Community Co-management Agreements

We are so grateful & proud to share that HB2218 was signed by Governor Josh Green on July 8, 2026, and is now officially law as Act 203!

Official Signing Ceremony for HB2218 (now Act 203, 2026) with Governor Josh Green and some key state and community supporters on July 8, 2026 at the Hawaiʻi State Capitol.

To see a recording of the signing ceremony & other news:

KUA helped draft the original version of HB2218 over the past several months under the leadership of the Hui Makaʻāinana o Makana and with extensive community engagement and feedback. For questions please email KUA Advocate, Olan Leimomi Fisher, at olan@kuahawaii.org.

MAHALO NUI LOA

to everyone that supported this bill!! Hoʻomaikaʻi! We did it!!! 

  • Supporters of this bill include: the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), Mayor of Kauaʻi Derek Kawakami, County of Kauaʻi Office of Economic Development, Hawaiʻi Reef and Ocean Coalition, Outdoor Circle, Hawaiʻi Ocean Legislative Task Force, Mālama Kauaʻi, Hawaiʻi Land Trust (HILT), Nation of Hawaiʻi – Puʻuhonua o Waimānalo, Kīpahulu ʻOhana, Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi, Hawaiʻi Ocean Legislative Task Force, Makahanaloa Fishing Association, Mālama Pūpūkea-Waimea, Hui Makaʻāinana o Makana, Hawaiʻi Alliance for Community-Based Economic Development (HACBED), Green Party of Hawaiʻi, Kauaʻi Climate Action Coalition, Hōʻala Kealakekua Nui, Aliʻi Pauahi Hawaiian Civic Club, Hui Kahuwai, Waipā Foundation, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Hawaiʻi Alliance for Progressive Action (HAPA), Pōhaku Pelemaka, Trust for Public Land (TPL), Moanalua Gardens Foundation, Sustainable Coastlines Hawaiʻi, Hanalei Initiative, Maui Ocean Center Marine Institute, Hawaiʻi Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations (HANO), Hawaiʻi Farmers Union United (HFUU), Hui o Hauʻula, Agriculture Stewardship Hawaiʻi, Hawaiʻi Community Foundation (HCF), Hawaiʻi Conservation Alliance Foundation (HCAF), Kauaʻi County Councilmember Fern Holland, University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program, Hawaiʻi State Youth Commission, Koʻolauloa Hawaiian Civic Club, Kūpuna for the Moʻopuna, Free Access Coalition, Care for ʻĀina Now Coalition (CAN), Moana ʻOhana, Hawaiʻi Food+ Policy, Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs (AOHCC), Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund, Kalanihale, Environmental Caucus of the Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi, Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (WOCAN), KAʻEHU, Prince Kūhio Hawaiian Civic Club, Shimanchu Mamuyaa, and numerous individuals. We see each of you & are so grateful!
  • Supporters of similar measure asking for the same authorization for “community co-management agreements,” SB2979: Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), Kauaʻi Mayor Derek Kawakami, County of Kauaʻi Office of Economic Development, University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program, Green Party of Hawaiʻi, Mālama Pūpūkea-Waimea (MPW), Hui Makaʻāinana o Makana, Koʻolau Foundation, Moana ʻOhana, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Koʻolaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club, Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi, Hui Aloha Kīholo, Hawaiʻi Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations (HANO), Hawaiʻi Ocean Legislative Task Force, Trust for Public Land (TPL), Heʻeia National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR), Hawaiʻi Alliance for Community-Based Economic Development (HACBED), Hawaiʻi Food+Policy, Hawaiʻi Community Foundation (HCF), Hawaiʻi Conservation Alliance Foundation (HCAF), Hawaiʻi Alliance for Progressive Action (HAPA), Hanalei Initiative, and numerous individuals. We see you all – mahalo nunui!!!

Background & Frequently Asked Questions

Origin of this Legislation

KUA helped support the development of this bill over the past several months with significant community input and under the leadership of the Hui Makaʻāinana o Makana (the Hui), longtime collaborative caretakers of the Hāʻena State Park on Kauaʻi. KUA was founded in part by leaders from Hāʻena and the Hui to empower communities to care for their biocultural (natural and cultural) heritage together.

