FLUX No. 22 Apocalypse

THE APOCALYPSE ISSUE

KLEIN’S RISING TIDE

LDS PREPPERS

ZOMBIE NATION

REAL LIFE ON FAKE MARS

18

WHAT THE FLUX?!

Could This Be the End?

Make sense of the apocalypse when it hits. 20

LOCAL MOCO

Futurist James Dator

FLUX FILES

24

BOOKS: Klein’s Rising Tide 26

THE END

FOOD: LDS Preppers

BOOM TO BUST

Annie Koh tells a true tale of billion-dollar ghost towns and thriving bankrupt cities. 34

NET PROPHET

Mary Babcock’s textile art forewarns the fallout of a consumerist culture.

38

ZOMBIE NATION

As mindlessness continues to spread like a virus, Lisa Yamada looks at how one community college program is attempting to inoculate this disease of the brain. 44

YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT

Where do our feces go, and how should we do the deed if the world as we know it ends? Anna Harmon traces doodoo disposal in the islands from ancient times to apocalyptic futures.

If our poop seeps into our water, touches our food, or piles up and festers, it can kill us. But it can also give back to a natural cycle with rich nutrients that are food for microorganisms and fertilizer for plants.

WHAT THE FLUX?!

Quiz: What Apocalypse Survivor Are You? As civilization crumbles, how will you fare?

FLUX FILES

FOOD:

Frankie and the Fruit Factory

ARTS:

Kapa Artist Roen Hufford

THE BEGINNING

Artists of Hawai‘i 2015

REAL LIFE ON FAKE MARS

Mars suddenly seems within reach, with NASA planning to launch its first mission to the red planet in the 2030s. Anna Harmon talks to the six-person HI-SEAS crew playing interstellar house on Mauna Loa. 60

THE MIRACLE OF FISH

With ancient fishponds neglected for centuries, overrun by development, and burdened by a labyrinth of laws, Sonny Ganaden explores how these humble areas have become the geographic and metaphoric site of cultural revolution.

INTO THE WOODS

Hawai‘i’s mountainous regions are filled with a bounty of edible plants—you just have to know what to look for.

Keawanui used to be one of more than 60 vibrant fishponds on Moloka‘i. Today, activists like Walter Ritte and his son Kalaniua are working to determine how ancient fishponds can once again sustain populations.

RISE OF THE MACHINES

Many of the world’s foremost minds, including the likes of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Stephen Hawking, warn of the rise of a sentient machine. Carmichael Doan ponders what the future of the human race will look like as humanity becomes increasingly dependent on its machines, and as advances in robotics grow with increasing swiftness.

WAYS TO SURVIVE THE DIGITAL APOCALYPSE (NOW)

Who says the apocalypse has to be bloody? Emojis and malware; #nofilter selfies and NSA surveillance; Twitter feeds and

cyber wars—the digital apocalypse is a friendly face with very real, very unfriendly consequences that are affecting how we interact with our surroundings. Zoe Vorsino explains how to deal with it all.

POST-APOCALYPTIC PRODUCT ROUNDUP

Whether you’re figuring out how to survive in a post-apocalyptic world or you’re trying to make the current one you live in a little greener, these products from Bokashi Bucket, KH Studio, and Lono Transpo can be helpful for achieving both.

THE MEN INNOVATING WASTE MANAGEMENT

With funding provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Andrew Whitesell and Christopher Chock of Beaumont Design, a company based out of the Manoa Innovation Center, are helping to solve the problem of pumping poop in developing countries. Their sleek design is called the fecal sludge Omni-Ingestor.

FIND

ON THE COVER:

Shown on the cover, Lucie Poulet and Annie Caraccio record data for the Hawai‘i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation research program. Since October 2014, a crew of six has been simulating life on Mars on Mauna Loa’s eastern slope for Mission III, which is focused on crew cohesion. NASA is preparing to launch its first mission to the red planet in the 2030s. Image by Ross Lockwood, courtesy of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

EDITOR’S LETTER

| APOCALYPSE |

In the months leading up to the year 2000, humanity braced itself for Y2K, the computer glitch that would bring a world increasingly reliant on technology to its knees. It was thought that since computers process only the last two digits of a year, systems would revert back to the year 1900. Networks would fail, economies would collapse, and mass chaos would ensue.

It was easy to get caught up in the frenzy that followed. Better safe than sorry, right? My father dedicated an entire room in our house to the cause. I’m sure there were generators and batteries and other disaster-kit essentials, but the food is what I remember most. Cans of chili and soup, bags upon bags of dried beans and rice, dozens of boxes filled with dehydrated potatoes, vegetables, and meat—all stacked neatly on industrial wire racks, the kind you can buy at Costco. He even made kits filled with batteries and food and disbursed them to many of our friends and family.

As we all know, the end never came, and most people went about their usual New Year traditions, popping their leftover supply of fireworks, drinking ozoni soup, or watching football.

Doomsday predictions have been made since the beginning of humanity. They date as far back as 634 BCE, when the Romans feared their 120-yearold city would be destroyed. Hippolytus of Rome, Sextus Julius Africanus, and Irenaeus all anticipated Jesus’ return and the world’s end in 500 CE. Fastforward to 1284, the date Pope Innocent III predicted the world’s end, which he calculated by adding 666 years to the date he assumed Islam was founded. The Millerites calculated it would happen sometime between 1843 and 1844; Halley’s comet provoked doomsday fears in 1910; David Koresh and his Branch Davidians anticipated (and saw) their ends in 1993. In 1997, Marshall Applewhite convinced 39 people to ingest phenobarbital to leave their bodily containers and hop aboard the alien spacecraft that trailed the Hale-Bopp comet; 2012 stoked apocalyptic fears (and end of the world parties) as a result of the Mayan calendar.

Why does the idea of apocalypse so often consume us? Perhaps it’s not so much that the collective end of the world is so frightening, but rather, our own end that terrifies us so. Man’s nature is to control, but since the future cannot be controlled, we can only do our best to prepare for it.

If this issue has taught us anything about apocalypse, it’s that when the world ends, Hawai‘i will be ready. Bestowed with a bounty of natural resources, Hawai‘i stands to be a model in preparing for a more sustainable future. As such, just as the Hōkūle‘a travels in a worldwide voyage to mālama honua, or care for our Earth, so too must we “engage all of Island Earth,” as encouraged on Hōkūle‘a’s website, “practicing how to live sustainably, while sharing, learning, creating global relationships, and discovering the wonders of this precious place we call home.” Yes, I know, it’s a heavy burden to bear, living in this island paradise, but as the world continues to look toward the heavens, gazing out into the stars and wondering about Earth’s end, we do our best to look down, and prepare for the beginning.

With aloha,

Lisa Yamada Editor lisa@nellamediagroup.com

PUBLISHER

Jason Cutinella

EDITOR

Lisa Yamada

ARTS & CULTURE

DIRECTOR

Ara Feducia

MANAGING EDITOR

Anna Harmon

PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR

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PHOTO EDITOR

Samantha Hook

COPY EDITOR

Andy Beth Miller

EDITOR-AT-LARGE

Sonny Ganaden

IMAGES

Mark Ghee Lord Galacgac

Jonas Maon

MASTHEAD | APOCALYPSE |

CONTRIBUTORS

James Charisma

Stuart Coleman

Le‘a Gleason

Kelli Gratz

Annie Koh

Lindsea Wilbur

WEB DEVELOPER

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MARKETING & ADVERTISING DIRECTOR keely@nellamediagroup.com

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MARKETING & CREATIVE COORDINATOR

SPECIAL THANKS TO: Hawai‘i Research Center for Futures Studies

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©2009-2015 by Nella Media Group, LLC. Contents of FLUX Hawaii are protected by copyright and may not be reproduced without the expressed written consent of the publisher. FLUX Hawaii accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts and/or photographs and assumes no liability for products or services advertised herein. FLUX Hawaii reserves the right to edit, rewrite, refuse or reuse material, is not responsible for errors and omissions and may feature same on fluxhawaii.com, as well as other mediums for any and all purposes.

FLUX Hawaii is a quarterly lifestyle publication.

CONTRIBUTORS | APOCALYPSE |

STUART COLEMAN

Three things I’d want to have during an apocalypse: My surfboard, my laptop plus a solar-powered generator, and a boatload of my friends heading for a remote island.

Stuart Holmes Coleman is a writer, speaker, and environmental activist. Of interviewing author Naomi Klein and her husband Avi Lewis on page 24, the Surfrider Foundation Hawai‘i manager says, “They are dealing with the heaviest environmental challenges to our planet, yet they remain lighthearted and down to earth. It was challenging to convey the seriousness of these problems without pushing the story over the edge with a doomsday outlook.” Coleman is the author of Eddie Would Go, Fierce Heart and a recipient of the Elliot Cades Award for Literature. He has received several writing fellowships and served as writer-in-residence at St. Albans School in Washington, D.C. Coleman has taught writing, literature, and leadership at Punahou and ‘Iolani schools, the University of Hawai‘i, and the East-West Center.

