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Lahaina was once a lush wetland with sprawling Loko I’a fish ponds, some of the earliest systems of aquaculture, where you could take a boat around the famous Waiola Church — which unfortunately burned down. That water was diverted for hotels and monocrops by the original colonizers, and now our economy — which is held up by the pillars of tourism and land speculation — can only function with the diverted water.
✏️ The ecological damage is damning, permanent and steeped in colonialism.
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Where once was a long-standing aquaculture, with native wildlife and local institutions, you now have hotels and monocrops. The economy and the natural resources are now firmly tied to the things that destroyed the land, the culture and the civilization.
What’s most insidious and paradoxical though, is that the new economy of tourism and real estate is dependent on preserving the natural beauty and resources that are being developed/destroyed out of existence.
It can’t be sustained.
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