KUA’s ED, Kevin Chang, pictured here with Secretary Deb Haaland, returned from Washington DC with a sense of having participated in a historic event of many firsts.
Members of Hui Mālama Loko Iʻa network, Makua Perry (Loko Ea) and Joey Palupe (Kualoa Ranch), showcased their knowledge and fishpond practices at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Hawaiʻi’s colonial history was examined for the first time in a major exhibition at the Smithsonian’s @nationalportraitgallery groundbreaking exhibit “1898: Imperial Visions and Revisions.” KUA was there in solidarity with a national movement to support the federal administration’s Justice 40 initiative (40% of all resources go to frontline local BIPOC and indigenous community conservation efforts) to protect 30% of the US’s natural resources by 2030. This was one of the first, if not rare, multi-ethnic coalition platforms on the environment.