LE‘A GLEASON

Three things I’d want to have during an apocalypse: My dog, a flashlight, and an extra pair of slippers.

Le‘a Gleason is a Big Island native who found journalism while attending the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. About writing the story on humble Big Island kapa maker Roen Hufford on page 72, Gleason says, “There was a moment when Roen said, ‘I’m really not that talented.’ I like to think that maybe, if I wrote the story just right, she’ll read it and realize how precious her gifts are and what a service she is doing for others by sharing her craft.” Gleason is passionate about nonfiction storytelling, and also enjoys spending time with her dog, performing at open mic nights and in community theater shows, dancing, and teaching yoga.

ANNA HARMON

Three things I’d want to have during an apocalypse: My boyfriend, a sharp knife, and cabbage seeds.

Anna Harmon is the managing editor for FLUX Hawaii and has been contributing to Nella Media Group publications since 2010. The apocalypse theme of this issue is largely the result of her urging. “It’s an irresistible topic,” she says. “Apocalypse inspires innovation but also paints horrifying scenarios. I’ve spent years reading dystopian novels and tallying up the things bringing us closer to the end. For this issue, I wanted to learn about conditions building up to such a scenario both locally and globally, and if it were to pass, what will get us through in a post-doomsday Hawai‘i.” She learned that you can ferment things with your spit (page 86), that hiding in lava tubes can protect you from radiation (page 54), and what to do about doodoo (page 44). “All in all, this issue gave me a huge appreciation for what I have today.”

I recently read the article “Do You See Me,” and I was fascinated by how our race defines us here in Hawai‘i. It inspired me to write on how being a child of divorce has defined me. Growing up with divorced parents, there have always been two completely different sides to my personality. I know lots of other teens and kids with divorced parents, all with varying opinions on the matter. Some see it as a detriment and some see it as a blessing. It’s not something I’m ashamed of, but rather simply a trait of mine as normal as where I live or what school I go to. It is rough having divorced parents—two sides constantly barking in your ear with polar-opposite advice is confusing. There are great benefits of having divorced parents, though. You get double the birthday and Christmas presents; since they rarely agree on things, there is no chance they share a gift. If one parent says no, there is a chance the other will say yes, and you gain a stepfamily, which means more people to love and have fun with. There is no doubt that I often wonder what my life would be like if my parents weren’t divorced. However, being a child of divorced parents defines me, for better or worse.

Isaiah Palmero

Congratulations to you for your wonderful article on mixed race families in Hawai‘i. I’m a Swiss/French/English male married to a Hawai‘i-born Chinese female. We have a daughter, 31, who lives in Washington, D. C. In 1998, struck by the beauty of Hawai‘i’s hapa children, I published a book of photos of my daughter, her friends, and many others. Rainbow Kids was unique in that it identified the ethnicity of each child. Frank DeLima kindly contributed an introduction. While not a bestseller, it sold fairly well here and on the mainland. And I had a lot of fun presenting it to President Obama (through his sister), Tiger Woods, and Britney Spears (I received a “thank you”). It has also been a lot of fun watching the kids grow into adulthood. Congratulations, again! We are looking forward to many more issues of Flux Hawaii.

Richard Fassler

@kianamosley: “when the mailman delivers this kind of beauty... @fluxhawaii you’ve outdone yourselves... Again.”

THE END

COULD THIS BE THE END?

The world as you know it is in disarray. But could it be the apocalypse? When doomsday hits (or maybe it already has!), use this flowchart to make sense of what scenario you are experiencing. Good luck!

Made in collaboration with Hawai‘i Research Center for Future Studies

Design by Michelle Ganeku

ARE THEY IN MOBS?

DOES THE ILLNESS SEEM CONTAGIOUS?

DO MOST SEEM SICK?

DO THEY INTERACT WITH TECH MORE THAN HUMANS?

QUARANTINE YOURSELF, AND FIND A BOAT.

PANDEMIC

MOST LIKELY CAUSES: HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION OR ASSHOLE EXPLORERS.

RED HILL OR OTHER LEAK. DRINK CACHED OR BOTTLED WATER.

IS IT FROM THE DRINKING WATER? BONUS!

CAN YOU SEE ANY PEOPLE AROUND?

ARE THEY FLEEING?

IS IT FROM DRONES OR ROBOTS?

STOCK UP ON SUPPLIES AND MAKE THINGS LAST.

GOVERNMENT COLLAPSE

LOOKS LIKE THE U.S. DOLLAR COULDN’T HOLD UP TO MASS DISCONTENT AFTER ALL.

NO ELECTRICITY OR MASS CHAOS? AN ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE JUST WIPED OUT ALL ELECTRONICS.

START

DO YOU SEE ANY ANIMALS?

DO YOU HEAR A STEADY HUM?

IS IT BECAUSE OF A CREATURE YOU’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE?

GO ANALOG, OR BEFRIEND A ROBOT.

TECHNOLOGICAL TAKEOVER

OR HAS THIS ALREADY HAPPENED?

OR A TECHNOLOGICAL OVERTHROW.

COULD HAVE BEEN A MASSIVE SOLAR FLARE.

HAS THE WEATHER OR TEMPERATURE BEEN CRAZY?

DO YOU HAVE ELECTRICITY?

ARE CORN AND INVASIVE PLANTS THE ONLY VEGETATION YOU SEE?

IS IT SURPRISINGLY COLD AND DARK?

FROM A HIGH VANTAGE POINT, DOES IT LOOK LIKE BUILDINGS ALONG THE COAST ARE GONE?

IS IT BECAUSE IT’S NIGHTTIME?

DUDE. EVERYTHING IS FINE.

STOCK UP ON SUPPLIES AND FIND SHELTER.

ENVIRONMENTAL COLLAPSE

IT MAY HAVE BEEN MOTHER NATURE, OR IT MAY HAVE BEEN TIME TO DIVEST IN FOSSIL FUELS.

WHAT IS HAPPENING? PACK YOUR BAGS FOR MARS.

BLACK SWAN

THIS SCENARIO INCLUDES: ALIEN INVASION AND VOLCANIC SUPER-ERUPTION.

According to the recently retired James Dator, who served as the director of the Hawai‘i Research Center for Futures Studies since its founding in 1971, we are living in a period when one way of life is coming to a crashing halt and a chance for new beginnings is arising.

THE MAN OF FUTURES

FOR

JAMES DATOR, ONE OF THE FOUNDING FORCES BEHIND FUTURES STUDIES, APOCALYPSE IS BUT A NEW BEGINNING.

TEXT BY LINDSEA WILBUR

IMAGES BY JONAS MAON

Take a deep breath and pause for a moment: Think about a future, any future. I hope, dear space-time traveler, it does not weigh heavily upon you. Perhaps you are filled with trepidation at the prospect of an utterly unknown yet apocalyptic forecast. On the other hand, you could feel energized, focused, and present enough to face whatever may come your way.

What you just experienced when you thought about a future, and why it sprang to mind, is the passion and profession of James Dator, who has made it his business and life’s work to study and explore how humans think about the future. “For most people, I believe, the apocalypse is much more frightening and terrible than I imagine,” Dator says. “I do think we are living in a period where one way of life is coming to a crashing halt and so a chance for new beginnings is arising.”

Throughout his life, Dator has contributed greatly to the theory and practice of a field called “futures studies.” That extra “s” at the end of futures signifies a belief in alternative futures—meaning that there is not one, but rather many possibilities that we can’t fully imagine. The future, and the apocalypse, were things Dator pondered even as a child, when Anglican theology, as well as the grand theories of history from the likes of St. Augustine, Joachim of Flora, St. Thomas, Oswald Spengler, Karl Marx, and Arnold Toynbee, held his attention. “They all tried to explain the purpose of life, which fascinated me,” he says.

Since arriving to Hawai‘i during the summer of love in 1969, with the purpose of teaching political science at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Dator has been a sort of intellectual godfather for generations of young futurists, serving as director at the Hawai‘i Research Center for Futures Studies (HRCFS) since 1971. Before that, he taught on the subject in the College of Law and Politics at Rikkyo University in Tokyo, as well as introduced what is often considered the first undergraduate course on the future while at Virginia Tech.

He has cultivated a formidable global network that ranges from the Pentagon to off-grid anarchist communes. But nowadays, the octogenarian prefers to keep to his peaceful condo overlooking Waikīkī, imagining futures both ridiculous and reasoned, the most pressing of which include pondering the predicaments of energy, environment, economy, and governance.

“The apocalypse is a sudden end to the world as we know it, either the ushering in of a new world or as providing an opportunity to create a new world,” he says.

Earth has already endured many apocalypses in the past billions of years.

Dator points out that the only difference is the unprecedented influence that humans have on the planet. Scientists and theorists describe this as the Anthropocene Era, the

time period when humanity, as a natural, geological force, has made a significant impact on the Earth.

So what of the end of the world as we know it? “For the last 200 years, people and organizations knew exactly what the future was supposed to be—what the future of life was—and that was continued economic growth, sometimes called progress, sometimes called development,” Dator says. “But that world, that image, is now highly problematic. I think the driving forces of it have come to an end, and … it’s absolutely essential that people, individually and collectively, scan the alternative futures that are before us and develop a new, preferred set of futures for themselves and their communities.”