Hāʻena Land Management Since 1848

Hāʻena is a celebrated ʻāina momona or “fat and rich source that feeds.” As such, it was originally set aside for aliʻi (royalty). Aliʻi Abner Pākī was granted about 2,500 acres of Hāʻena during the 1848 Māhele land privatization and division process. The ahupuaʻa then passed to his daughter Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, then to W. H. Pease, and in 1875 from William Kinney to the Hui Kūʻai ʻĀina o Hāʻena (a group of 38 Native Hawaiian ʻohana from the area), who held the ʻāina for nearly 100 years. Until the 1960s it remained largely countryside when the State condemned a large portion to create a state park, forcing Native Hawaiian families out and nearly severing their traditional and customary practices with the ʻāina. When the 65-acre Hāʻena State Park opened in 1972, the makaʻāinana who cared for and lived off the ʻāina since time immemorial were permanently displaced. 

Hui Makaʻāinana o Makana

A Long & Ongoing Road to Community Co-management

The Hui Makaʻāinana o Makana (the Hui) formed nearly thirty years ago as a community-based non-profit organization by lineal descendants of Hāʻena. Their mission is to perpetuate and teach the skills, knowledge, and practices of their kūpuna through the interpretation, restoration, care, and protection of the biocultural resources of what is now known as the “Hāʻena State Park.”

Although they are seen as a trailblazer for other communities looking to co-manage biocultural resources with the State, from its formation in 1998, the Hui’s road to securing a long-term lease and actual community co-management agreement remains challenging and ongoing:

  • 1999: Curatorship Agreement is established between the State of Hawaiʻi, Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) – Division of State Parks (DSP) and the Hui. This Curatorship Agreement allowed the Hui to restore and maintain about 15 acres in the State Park including two historical home sites, ancient graves, loʻi, a historical poi mill, as well as assist with the Hāʻena State Master Plan. From the start, the curatorship was seen as a stepping stone to establish an actual long-term lease and community co-management agreement.

  • 2006 – 2015: Thanks to the groundwork for Community-Based Subsistence Fishing Areas (CBSFAs) laid by the Moʻomomi community in Molokai, in 1994 Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes (HRS) § 188-22.6 was created. It allowed DLNR to work with communities to designate and establish governance for CBSFAs. After years of community meetings and public hearings, in 2006 the Hāʻena CBSFA was designated by the Legislature but due to political challenges the rules were not signed into law until 2015 by then Governor David Ige. KUA was in-part established to aid in this struggle to return Hawaiʻi to “community-based natural resource management” and true “community co-management” with the State through CBSFAs. Since HRS § 188-22.6 was passed over thirty years ago, only two other communities (Miloliʻi and Kīpahulu) have successfully established their own CBSFAs. And despite the many challenges, more communities are currently organizing to start their own CBSFA process. The CBSFA law is one of the only, if not the only, tool for community-based biocultural resource management in Hawaiʻi. 
  • April 2018: Torrential flooding closed the north shore of Kauaʻi, and while devastating, it provided an opportunity to implement some of the Hui’s vision reflected in the Hāʻena State Master Plan, to reopen Hāʻena State Park with a daily limit on visitors implemented through an online reservation system. Other improvements included a new parking lot and boardwalk were built by the State during the closure time. 
  • May 2018: The Hāʻena State Master Plan is approved by the BLNR and published, after over twenty years of collaboration with the Hui, seen as a critical legal step for finally establishing a longterm lease and co-management agreement. 
  • July 2021:  The BLNR approved giving full control of the visitor access management (entry, parking and shuttle) to the Hui via a Revocable Permit (RP). The BLNR is briefed by State Parks that this is intended to be a short-term step that will allow State Parks to prepare and issue a long-term lease of the Park to the Hui. Between June 2019 when the Park reopened after the flood to February 2020 when it shut down due to COVID, the parking and entry were managed by  a for-profit private sector vendor under an Revocable Permit (RP). The Hui and its partner The Hanalei Initiative managed the shuttle reservation system and operated the shuttles. With the award of the RP to the Hui in July 2021, the Hui also transitioned from their Curatorship Agreement to a Revocable Permit (RP). While this was intended to be only a few months to a year, it was extended until 2025 due to the AG having issues with the concept of a long-term lease to the Hui. During this four year period the use of an RP has demonstrated the constraints and obstacles to the Hui’s desire to make  long-term investments in its mission. For example, purchases of a new fleet of buses, undertaking dune restoration to protect iwi kūpuna, upgrading the dysfunctional septic system in the restroom by Ke’e lagoon, etc.
  • July 25, 2025:  At the Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) meeting, the Board voted to approve DSP’s submittal to authorize negotiations with the Hui for a Concession Agreement, as well as designate Hāʻena State Park as “Environmentally, Culturally, Historically, or Operationally Unique.” Chair Dawn Chang and Board members also voiced their support of the Hui and disappointment with the slow-moving pace of the State to fully recognize and establish community co-management. Chair Chang commented that as a Department she hopes to move more quickly on ʻāina-based co-management just out of “sheer survival,” stating further: 

