFIC REGIONAL INTEGRATED SCIENCES AND ASSESSMENTS (PACIFIC RISA)]
http://www.pacificrisa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Maui_map.jpg

3. Letter from Attorney General William R. Castle to His Excellency Wm. L. Moehonua,
Minister of the Interior, dated 7 September 1876. [Extract, Emphasis Supplied]
Sir:
The application of Messers Castle and Cooke, representing the Haiku Sugar
Company, Alexander and Baldwin, James M. Alexander, the Grove Ranch
Plantation and Capt. Thos H. Hobron, dated August 21, has been placed before
me. The application requests permission to take water from several streams, in
Koolau Maui, to be carried to their respective sugar plantations, for purposes of
irrigation.
The Government will grant to Haiku Sugar Company, Alexander and
Baldwin, James M. Alexander, the Grove Ranch Plantation and Captain Thos H.
Hobron and their respective successors, heirs and assigns, the license to take
water from the streams named in the application and to carry the same over
government lands intervening between the said streams and the remotest land to
which it is now desired to carry said water, for the period of twenty years from the
date of acceptance of these terms, at an annual rent of one hundred dollars, Upon
condition 1st That a sufficient ditch, canal or other waterway shall be commenced
at once and finished in a reasonable time. 2nd That this grant shall not
interfere with the rights of the tenants upon said lands or streams. 3rd nor
shall it in any way affect the right of the government to grant to any person or
persons the right to take water (not to interfere with the water hereby granted)
from the same or other streams to be carried over the same land or lands for any
purpose whatsoever, and if need be, to be carried through the ditch, canal or
other waterway to be constructed by these grantees, provided however, that
during the said period of twenty years the supply of water, a right to take which is
hereby granted shall not be diminished by the act of the government, and 4th
That any time during said period the government may purchase the said
canal, ditch or other waterway upon payment of the actual cost thereof
only, and in the case of such purchase, will continue to furnish water to
these grantees at a just and reasonable rate not to exceed that paid by other
parties taking water from such ditch or other waterway.
I am sir most respectfully yours,
Wm R. Castle
Attorney General
Source: Carol Wilcox. Sugar water: Hawaii’s plantation ditches. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i
Press, 1997. Appendix 1: Letter from the Attorney General. (1876) Print.

4. SENSE OF PLACE
The land area of the major Hawaiian Islands was originally divided into districts called moku, and these
were further subdivided into ahupuaa`a. The latter encompass landscape segments from the ocean to
the mountain that served as the traditional human support systems. These life support systems were
based on three to five biological resource zones. These were the upland/inland forest zone, or the wao
nahele, the agricultural zone, or the wao kanaka, and the coastal zone, or the kaha kai. This latter zone
included the strand area, fringing reefs, sea grass beds, lagoons, fish ponds, and estuaries, where present.
Actually, estuaries, the muliwai, are mostly on the windward side of the islands and are part of a fourth
biological resource zone, the kaha wai or freshwater ecosystems and streams. The ocean (kai), near the
shore can be considered the fifth biological resource zone. Thus, the traditional land use was based on
the vertical arrangement of a volcanic high island’s natural ecosystems. This vertical arrangement allowed
for maximizing the use of biodiversity over short distances and acknowledged the interactive influences
of the biological resource and production zones. This interactive influence begins at the top, in the wao
nahele. What happens there influences the three other production zones. Therefore, any ahupuaa`a
restoration that aims at the reintroduction of adaptive and integrative management should start with
silvicultural research at an operational scale. Silviculture is concerned with the care of forests. It is based
on knowledge gained from research in forest ecology and should be a form of “low input management”.
With regard to the ahupuaa`a model, silviculture must focus on enhancing the natural processes
associated with the function of the forested watershed and stream ecosystem. Silviculture should also aim
at restoring a “Hawaiian sense of place” in those ahupua`a selected for stream restoration.
Source: The Hawaiian Ahupua`a Land Use System: Its Biological Resource Zones and the Challenge for
Silvicultural Restoration. By Dieter Mueller-Dombois, Department of Botany, University of Hawai`i at
Mānoa, Honolulu, Hawai`i. Bishop Museum Bulletin in Cultural and Environmental Studies 3 (2007).
http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/pubs-online/strm/04-Mueller-Domboisr.pdf Web Accessed: December
18, 2016
HAWAIIAN LAND DIVISIONS
MAUI
[EA O KA AINA]
http://www.islandbreath.org/mokupuni/mokupuni.html