Hawai‘i

is on the front lines of climate change, according to author and activist Naomi Klein, who was invited to Hawai‘i as a visiting scholar at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

FLUX FILES | BOOKS |

KLEIN’S RISING TIDE

AUTHOR-ACTIVIST

NAOMI KLEIN ON CAPITALISM, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND THE PROMISE OF HAWAI‘I.

TEXT BY STUART COLEMAN

ILLUSTRATION

BY ARA FEDUCIA

“Climate change changes everything,” author-activist Naomi Klein told a packed house at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s Campus Center in February. “We’re in a suicidal phase of the fossil fuel economy and the most extreme forms of extraction.”

Like an apocalyptic vision, Klein described the evils of current energy practices: fossil fuel companies cutting off mountain tops for coal, spilling millions of gallons of crude oil into the ocean through deep-sea drilling, and contaminating drinking water through hydraulic fracking.

Only in her mid-40s, the Canadian writer sounded more like an Old Testament prophet as she railed against the corruption and greed of the powerful oil companies— huge corporations that she strongly believes are destroying the planet. Toward the end of her sobering talk, Klein rallied the huge crowd, saying how people have the power to stop these extraction companies and their growing control over government: “Now we need to fight, and we can’t afford to lose.”

Invited to Hawai‘i as a visiting scholar (she served as the Dai Ho Chun

Distinguished Chair in the UH College of Arts and Sciences), Klein’s visit couldn’t have been more timely. Just weeks before, the UH Board of Regents had voted to support a plan to divest from fossil fuels, a measure many universities around the country are beginning to take.

Along with teaching a seminar at the university, Klein and her husband, documentary filmmaker Avi Lewis, gave a series of provocative talks around Honolulu discussing climate change and her new book, This Changes Everything: Climate vs. Capitalism. In it, Klein writes about the rise of what she calls “Blockadia,” wherein ordinary citizens step in to fight the failings of their government, and, in particular, fossil fuel extraction by the world’s largest and most profitable oil, gas, and coal companies. “The rise of Blockadia is, in many ways, simply the flipside of the carbon boom,” she writes, further describing it as a popular uprising against the “new and amplified risks associated with our era of extreme energy (tar sands, fracking for both oil and gas, deepwater drilling, mountaintop removal coal mining).”

Putting herself on the front lines of the climate change movement, Klein has become a leader in the fight against the Keystone XL Pipeline. The controversial pipeline would carry Canadian tar sands oil (what Al Gore called “the dirtiest fuel on the planet” during a 2014 appearance at UH) across the middle of the country, exposing pristine prairies, forests, and waterways to devastating oil spills. A Canadian with American roots, Klein believes both countries will suffer disastrous environmental consequences if the Keystone Pipeline is built. She has joined many demonstrations around the world, including a 2011 protest outside of the White House in Washington, D.C. that resulted in her arrest. Despite a hard-fought and seemingly uphill battle, Klein believes the combined efforts of the Blockadia movement and her fellow “climate warriors” are finally paying off.

“Obama vetoed the Keystone Pipeline today,” Klein tells me when we meet on a warm evening in Waikīkī, waves lapping

at the shore just steps from where we are sitting. “The only reason this happened is because people got together to stop it and made this happen.”

Klein seems to have an almost prophetic sense of timing. Her first book, No Logo, came out right before the World Trade Organization (WTO) riots in Seattle, and it soon became a bible for the anti-globalization movement. Her second book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, was published in 2008 during the financial crisis. In the midst of the chaos, Klein explained how emergency bailouts were used to systematically override democracy and to enrich those corporate and banking elites responsible for the collapse.

Klein’s new book, This Changes Everything, was published in September, just weeks before the largest climate march in history. More than 400,000 people took to the streets of New York, demanding action on climate change. Similar protests took place around the world; in Hawai‘i, more than 200 people marched through Waikīkī with signs declaring, “The Seas Are Rising and So Are We!”

Hawai‘i, Klein says, has a high degree of ecological consciousness, placing it on the front lines of climate change, especially in terms of clean, renewable energy. “But I don’t have to tell you that the profit motive is getting in the way of what the people want in Hawai‘i,” says Klein, referring to HECO’s glacial pace in embracing renewable energy and its possible takeover by NextEra, a resource energy company seeking to ship natural gas to the islands.

“It’s insane and massively dangerous, and it’s also expensive,” she says.

As a mother and activist, Klein believes people are capable of profound change. But as an author and political analyst, she knows all too well how powerful elites will not give up their power unless the people demand it.

“It’s a historical moment for Hawai‘i,” Klein says. Will Hawai‘i heed Klein’s prophetic forecasts, stepping up to lead the clean energy revolution, or will it sit back and suffer the consequences of climate change and sea level rise? Either way, it’s our choice.

LDS PREPPERS

ACROSS THE ISLANDS AND THE GLOBE, MEMBERS OF THE MORMON CHURCH DO THEIR BEST TO PREPARE FOR THE WORST.

TEXT BY ANNA HARMON

IMAGES BY JOHN HOOK

“Sarah, there’s someone here for family planning,” calls out a man sitting behind a counter at the entrance to the LDS Bishop’s Storehouse, a food pantry for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on O‘ahu who are struggling to make ends meet. Just off Kalihi Avenue, the storehouse is tucked away in a squat building on the far end of a nearly empty parking lot. Sarah Barientos, a petite woman wearing a T-shirt and carrying a clipboard, greets me and leads me through double doors into a quiet, well-lit storage room that seems larger than the building would allow. A table at its center is covered with a grid of order forms for preserved goods, and floor-to-ceiling stacks of canned, dried, and boxed food line the walls. This is the Honolulu Home Storage Center, formerly known as the LDS Cannery, where members of the church and general public can buy Mormon-brand bulk foods at absurdly low prices ($2.75 for 5-1/2 pounds of hard red wheat and $9.75 for a pound of canned apple slices good for 30 years, folks).

Mormon families from Utah to Moloka‘i are encouraged to have a three-month supply of food, water, and money, with a goal of at least a one-year supply. “[The prophets’] revelation that heavenly Father had given them … tells us it’s important for us members to seek out self-reliance,” Barientos explains. “For me personally, [food storage] is just in case something should happen. Like, I use my own experience when I lost my job back in 2010 due to a work-related injury.” Today, she is a full-time volunteer at the center. An enthusiastic and sincere woman, Barientos bubbles over with excitement about getting the word out about the location, which is unknown even to some members on O‘ahu. Plus, Barientos declares, “This is open not only to the members, but also to the public. It’s the cheapest prices. The church actually pays for the shipping costs.”

While some Mormon families do not have a storage because it seems outside their budget or lifestyle, and a lack of landfall disasters has lulled nearly everyone in the islands into a sense of safety and comfort,

At Honolulu Home Storage Center, members of the Mormon church and general public can buy bulk foods at low prices in preparation for a day of reckoning.

they are reminded to prepare by way of an annual fair held at Brigham Young University-Hawai‘i, as well as occasional ward gatherings, when families sort disaster kits, toss out expired items, and make lists of what they need. Barientos maintains social media accounts for Honolulu Home Storage Center, including an Instagram account where she shares recipes featuring items from its rotating three-month supply.

Throughout the years, calls for members to heed warnings from the Book of Revelations—think plagues, wars, and famine in the time before the coming of Christ—rise and fall. Ezra Taft Benson, a portentous prophet (all Mormon presidents, who are believed to have direct contact with God, are considered prophets) who survived the Great Depression and was president of the church from 1985 until he passed away in 1994, was a fiery promoter of self-reliance and home storage.

At a general conference in 1965, he warned: “Should the Lord decide at this time to cleanse the church—and the need for that cleansing seems to be increasing—a famine in this land of one year’s duration could wipe out a large percentage of slothful members, including some ward and stake officers. Yet we cannot say we have not been warned.” In 2002, a letter from the First Presidency (the governing body of and highest ranking quorum in the church) took a decidedly softer approach to the encouragement of home storage: “Members should be prudent and not panic or go to extremes in this effort. Through careful planning, most church members can, over time, establish both a financial reserve and a year’s supply of essentials.”

For members like Barientos, any prophetic doom and gloom is accepted with a pragmatic air and a smile. Sure, pestilence or famine may arise. But more likely, the

economy will dip or a Matson strike will cause others to rush Costco, and there Barientos will be, alongside other prepared members, ready to support the community. “We have aquaponics, we’re trying to do all that,” says Barientos of a garden she maintains with her husband. After she lost her job, she says that she realized the importance of cultivating her own food, something her mother had done when Barientos was growing up. “We grow tilapia. … I think we may have enough now for maybe a six-month supply. And if things did come really bad, apocalyptic, I would be able to help my neighbors and my family, you know?”

The Honolulu Home Storage Center is located at 1120 Kalihi St. Follow them on Instagram @honoluluhomestoragecenter.

BOOM TO BUST

FROM BILLION-DOLLAR GHOST TOWNS TO THRIVING BANKRUPT NEIGHBORHOODS.