“We need to empower our communities with the tools to manage their own resources, and ‘How does the Department support that?’ Rather than doing it the other way around, ʻHow do communities support the Department?’ … In my view, co-management may be very different in different communities, but it is a shared responsibility…I do feel like the Department is moving in that direction, sort of with mauka makai ʻahupuaʻa, bringing in all of our divisions, How are we better managing in working with our communities to look at it holistically? …  Obviously we need to do a better job educating our Attorney General’s office, to better sensitize them to this changing world and cultural view, and help them to better understand how this is a necessary tool for our communities. We provide all our other commercial operators long term leases, why not provide all of our communities with the same kind of deference. So perhaps we have to do a better job, or if we can’t, legislatively how do we fix this?” – Chair Dawn Chang, July 25, 2025 BLNR Meeting

Issues and Disappointments with a Concession Agreement

As made clear during the BLNR meeting, while the Hui greatly appreciated the efforts of DSP staff to get to this point, the shift from a long-term lease for community co-management to a Concession Agreement came as a huge shock and disappointment to the Hui and many others. Both DSP and the Hui voiced at the BLNR meeting that a Concession Agreement is a step backward in their decades-long journey toward co-management of their ancestral ʻāina in Hāʻena. They are not vendors selling hot-dogs or trinkets, and a Concession Agreement feels demeaning and inappropriate from a policy, public perception, and co-management perspective. Moreover, the term concession and its meaning to concede, conveys a negative relationship between actors that is in stark contrast to the decades of meaningful efforts led by the Hui to care for and protect their ancestral lands of Hāʻena.  The Concession Agreement seems like yet another temporary fix with no clear answers as to how to solve the actual issue of enabling true community co-management in this context and others across Hawaiʻi. 

The DSP staff submittal itself referenced the Hui’s longstanding efforts and success in comanaging the state park, yet at the eleventh hour, the Attorney General’s (AGs) office said that a Concession Agreement was the only legal instrument available to secure a long-term agreement with the Hui. At the July 25, 2025 BLNR meeting, the attending Deputy AG stated that she would share with the Hui and DSP exactly what HRS section prevented a long-term lease. But since then, the only potential concern shared with the Hui is the “exclusivity” of a lease agreement on public lands. We believe the real issue over exclusivity concerns kuleana, not “rights” or “denial of access” through exclusivity. The Hui itself does not exclude or otherwise prevent access, and in fact welcomes and manages up to 900 visitors a day (600 spots for tourists, 300 spots for kamaʻāina). Through the Hui’s composition including lineal descendants of ʻohana present in Hāʻena for generations, they inherited unique, multigenerational, and as they refer to “exclusive kuleana” or “responsibility” to care for their wahi pana (sacred place). 

DSP also communicated the view that a Concession Agreement’s connotation fails to acknowledge the Hui’s extensive work in elevating the visitor experience to Hāʻena for both non-residents and kamaʻāina alike – a kuleana that stems from more than managing the visitor access services alone. Through restoration of place-based Native Hawaiian culture and practices the Hui drives significant ʻāina-based economic development and job creation. Furthermore, DSP understood and supported the larger concerns that restricting any community-based co-management activities to Concession Agreements will continue to dissuade potential community partners from wanting to engage with (and ultimately help) the state. 

