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This year’s Piʻo Summit: ʻĀinahoʻi: Land, Law & Justice brings together aloha ʻāina, community organizers and land stewards to explore the intersections of land, law and justice in Hawaiʻi.
ʻĀinahoʻi amplifies the collective movement for land back across the pae ʻāina, showcasing the innovative ways communities are both navigating and challenging existing systems through legal frameworks, nonprofit land trusts, and grassroots actions. Translations of ʻĀinahoʻi remind us it is “indeed that which feeds us” – both that land must return to community stewardship and trust, and that we must see land as ʻāina for a regenerative future. The summit features a range of models and pathways towards land back, highlighting the many ways ʻāina is being restored, reclaimed, and protected.
Our gathering focuses on highlighting micro to macro level approaches to ʻĀinahoʻi, including restoring ea, strengthening relationships to ʻāina, and advancing self-determined governance rooted in ancestral innovation and courageousness.
Join us in engaging in crucial discussions on strategic pathways that shape land back efforts today.
Throughout the summit, key conversations will include:
Through these conversations, attendees will gain insights into:
Through this gathering, we bridge our individual and collective efforts to land back to forge new pathways toward community care and resilience. By coming together, we strengthen our commitment to protect, reclaim, and care for the ʻāina and wai that sustain us. We move toward a reality in which we determine the future of Hawaiʻi’s resources and people.
Exploring the future of food, from farm to table, and table to farm, with a focus on how we can provide for our people today, and building a sustainable future.
Enacting interventions to achieve a circular economy through publications and advocacy - by learning from the efforts of our homegrown aloha ʻāina leaders, as well as our partners from around the globe.
Uplifting pono water resource management through a lens of aloha ʻāina and community-based restorative justice efforts.
Under the direction of Dr. Kamanamaikalani Beamer in his capacity as Dana Naone Hall Chair, the Pūnāwai Research Lab commits to elevating aloha ʻāina as an international best practice through research, policy, creative works, and publications.
A biannual summit which would provide a powerful opportunity to increase university community dialogue around aloha ʻāina and highlight the urgency of the changes we need to make for our islands and world, while also calling attention to the level of excellence of our (kākou) aloha ʻāina efforts.
To complete the projected outcomes of the Pōʻai ke Aloha ʻĀina project, the resources of the Chair position provide for graduate research assistants to document and support onsite aloha ʻāina projects conducted in partnership with various community organizations.