TEXT BY ANNIE KOH

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARK GHEE

LORD GALACGAC

In our visions of post-apocalyptic cities, part of the horror is what happens when economies fail, when direct deposit vanishes and bartering of goods is the only means of exchange.

But the inverse, when wealth pours into a city without restraint, can be just as alarming. Take, for instance, London, a city wracked by over-investment. Money from newly minted Russian gas magnates and Gulf State heirs has set the overheated property market to boiling, while deadening the street life of some of the area’s most historic neighborhoods (not to mention,

hurting the restaurants and shops). Critics bemoan the eerie emptiness of London’s urban core, which is suffering from a distinct lack of people even as apartments are snapped up as investment assets by domestic and foreign buyers. An estimated 22,000 properties in London are uninhabited or “long-term empty.” Swanky districts like Kensington are strikingly dark at night, and London’s One Hyde Park, possibly the most expensive residential building in the world, has primarily absentee owners.

Nightmares of desolate boomtown cities circle the globe. The western city of Ordos is China’s most famous ghost city, built to house more than a million people, yet with only 2 percent of the buildings filled. Throughout the country, dozens of new cities have been built in a frenzy fueled by property speculation and municipal governments’ push for revenue. Though the rows of apartment complexes have found domestic

Honolulu’s collapse of urban life may not come in Great Depression-style financial conflagration, with stockbrokers tumbling down with the Dow Jones. It may instead come humming in on wire transfers, a flood tide of capital that erodes livelihoods with each long-term empty apartment it buys.

investors, many of the apartments remain empty. Even bustling Manhattan is dotted with strangely silent voids, what one real estate appraiser called “the equivalent of bank safe deposit boxes in the sky that buyers can put all their valuables in and rarely visit.”

Maybe no one wants to live in rainy London or Inner Mongolia, but surely this cannot be true for the ocean-front city of Honolulu, consistently ranked high in livability indexes? Alas, remember Kawamoto, the garish billionaire who left million-dollar properties to rot in Kahala? The giant pool of money sloshing around in the global economy has already brought blight to these shores. Imagine our city as an investment portfolio instead of a place to live, where neighborhoods echo only with the footsteps of the property manager coming by to tour the tomb-like bank vault of security alarmed apartments. Honolulu’s collapse of urban life may not come in Great Depression-style financial conflagration, with stockbrokers tumbling down with the Dow Jones. It may instead come humming in on wire transfers, a flood tide of capital that erodes livelihoods with each long-term empty apartment it buys.

On the other hand, what happens when the real estate market tanks, and money marches out of a city? In 2008, images of foreclosed houses dominated the news. People walked away from

underwater mortgages, leaving the homes to scavengers and squirrels. But when investment vanishes and land ceases to have market value, other values can flourish. The most famous contemporary example is Detroit, which declared bankruptcy in 2013 after its economy was decimated by the collapse of the American auto industry. Today, the city is an epicenter of urban agriculture, with some remaining residents turning abandoned lots over to vegetable production.

This model isn’t new. In the 1970s, an era of massive disinvestment in American cities reached its height in New York City after President Gerald Ford refused to bail out the municipality, and the city slashed its operating budget. Landlords began torching their buildings rather than pay for upkeep, resulting in a wave of insurance-claim arson. In the literal and figurative ashes of the South Bronx, of Harlem, of countless residential neighborhoods, individuals and community organizations began planting.

The first community garden in New York City’s Lower East Side was established in 1973 by a group of hippies who started digging without permission in a city-owned lot. By 1995, there were 75 gardens growing in just the 33 blocks from 12th Street and Houston between Avenues A and D.

In Argentina, the economic collapse of 2001 was precipitated by multinational banks “[whisking] $40 billion in cash out

of the country in the dead of night” as Argentine’s currency began to plummet. Widespread layoffs and factory closures resulted in massive unemployment. But at one men’s suit factory, the seamstresses decided that they didn’t need to wait around for an economic revival, and waltzed back in to restart their sewing machines. Their example of a factory takeover inspired hundreds of worker collectives across Argentina, and even in Europe and the United States, where, in the depths of the most recent recession, workers staged sit-ins in factories in Chicago to keep production lines active.

In one dystopian scenario of postpeak Honolulu, the “haves” hoist their shotguns to guard houses they’ve worked hard to acquire, and the “have-nots” scrounge through the stale contents of mini bars in vacant resorts. In another future after economic collapse, all those empty timeshares become apartments for the formerly houseless, and hotel kitchens turn into community hubs where people bring fish, breadfruit, guava, and kalo to cook together. In the absence of financial capital, wealth could be redefined with different metrics: the land, water, and people right here with us.

NET PROPHET

MARY BABCOCK’S TEXTILE ART FOREWARNS THE FALLOUT OF A CONSUMERIST CULTURE.

TEXT BY KELLI GRATZ | IMAGES BY JONAS MAON

As the Great Pacific Garbage Patch continues on its path of destruction, the Hawai‘i-based textile artist Mary Babcock, a slim, relaxed woman with marks of the sun on her face walks along a long, flat beach near her home in Kailua, picking up discarded rope and netting on the sand. After she’s gathered everything available, she returns home to her studio, where she sets to work on another large-scale tapestry made from bundles of netting strewn about like mermaid hair.

“When I think about how much plastic is dumped in the water, it really makes me feel ill,” Babcock says. “We consume so much as a culture that it feels suicidal and homicidal. My work is about bringing awareness to materials and using materials that otherwise would be thrown away.”

Babcock’s fascination with fishing nets began in 2005 while she was living in Oregon, a place she calls her “heart space.” After graduating with a BFA in painting from the University of Oregon, Babcock took some time off to figure out what she really wanted to do. It wasn’t until she met a man who had started a net-recycling program along Oregon’s coast in order to keep fishermen from dumping nets into the ocean

that she found her calling. “I asked him if I could have any, and he showed me a room full of these gorgeous nets,” she recalls.

Though she experienced the coast while in Oregon and grew up near it in Rochester, New York (where she is originally from), Babcock didn’t have an immediate relationship with bodies of water until she moved to Hawai‘i. What she knew about the liquid elements came from faraway views of the ocean, clouded in hues of gray and dark brown, and from stories her parents told about a polluted Lake Eerie catching fire. But when she got the opportunity to move to Hawai‘i for a teaching position, she began seeing the changing moods of the ocean, from calm to angry, and water suddenly became an integral part of her life. “I learn about my own human psyche when I watch the water,” she says.

She was blown away by the colors of Kalama Bay, just down the street from her home in Kailua. Its swirling blues and greens became inspiration for a series of woven works entitled Hydrophilia I and Hydrophilia II (hydrophilia, in medicine, is the ability to combine with or attract water), both of which explore human engagement with each other and nature. “We name things that we care for, and the act of naming is also a connection to things,” she says. In naming one of her works “Kalama 2,” Babcock pays homage to the beach she walks regularly. “It helps me see the connection to place and [brings] attention to the public of what needs to happen there.”

Salvaging discarded materials from the ocean for more than a decade has made a lasting impression on her art and her teaching philosophy. In her classes at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, where she is an associate professor in fiber and performance arts, Babcock helps students engage with their surroundings by looking at artists who are using recycled products and social spaces. The many layers of plastic woven together in this mixed media are a vessel for all that she wishes to convey: the current ecological state, the personality of the ocean, fishermen’s labor, and meaningful human connections.

Babcock’s improvisatory sensibility might have something to do with her upbringing: Her homemaker mother taught her how to sew at a young age, and her father, a naval architect and camera designer, fostered in her an adaptability and curiosity that led her to a career in the arts. “My grandparents came from Ireland to escape the potato famine, and my mother was constantly fixing my clothes and using what was available instead of buying it new,” she says. “So I grew up with this notion of, we can’t make it back like how it was, but we can try to repair it, and it won’t be perfect, but to be in love with it anyway.”

Her current work in progress, entitled Breaking Ground, is a large wax paper installation resembling a frozen waterway debuting at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center in August. It was inspired by the Buddhist concept of groundlessness, the way “the world is always shifting, moving,” Babcock explains. “It is only our concepts that over and over again attempt to force a kind of false permanence and solidity on something whose nature is otherwise. It is about the quiet fracturing of false ideologies that happens gradually and naturally under the light of awareness.” Looking to work with as many found materials as possible, Babcock found her niche as a forwardthinking environmentalist, artfully mending the old and discarded into the new and whimsical. “The interesting thing about mending something is that the scar is still there,” she says. “In reclaimed materials, there’s this memory that it was different at one point.”

Mary Babcock is represented by GalleryHNL, located in the Gentry Pacific Design Center, 560 N. Nimitz Hwy. For more information, visit galleryhnl.com.

“We can’t make it back like how it was, but we can try to repair it, and it won’t be perfect, but we can be in love with it anyway,” says artist Mary

here at

with discarded nets she utilizes in her work.

Babcock, shown

Kailua Beach

“Just because something involves a lot of complex ideas, that doesn’t mean you should just disregard it because it sounds scary or you think it’s not natural,” says researcher Robin Ka‘ai, who found his calling in molecular biology while enrolled in KCC’s STEM program.