Formation of a Community Co-management Strategy Working Group

In response to the sudden shift from an expected long-term lease for co-management to a Concession Agreement an informal “Community Co-management Strategy Working Group” was born in August 2025 to delve further into the issues and solutions toward better recognition and support for community co-management in Hawaiʻi. Despite often stated support within DLNR leadership and champions in the legislature, no definition or elucidation of rights and responsibilities of co-managers has been officially adopted in Hawaiʻi Revised Statues. The Working Group aims to address these gaps by supporting immediate needs regarding the Hui’s agreement, as well as by mobilizing multipartner dialogue and exchange to surface shared principals, goals, and practices for equitable co-management in Hawaiʻi. These bills are just one solution in this larger context and goal.

Emphasizing the collaborative nature of this bill, DLNR has also been a key partner in the effort from the very beginning, as well as House Speaker Nadine Nakamura’s office. KUA also hosted three community talk story sessions regarding this legislation, the first involving our E Alu Pū network members on October 11, 2025 in Kahaluʻu, Hawaiʻi Island, as well as two virtual talk story sessions on October 28, 2025 and January 7, 2026 with various KUA network members and partners. Feedback from these community outreach events was carefully incorporated into the current version of the bills before you today.

How to Support

  1. Register for a Capitol account if you don’t already have one. This account is what you can use to submit testimonies and track these bills & others you might be interested in.
  2. Sign-up for Action Alerts to be notified of hearings. You can also sign-up for hearing notices through your Capitol account.
  3. Draft your own testimony (see below for Sample Testimony) and submit for hearings using your Capitol account.
  4. Call and/or email legislators (Representatives & Senators) to support (see below for Talking Points).
  5. Monitor the legislative calendar as measures move through the process.

Sample Testimony & Talking Points

Sample Testimony:

Aloha pumehana, warm greetings legislators,

I strongly support HB2218 to authorize community co-management agreements between the State of Hawaiʻi Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) and qualified Hawaiʻi-based nonprofits.

The State has an affirmative duty to mālamaʻāina, care for the public trust lands and waters of Hawaiʻi. Caring for our precious ʻāina (that which feeds us all) requires collective kuleana (responsibility), and as DLNR has long acknowledged, it alone cannot effectively and sustainably manage all the lands and waters within its purview.

For decades, grassroots communities throughout Hawaiʻi have been supporting and collaborating with DLNR to mālama the places we all love and call home. But while the need and interest in collaborative mālamaʻāina continues to grow, no consistent legal pathway exists for DLNR to enter into community co-management agreements. Several different tools do exist (e.g., curatorships, permits, concessions, community-based subsistence fishing areas), but these all vary significantly in form and function, often causing various administrative delays and managerial issues.

The logical next step to more effectively and sustainably manage our ʻāina is to authorize community co-management agreements as a new tool to enable more Native Hawaiian and local community groups to partner with DLNR and mālama our public trust ʻāina.

Please support this longstanding effort, and PASS HB2218 out of your committee.

Me ke aloha ʻāina,

[YOUR NAME]

Talking Points:

  1. State YOUR NAME, where you are FROM (or organization you represent), and that you support HB2218 to authorize community co-management agreements.
  2. The State of Hawaiʻi has an affirmative duty to mālamaʻāina, preserve and protect our public trust lands and waters under its jurisdiction for current and future generations of Native Hawaiians and locals alike.
  3. Caring for our biocultural treasures requires a collective effort of shared responsibility that, in most cases, local communities “on the ground” are best equipped to care for directly themselves.
  4. DLNR has long recognized that it alone cannot effectively and sustainably manage all the ʻāina within its purview. Many Native Hawaiian and local community groups have long been collaborating with DLNR, with others ready and willing to mālama and co-manage the places they love and call home.
  5. Authorizing DLNR to enter into community co-management agreements is the logical next step to help DLNR by getting more mālamaʻāina practitioners “on the ground” to care for our ʻāina for future generations to come.

Other Outreach Materials