Native Hawaiians from Ni`ihau Get a Boost at Makauwahi Cave

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Native Hawaiians from Ni`ihau Get a Boost at Makauwahi Cave

  Thanks to a series of federal and state grants and the generosity of singer & actress Bette Midler, Makauwahi Cave Reserve has been able over the last two years to help perhaps the most disadvantaged segment of the state’s native Hawaiian population, immigrants from Ni`ihau who have settled in recent years on Kaua`i’s south shore. Since the closing of the Robinson family’s Ni`ihau Ranch and other enterprises that formerly employed the island’s residents, Niihauans have moved to Kaua`i in search of work – and not always found it. As the only people in the islands who still speak Hawaiian as a first language, and in many cases with few job skills applicable to Kaua`i’s service industry-oriented economy, times have been hard for many families.
   MCR began offering help with a grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (“Stimulus Package”) in 2009.
Fig. 1.

Joe Kanahele (left) and other employees from Ni`ihau are always “shovel ready” on their job at
Makauwahi Cave Reserve. (photo by Alec Burney)

With this funding, jobs were created for unemployed Niihauans caring for the more than 5000 native plants reintroduced to the site, and gathering seeds for a massive re- seeding effort called for in the restoration plan for uninhabited Lehua, a 248-acre islet off the north end of Ni`ihau. Under this funding, approximately five million seeds of 40 species of native plants were gathered at Makauwahi and spread over the entire island. Since that time, opportunities have been extended through a grant from the Hawaii Tourism Authority and a contract with Bette Midler to maintain native plantings on her property on Kauai’s north shore. Currently, work opportunities and career training are being extended from a new grant from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, assuring that Ni`ihau families can continue to derive support from the cave project. The site has also become an informal community center for the displaced Ni`ihau ‘ohana, who use the site for family gatherings, impromptu concerts, fishing trips, luaus, and even weddings.

“Makauwahi Cave has become a kind of second home for the people of Ni`ihau,” says Joe Kanahele, who assists Reserve Manager Lida Pigott Burney with equipment maintenance and supervision of work crews.

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