ZOMBIE NATION

WHAT HAPPENED TO CRITICAL THINKING? WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD? ONE PROGRAM INOCULATES MINDLESSNESS.

TEXT BY LISA YAMADA | IMAGES BY JONAS MAON

Year 2025: No one knows for sure what caused the virus. Or how it spread so quickly. It seems to have arisen from major metropolitan centers, those densely populated cities where a waning trust in science and technology left residents vulnerable. The infected idle mindlessly until provoked, then, like zombies, they gnash, snarl, lunge, and claw until their attention is drawn elsewhere. The disease continues to spread.

Year 2015. It’s nearing midnight and all is relatively quiet at Kapi‘olani Community College (KCC). There’s a low hum coming from the fluorescent lighting in a laboratory where undergraduate Robin Ka‘ai is waiting for DNA to be processed. It’s part of a project he’s been working on for nearly a year, one that attempts to create a more economical way to build antibodies by using genetically modified viruses. “What took me a year to work on is literally a clear drip of water in a tube,” Ka‘ai says. “You don’t know what’s in there until you stick it in this machine, and you see the DNA is present. If it is, you get to see a nice band on the computer, and you might have been successful.”

In addition to attacking viruses that make you sick, antibodies are used as a diagnostic tool for a multitude of things, including HIV and pregnancy tests; they’ve also recently been used to treat certain types of cancers, though the high cost of these types of treatments (some in the hundreds of thousands of dollars) results in many insurance companies refusing to cover them. “One person gets sick, but you can crash an entire family if you’re talking about paying $100,000 a year for these antibody treatments,” Ka‘ai says. “You’re killing the livelihood of an entire

family because it’s so expensive to produce antibodies. So this was our way of asking, what if we could convince the E. coli bacteria that you normally find in cat poop to make [these antibodies]? … You would bring down the skill sets required to people who work in an entry-level microlab instead of a specialized facility.”

Complex projects like these are common in KCC’S STEM program. Established in 2005 with a $1.2 million National Science Foundation grant, the program’s purpose is to enhance the quality of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (hence, STEM) instruction. Another project Ka‘ai worked on following his antibody project, for example, involved using micro-algae that he genetically modified using an ultrasound and micro-bubbles to create a high-output, low-maintenance method to produce protein-based drugs for industrial use. The resulting data was sent to University of Calgary for further research on insulin production. Ka‘ai acknowledges that the research he and other students have done can be hard to understand, but that that shouldn’t deter people from trying to wrap their brains around it. “Just because something involves a lot of complex ideas … that doesn’t mean you should just disregard it because it sounds scary or you

think it’s not natural,” he says.

Ka‘ai wasn’t always a scientist. He grew up on O‘ahu’s west side, graduating from Wai‘anae High School in 2003. A month after, he enlisted in the Army as a healthcare specialist, a “fancier way of saying combat medic,” he says. In 2007, he deployed to Iraq, then Kuwait, but became increasingly dissatisfied with the level of care he was able to provide to the soldiers in his unit. “It would be one of me with 40 other people on a convoy, and it was this impartial lottery anytime there was a mass casualty,” he says. “Two of you will get really good care, and the others will get whatever else I can give you. … I got interested in healthcare because I wanted to help people, but it just turned into me buying you time before you could go to someone who could actually help you.”

After he was discharged in 2009, Ka‘ai decided he needed to ramp up his skill

set in order to exceed what he saw as the limitations of being an EMT. He decided to go into nursing and was accepted into programs at KCC and University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Meanwhile, he had enrolled in a microbiology class at KCC taught by Professor Matthew Tuthill, who pushed Ka‘ai to look beyond what he thought were his limitations. “That was by far the most influential thing I had happen to me at KCC,” Ka‘ai says. “That someone told me … to have the confidence to get to where [I know I] can go, not just where [I think I] have to stop.” Ka‘ai soon came to the realization that instead of building his own skill set, he could help advance everyone else’s as well; he could, in fact, advance an entire field.

Ka‘ai withdrew his candidacies from both nursing schools, choosing instead to dive into STEM’s biotechnology and molecular science pathway, where he

learned cutting-edge research and gained recognition after winning awards at competitions around the country, including top honors at the John A. Burns School of Medicine’s annual Biomedical Sciences and Health Disparities Symposium for his presentation on the use of phage display to produce antibodies against Campylobacter jejuni. It was the first time a community college student had ever won the award. “I hate that biotech at KCC flies under the radar when it should be exalted as this bastion of research in the Pacific,” he says. “I’ve been up to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, and the level of research they do there is comparable with some of the stuff that we do right here.”

The question of how far to take science is one that Ka‘ai has seen played out in the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor, black tobacco farmer whose cancer cells were, without her knowledge,

“We create the tools to allow technology to move forward. We’re not always equipped to handle the philosophical side, and that’s where other stakeholders have to come to the table and figure out what’s best for society,” says Professor Matthew Tuthill.

biopsied by researchers at John Hopkins University shortly before her death in 1915. Researchers later discovered the aggressive cancer cells were immortal, meaning that they could thrive eternally in a lab. Today, Lacks lives on through these HeLa cells, as they are called. They remain the most widely used cell line in research, cited in more than 74,000 scientific studies, and have provided insight leading to breakthroughs in vaccines (polio, for one), cancer and AIDs research, in vitro fertilization, and genetics. Despite the multi-billion dollar industry that sprang up as a result of HeLa cells, Lacks’ descendants can’t afford healthcare, a conundrum leaving Ka‘ai to wonder: How far do you push science for the betterment of everyone else, when it means allowing those like the Lacks family to fall by the wayside?

Tuthill says it’s an ethical question that science can’t answer. “We create the tools to allow technology to move forward. We’re not always equipped to handle the philosophical side, and that’s where other stakeholders have to come to the table and figure out what’s best for society.”

A lot of times, Tuthill says, dialogue about science, especially regarding things like genetic modification, can get extremely heated. “When it gets emotional, you can’t

talk to someone rationally about it,” he says. “I try to get students to think more critically and evaluate the data they’re seeing and let them make their own decisions rather than someone else making the decision for them.”

Ka‘ai agrees: “We sit in our meetings and argue with each other all the time, but it’s that dialogue that’s important. It’s a more open-ended way of approaching these problems.” Instead, Ka‘ai continues, there’s an intense mistrust in science that’s going to drive a lot of our problems in the future. “If it’s that important to you, go out and get an education. Change policies, educate your community about what that impact is having on them. That’s how you defend Hawai‘i.”

Doing just that, Ka‘ai, who transferred to UH after receiving his associate’s of science degree from KCC in 2012, will graduate this summer with a bachelor’s degree in molecular cell biology. He hopes to go on to get dual degrees as a doctor of medicine and doctor of philosophy (referred to as an MD-PhD) and become a research physician. “I’m not the smartest person that came out of Wai‘anae, I know that for a fact,” he says. “But if I could get this far, someone better than me could make it much further.”

The heart of Chinatown since 2005

“The realization we’re going to have to return to is that doodoo and water don’t mix,” says Kanoa O’Connor, who is studying how ancient Hawaiian populations managed their excrement.

YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT

TRACING DOODOO ON THE ISLANDS FROM ANCIENT TIMES TO APOCALYPTIC FUTURES.

TEXT BY ANNA HARMON | IMAGES BY JONAS MAON

Up shit creek. When shit hits the fan. Don’t give me that crap. Don’t be an asshole. What a brownnoser. You’re such a turd. I’ve got a shitload of work, OK?

We use poop as a dirty word all the time. But we also rarely speak of it. When I started this story, I knew nothing about poop. My interest began with horror reports of bacteria on attack, algae blooms, Ala Wai canal going septic, cesspools leaking into bays and causing sores that wouldn’t heal. I wanted to know where my shit went, and what it meant when my shit went wrong. Because it can go wrong. If our shit seeps into our water, if it touches our food, if it piles up and festers, it can kill us. But it can also go the right way, giving back to a natural cycle with rich nutrients that are food for microorganisms and fertilizer for plants. In case of apocalypse, if we don’t know what to do with our excrement, we may very well be up shit creek. So I had a mystery to solve. Where does our doodoo go, exactly, and what will we do with it if the world as we know it ends?

MAKING DIRT

It’s 9 a.m. at Kenny’s Diner in Kalihi. Across from me in a semi-circle booth sits Kanoa

O’Conner, a large man with curly hair nearly as voluminous as his booming voice. After our waitress stops by our table with a slice of rainbow cake, coffee, and a chicken sandwich with fries, we get down to talking dirt. “To me, Hawaiians had to be super clean,” he says. “You’re not going to have a million people living here [if] you’re not.”

O’Connor has earned the nickname of “doodoo boy” from the professors at the Hawaiian Studies department at University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, where he is pursuing his master’s degree. After earning his bachelor’s from Stanford University in environmental engineering with a focus in wastewater management, he realized he had little knowledge of how his ancestors handled the same thing in ancient Hawai‘i. Now, he is trying to solve the mystery of poop, searching through everything from missionary documents to ‘ōlelo no‘eau, or traditional proverbs.

Early on, he discovered an article by O.A. Bushnell, “Hygiene and Sanitation Among the Ancient Hawaiians,” published in 1966 in the Hawaii Historical Review. It is one of the only academic pieces that explores how the far-flung population handled its bodily functions and protected its streams and springs from contamination. “Out of respect for the gods, the Hawaiian refrained from polluting their abodes,” Bushnell writes. “Out of fear for himself, he was most careful to keep his body’s parts, or its wastes, and his personal possessions from falling into the hands of the dreaded sorcerer.” Poop, Hawaiians believed, carried mana, or life force, and was considered an

extension of oneself. In one mo‘ōlelo, or story, a jealous sorcerer from Lāna‘i travels to Kaua‘i to steal the excrement of powerful prophet Lani-kaula. He brings it back to Lāna‘i, where he sets it on fire. Lani-kaula senses what has happened right away, and realizing he is going to die, orders that he be buried under stone knives so his bones are not used for fishhooks.

But using the bathroom was, realistically, a daily chore. Mary Kawena Pukui compared the sanitation practices of ancient Hawaiians to that of cats: They buried it all the time. O’Connor theorizes that the way poop was disposed of varied by location and social status. “The ali‘i had a special retainer (servant) that would collect their doodoo inside a calabash, and then in the cover of night, go take care of it for them,” O’Connor says. “That wouldn’t have happened for a maka‘āinana (commoner), because you would have had to take care of your own shit.”

In another mo‘ōlelo, a chief gets diarrhea while traveling along a path and stops to relieve himself. A runner passes by, and the chief asks him how it was back at his starting point. Very wet and full of fish, the runner tells him. It’s not until the chief returns to his retainer and passes along the news that he realizes the runner’s answers were a joke about his poop, not the weather.

“Even though we have this understanding of these social constructs [in ancient Hawai‘i], sometimes that might not have even been true,” says O’Conner. “Sometimes an ali‘i would have plopped down by the side of the road and done his

business.” Generally, he says, if you were out fishing, you went in the ocean; if you were traveling along a path, you stepped off to the side and dug a hole; if you were living in a dry, volcanic area, you most likely had a designated communal lua, or hole in the ground, since digging an individual one every time would be nearly impossible.

According to O’Connor, ancient Hawaiians had a bounty of language to describe the act and product of defecation. Kūkae is commonly used today, but according to O’Connor, the more appropriate words that were used were honowā, which refers not only to poop but also what is inside of your intestines, and hana lepo, which literally means to make dirt. “We had an understanding of the connection of poop and dirt,” O’Connor says.

But digging holes, as he has tested, isn’t convenient. “It’s so easy to flush,” says O’Connor, who remedies this with his own methods for conserving water. “I don’t flush anymore when I pee, and people get angry at me. … To me, something like a composting system really does solve all the problems, but it doesn’t solve the easiness problem. I don’t know if you can ever solve the easiness problem and the healthy-for-the-land-andwater-and-people problem, too.”

In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, O’Conner theorizes, “The realization we’re going to have to return to is that doodoo and water don’t mix.”

SANITIZING SLUDGE

“Basically, I’m trying to figure out where my poop goes,” I tell Markus Owens, the public relations officer for Honolulu City and County’s Department of Environmental Services, when we meet at Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant. A tall, broadshouldered man who moved to Hawai‘i to play baseball at UH in the 1970s, he takes a coach’s encouraging tone as he works me through the complexities of pumping stations, the technology for fixing cracks in pipes, and the work that goes into getting our poop out of our way.

When someone flushes a toilet back in Pālolo Valley, excrement and several gallons of previously clean water travel into pipes, where they flow downward along with sewage from other toilets, showers, and sinks. This is also joined by water—a lot of it, if there has

been a storm—that seeps through flaws in the pipe, which can introduce contaminants lingering in the ground like dieldrin, used as a termite pesticide before being banned in the 1980s. This concoction arrives to the Ala Moana pumping station, then is sent along to the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant. Here, the poop water is screened for trash like tampons and gravel, then piped into what looks like a giant mixing bowl. Egrets flock overhead as a massive wand slowly churns the dark gray water. The point of this tank is to separate solids and fluids. Ferric chloride and polymer (which cause the gray color) are added to help speed up this process. Effluent, as the water is now called, is then run under two sets of UV panels to neutralize most remaining microorganisms (by far the most energy intensive part of the process, Owens estimates that it costs close to $5 million annually to operate). Then, the water is discharged a mile and a half out from land, 240 feet below the ocean’s surface.

The solids that settle in the tank—made up of dying bacteria and fiber from poop and toilet paper, along with contaminants like metals and chemicals from cleaning products or prescription pills—are now called sludge. This is treated, thickened, heated, dried, and then turned into pellets the size of rabbit dung in a giant white globe operated by Synagro. These pellets, deemed biosolids, are used as fertilizer by commercial farms, landscapers, golf courses. At the time this article was written, anything not reduced to a small enough size—usually about 7 percent of solid matter—was sent to the landfill, along with the rest of the solid waste created by eight of Honolulu City and County’s nine other treatment plants (La‘ie composts its own). Annually, this adds up to about 200,000 tons. However, if everything went according to plan during an April 2015 test run, this is all now trucked over to H-Power, where it will be burned as part of our state’s sustainable energy plan. Manmade power to da max.

However, issues arise with our modern sewer system in several ways. If sewer pipes fail or overflow, groundwater can be contaminated with feces—a danger that has caused overseers to flush raw sewage into canals emptying into the ocean instead. Also, the system requires hundreds of gallons of freshwater to be removed from their watersheds each day and turned into

wastewater. Finally, if a large disaster wipes out any of our ocean-side treatment plants, those connected to it can expect to see sewage flowing out of manholes, pump stations, and even their own toilets—a health hazard of watershed proportions.

Hawai‘i’s first modern sewer facility was the Kaka‘ako pumping station, a charming lava rock building with large paneled windows that still rests, now retired, just off Ala Moana Boulevard. Built in 1900 in the trend of sewer management coming out of Europe, its job was to pump untreated sewage into the ocean. “The solution to pollution is dilution” became the rule in all kinds of pollution management. Water was the perfect diluent, hence the primary dumping ground. The Environmental Protection Agency was finally founded in 1970 and the Clean Water Act widely recognized in 1972, inspired by such things as rivers catching fire.

Built in 1928, Wahiawā Wastewater Treatment Plant is the oldest in Hawai‘i, as well as the only one on the island that discharges into a freshwater body, Lake Wilson. For this to happen, the water receives tertiary treatment, the highest level of treatment after primary and secondary, before being considered recycled. On the other hand, the Sand Island plant, which was opened in 1976, only performs primary treatment of wastewater, one of the last in the country allowed to do this. In 2010, the EPA issued a decree requiring Honolulu City and County to upgrade this plant and the Honouliuli Wastewater Treatment Plant to perform full secondary treatment, as well as fix pipe leakage by 2035. Both plants have completed 381 of 484 milestones, but the conversions of the wastewater treatment plants loom ahead.

While this may bring to mind an everexpanding network of underground pipes around the islands, our sewer systems are limited to urban areas. Hawai‘i, in fact, has the largest number of cesspools in the nation—about 90,000 total. If someone poops in Pūpūkea, for example, at a house connected to a cesspool, the doodoo water doesn’t go on a long-distance journey; instead, it is sent down into an underground hole or well, where solids settle and water leeches out through the wall, filtered by layers of earth and plant roots.

This is a much simpler, cheaper route,

Lauren Roth Venu at her original Living Machine project, which was fabricated from a repurposed shipping container to serve as a mobile ecological wastewater treatment demonstration system. It is now owned and operated by Partners In Development and located at the Makiki Nature Center.

WAYS WE HANDLE OUR POOP

WET SYSTEMS

CESSPOOL : an underground well into which wastewater flows. Solids settle to the bottom and water leeches out through sides, where it is further filtered by soil, microbes, and plant life.

SEPTIC TANK : an underground enclosed tank where solids settle and are anaerobically digested. Water typically flows into a drain field.

SEWER SYSTEM : a network of pipes and pumping stations take wastewater from toilets, sinks, and showers to a centralized wastewater treatment plant.

DRY SYSTEMS

COMPOSTING TOILET : a dry toilet in which human waste is composted.

BUCKET TOILET : a rudimentary composting toilet in which waste is layered with peat moss or sawdust, then disposed of in a compost pile.

LUA : in Hawaiian, a hole in the ground used as a toilet.

but one that can backfire. Cesspools inundated by overuse aren’t able to give the matter appropriate settling time, causing wastewater to seep into the ocean or groundwater. Last year, spurred by ocean contamination along the coasts of Maui and O‘ahu, the Department of Health proposed an amendment that banned new cesspools and required existing ones to be converted to septic tanks (encased underground tanks that perform primary treatment) when the homes were sold, but it did not go over well. The majority of Maui, in fact, does not have access to a sewer system. Its three county-owned wastewater treatment plants all produce some recycled water, but the county is still determining the direction to take its poop since centralized systems mostly mean draining water into the ocean. Maui is a much drier island than O‘ahu, and wastewater is wasted water.

In early 2015, two bills were introduced to state congress that requested funds to research water scalping, which involves pulling wastewater early in a sewer journey and sending it to a more localized treatment center that would refine the water to a recycled level, again for local use. When I asked Owens if his department thought they were promising, he said yes, but that there were concerns. The department appreciates efficiency and knows scalping would decrease the amount of water processed at the plant. However, they hesitate because with less water in the system, poop moves more slowly and begins to ripen, releasing methane gas and nitrogen that could corrode the pipes if they are not resized. (This is the cause of Kaka‘ako’s methane stink, since there isn’t enough water to consistently keep things moving through pipes scaled for a larger population). The other thing? Cost. All of the money that is paid in sewer fees by property owners already goes straight into maintaining the system. They know the uphill battle that would surround adding another dollar to that monthly sewer fee to fund such research. There is no budget to plan for the future.

This is personal—we don’t want to pay for shit we no longer understand.

FEEDING LIFE

“I was essentially shipped here with the container,” jokes Lauren Roth Venu, a tall woman with a tomboy tone. We are at the Makiki Nature Center, standing beside a repurposed 4-foot-wide by 8-foot-deep shipping container called the Living Machine, outfitted with solar panels and a blue paint job. Once wastewater reaches a certain level in the center’s septic tanks, it is flushed into the shipping container. Here, it moves through different sandy-bottomed compartments populated with plant life, fish, microbes, and snails. “Waste is food for living things,” says Roth Venu. Microbes render nitrogen into a usable form for the plants, and fish dine on solids. As the water runs through its wetlands journey, it becomes more oxygenated and poopfree. When it is sent out for irrigation, it is recycled water.

Roth Venu oversaw this container at its first stop, the old slaughterhouse on Fort Wheeler Road in ‘Ewa, where it treated water used to wash the facilities and holding pens. She populated it with native plants and koi. In 2006, she founded Roth Ecological Design International, and today she consults on and oversees a variety of projects in state and abroad. “The city is constantly just putting out fires and doesn’t have time for long-range planning,” says Roth Venu, who serves on the board of the State Water Commission and is on the committee that advises the Department of Health on their water reuse guidelines.

“I like the idea of mimicking the watershed,” she says of the natural flow of water from mountain to ocean. “If we can maintain and manage our water within the watershed, including our service, then there is no net in and out; we’re not diverting.”

Take Makiki Nature Center, for example, where water is treated on-site before being used for irrigation, entering the ground and making its way down the mountain. This model can be expanded to entire communities within watersheds. An easy place to start is at home with a rainwater catchment and gray-water system. She has also been in strategic planning sessions with

regulators about onsite systems within highrises that would treat water to be reused for flushing toilets or maintaining coolant systems, instead of it having to be piped in and out. While poop would still be sent to a centralized system, any sludge from a septic tank could theoretically be pumped and composted.

In June 2014, Roth Venu finished an onsite wastewater system at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Office in Kona. Here, primary treatment takes place in septic tanks, after which water flows through an outdoor constructed wetland, rendering it clean enough to be used for irrigation. A nurse thought the flowers from the wetland were so pretty that now, once a week, its operator clips blooms that are delivered to patients.

If apocalypse were to arise, this facility actually may have its shit somewhat figured out. But what about the rest of us? “I would say you probably shouldn’t flush toilets,” Roth Venu says. “You probably should go to a compost toilet. I don’t think we’d have the luxury of using water that way.”

“You’re writing about poop? Do you know about the humanure handbook?!!!” a friend texts me excitedly. Now in its third self-published edition, The Humanure Handbook envisions a world of humanure compost heaps that are the boon of gardens. It features drawings of composting toilets that make readers giddy. It also confirms what ancient Hawaiians observed, O’Connor knows, state and county departments are facing, and Roth Venu is trying to solve: Water and doodoo should not haphazardly mix. When apocalypse hits, a new system will have to be agreed upon, one requiring creativity and native intelligence. If you find you have survived the end of the world, grab a bucket for your bowel movements, start a compost heap far away from your stream, and make do with dirt, you lucky little shit.

THE BEGINNING

36–40: THE LEADER

You are a born leader. You are calm in crisis and see what everyone has to offer. Where you lack sympathy, The Moral Compass steps up to the plate.

29–35: THE MORAL COMPASS

Without you, a group would fall to pieces. You listen to concerns, think the best of everyone, and know right from wrong. You and The MacGyver have a love-hate relationship.

21–28: THE MACGYVER

You can whip up a flotation device with just a pincushion and monstera leaf. Your innovations constantly surprise the group and solve problems that would confound everyone else. The Muscle often comes in handy for your schemes (which can also go awry).

14–20: THE MUSCLE

You, my friend, are strong and swift. Your survival instinct is powerful, but you may be a little hotheaded. In this case, turn to your friend The Gatherer for some calming kava.

6–13: THE GATHERER

You know where to find young ho–‘i‘o, mountain apples, and wild ginger. Your lack of social skills and hermit ways actually come in handy, since you can spend long amounts of time alone in nature.

REAL LIFE ON FAKE MARS

A CREW OF SIX PLAY INTERSTELLAR HOUSE FOR A NASA-FUNDED RESEARCH PROJECT ON MAUNA LOA.

TEXT BY ANNA HARMON IMAGES COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA

As

NASA prepares to launch its first mission to Mars in the 2030s, Hawai‘i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation crews have been simulating life on the red planet on Mauna Loa’s eastern slope. Shown here is Angelo Vermeulen, wearing the MX-B simulated spacesuit. Photo by Yajaira Sierra-Sastre.

Crewmember Zak Wilson enters a brightly lit airlock, where plants grow in coffee cans hung on pegs, and residents flock to feel natural sunlight. He steps into a bright yellow HAZMAT suit and zips it up, entirely encased as he looks out through its clear plastic mask.

He opens a heavy door, stepping out with another HAZMAT suit-encased crewmember onto red, rocky terrain. They venture into a nearby lava tube, take notes, map out its unique features, then walk back to their home—for now, a bright white dome appearing as a mere dot along the slopes of Hawai‘i Island’s Mauna Loa.

In the last few years, Mars has suddenly appeared within reach of human grasp. NASA plans to launch its first mission to the red planet, a short-term research trip, in the 2030s. In 11 years, Mars One, a private venture, expects to have deployed a crew of four to begin colonization, filming a reality TV show as they go. But those who know most about what life on Mars may really be like are crewmembers who have spent stints holed up in habitats in the Canadian Arctic, Russia, Utah, or Hawai‘i Island for various Earth-based projects researching habitation on Mars.

Since October 2014, six “astro-nots,” including Wilson, have been living in a dome on Mauna Loa’s eastern slope, a location selected for its strong resemblance to Mars’ extraterrestrial terrain (barren red landscape, shield volcanoes, lava tubes). These six sojourners are the crew of Hawai‘i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) Mission III, one of four missions funded by NASA, ranging in length from four months to a year. The first mission was an independent phase that focused on food—what the crew ate, how they made it. The current series of three is focused on crew psychology, with five institutions, including

University of Michigan and John Hopkins University, collecting data on what causes fissures or cohesion within the group. Mission III is the longest yet, ending June 12, 2015. Crewmembers include a combat veteranslash-microbiologist, an aerospace engineer, and an intelligent-robotics researcher. All were chosen for their astronaut-like backgrounds and personalities. They live daily life as if actually surviving and researching on Mars.

The things they experience, and the difficulties they encounter, will directly impact protocol and plans for NASA’s pending mission. Principal investigator Dr. Kim Binsted, a professor at University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, is focused on how the different crews of each of the missions develop relationships and effectiveness over time. One thing that she is on the lookout for is symptoms of a third quarter effect, when it has been theorized that crewmembers will experience depression and lethargy.

Another factor impacting the crew is the 20-minute delay in communications with “Earth” that astronauts on Mars will encounter. (It will be the first time in human space travel that this will occur.) “There is a really strong tendency for communication breakdown between an isolated team and the crew at home,” Binsted explains, and the delay will only exacerbate that. Frustrations may arise, miscommunication could proliferate, and dangers to the crew would increase. On an already challenging host planet with lower gravity, dangerous solar flares, and lack of easily accessible food or water, this could mean mission incomplete. But if this research does what it aims to do, such human complications may be prevented.

Beyond missions or objectives, what HISEAS also shows is the reality of daily human life on Mars. Crewmembers exercise with resistance bands, clean their compostable toilet, play board games, attempt repairs with a 3-D printer, conduct individual research projects. Each gets a single, eight-minute shower per week (the minimum found necessary in order to maintain morale). Much of the day is dedicated to meals. The crew lives off a food stock similar to what NASA would provide, including freeze-dried meals, dried fruits and vegetables, potato flakes, flour, powdered milk, and canned meats, as well as the occasional fresh produce grown under LED lights on loan from the Kennedy Space Center. They bake bread in the toaster oven and take turns making meals. Holidays are celebrated with inventive feasts.

While recording a virtual tour of the habitat, crewmember Jocelyn Dunn introduces the cramped kitchen this way: “Here we are in the HI-SEAS kitchen. It’s really the heart and soul of the mission.” On a hot plate to her right, a gumbo prepared by Wilson simmers away.

FLUX HAWAII GROUND CONTROL TO HI-SEAS EXPLORERS.

We asked crewmembers to imagine that they got called on a real-life mission to Mars. The following is our correspondence.

You just got the exciting news that you’re taking a real-life, one-way trip to Mars. What three things do you bring?

Jocelyn Dunn: Slippers, MacBook Pro, and Chapstick.

Zak Wilson: A 3D printer—I could manufacture parts on my own instead of having to wait for a resupply.

Neil Scheibelhut: Camera, iPad crammed with games, cowboy hat, and boots. If I had to only take one of those, it would be the hat.

What is one thing you will miss about Earth?

Dunn: Besides people, I would miss going to the beach. Even while here on simulated Mars, I yearn for the feeling of the sun warming my skin and for the refreshment of swimming in the ocean.

How do you expect to get that all-essential H20 on a planet with no reservoirs or running water?

Scheibelhut: There are actually many, many ways to obtain and reuse water. Besides reusing water brought along on the trip to Mars, urine can be cleaned and reused. In addition, water can be extracted from other forms of waste, like paper products. Once astronauts reach Mars, it will actually be easier. The polar ice caps found on Mars have literally tons of water that can be melted, cleaned, and consumed. Ice can also be found within the soil and extracted. And, in the rare case when water cannot be extracted from the soil, the soil itself can be used to create water. The red color we see all over Mars is due to the presence of large

amounts of iron oxide. Through a series of chemical reactions, the oxygen trapped in the soil can be united with hydrogen (which is also plentiful on Mars in other forms) to create water.

What are you going to do to manage waste?

Lenio: Anything organic should be composted and reused as soil. I’ve been using a type of anaerobic composting system called Bokashi to turn our food waste back into soil, and have been successfully using it to grow new food for us.

Hollywood glamour of interstellar life aside, what do you think day-to-day life will actually be like?

Wilson: I think a large amount of time will be spent on maintenance and other fairly mundane tasks like tending to gardens. The level of technology required to sustain humans on Mars is quite high, and the consequences for a systems failure is potentially catastrophic. Large gardens would be required to permanently sustain people on Mars, particularly without

resupply from Earth.

Unlike Earth, Mars doesn’t have a magnetic field or dense atmosphere to deflect most solar flare radiation. How do you plan to survive the threat of solar flares?

Sophie Milam: One of the standard practices for astronauts in danger of solar flares is something our early ancestors would have agreed on: If danger is coming, run and hide in a cave. On a spaceship or space station there isn’t a cave per se, but there is a very solid, very small area specially reinforced to protect astronauts from harmful radiation. Around our habitat, there are systems of lava tubes and caves that are analogous to real Martian terrain. Astronauts on Mars will have to position their habitats close to these kinds of structures and outfit them as a kind of emergency shelter.

Back to planet Earth. Having been part of HI-SEAS, would you sign up for that oneway trip to colonize Mars with Mars One?

Allen Mirkadyrov: Probably not. I have

many responsibilities to other people who depend on me, so I could not consciously volunteer for an inevitable death.

Milam: Given what I have heard about Mars One, I don’t believe I would. But I would sign up for a one-way mission to Mars. I believe that a sustained presence on Mars is the most realistic view of the future because of the health problems that come from extended durations in microand low-gravity. A there-and-back mission would take around two years, and the kind of damage done to your physiology would not allow you to live a normal life when you got back to Earth. By staying on Mars, people would not have to readapt to a higher gravity, and their continued presence will ensure continued interest and exploration beyond Earth, which I believe is very important to humans.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Crewmembers organize their food supply. Photo by Sian Proctor.

are

“We

reviving the genius of our kūpuna,” says Walter Ritte, speaking about the advanced aquaculture techniques of ancient Hawaiians.

THE MIRACLE OF FISH

NEGLECTED FOR CENTURIES, OVERRUN BY DEVELOPMENT AND BURDENED BY A LABYRINTH OF LAWS, THE HUMBLE FISHPONDS OF HAWAI‘I RAISE FISH, THE MIDDLE FINGER, AND AWARENESS OF A CULTURAL REVOLUTION.

TEXT BY SONNY GANADEN | IMAGES BY JOHN HOOK & JONAS MAON

He‘eia fishpond is invisible from the highway. A 20th century American neighborhood and an eight-story mangrove forest hide the lower rock wall and the scrams of He‘eia Stream, which feeds the loko i‘a (traditional Hawaiian fishpond). Under the management of the nonprofit Paepae o He‘eia, the pond has been the focus of innumerable volunteer hours over the last 15 years.

The fishpond was fully enclosed in 1965, before a series of storms inundated Kāne‘ohe Bay and the simple negligence of closed

gates burst the ancient walls. Those walls will be closed again just before December 2015 on the 50th anniversary of the disaster.

He‘eia is one of nearly 500 identified fishponds across the islands, developed over hundreds of years in a variety of styles defined by their respective geographies. A 19th century collapse by way of Western disease killed nearly half of the estimated one million people who once tended the ponds and the terraced upland fields that fed them. Two centuries later, an entirely new Pacific upheaval has appeared offshore: entire islands being lost to a rising and acidifying sea, invasive organisms altering ecosystems, massive storms occuring with increased ferocity and regularity. On shore, an entire generation is being excluded from land ownership and is questioning modern agriculture’s capacity to maintain healthy communities, bodies, and interactions with the ecosystem.

Ask anyone working at He‘eia or at any of the numerous ponds being rebuilt across the islands, and they will tell you that their mission goes beyond growing fish. What is happening now in Hawai‘i has happened within the world’s living memory for generations. It is seen in the way community organizers used bus stops

in the American civil rights movement as the place to deconstruct an American apartheid, or a decade before that, when Indian nationalists marched to the sea to collect salt and dethroned the British foreign power. Humble quiet places, not the halls of power, are often the sites of peaceful, non-violent revolution.

The tide is dropping to zero and a plume of smoke is rising on the northern crest of He‘eia fishpond. The smell of balmy woodsmoke fills the air as Keli‘i Kotubetey, assistant executive director of Paepae o He‘eia, the non-profit tasked to manage the pond’s brackish 88 acres, asks me to join him on a wooden dinghy for the weekly testing that will take us on a circuit around the pond’s perimeter. I accompany Mikela Branco, a microbiology student at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, and Dr. Kiana Frank, a researcher at the Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (CMORE) based out of the university. “You came on a good day,” Kotubetey says while starting the outboard engine. “Normally I’d just do the basic stuff, but today we’re going a few levels deeper.”

A few meters out, he cuts the engine and drops a sensor resembling an unlit light saber attached to a digital display the size of an iPad. “P-1,” Frank points out, as Branco gently drops a plastic bottle tethered to a small buoy into the water. “These filter water and capture microbes, and are part of our expansive data set,” Frank explains. A week from now, the bottles will be retrieved, replaced, and the DNA of their contents analyzed.

Buoy P-3 floats adjacent to the largest stand of mangrove in Hawai‘i, near the center of the pond, where a boisterous gaggle of cattle egrets congregate on its canopy. Introduced in the 1920s to control erosion, the aggressively invasive red mangrove has taken over much of Kāne‘ohe Bay, as well as the rest of the archipelago. He‘eia has essentially become a Floridian forest, with acres of sediment trapped in a thick mat of mangrove roots. The mangrove, cattle egrets, gorilla ogo (a type

of seaweed), and the 21st century watershed feeding into the fishpond complicate the traditional practice of creating a field of limu (indigenous seaweed) used to feed the fish. “These stands take up a lot of the pond. We know what this place used to look like, and it’s overrun,” Kotubetey says while noting pH levels on his sensor. On a detour into a branch of He‘eia Stream, the smoke thickens. Two men are slashing and burning the mangrove, the sounds of their chainsaws drowning out our voices. In an hour, a large group of middle school-aged kids and their parents will spend their spring break on a service trip here, hauling branches over to a controlled blaze and adding themselves among the hundreds of volunteers of all ages, educations, and backgrounds who have assisted with the pond’s rebuilding. “We’re seven years into a 25-year timeline. I heard this story about how there’s this invasive plant all along the shoreline in Florida and in its estuaries. You

know what’s giving them all this trouble? Naupaka. Our Hawaiian naupaka. I guess it goes both ways.” As Kotubetey speaks, I realize that a full mile of the 88-acre pond is mangrove forest. “It’s job security, brah,” he says with a laugh.

The mangrove, though, isn’t nearly as challenging as the paperwork. Fishponds are amongst the most regulated places in Hawai‘i. At the P-5 buoy facing the puka (hole) in the pond’s wall, a string of plastic floaters draped across the opening are tugged from below by the ebbing tide. It’s a turbidity curtain, a plastic silk-like barrier meant to contain the sediment that escapes from the pond in order to protect the outside ocean, a preventative measure mandated by the state in places of onshore construction. It seems unnecessary. “The rules are okay for concrete sea walls and retainers, but when restoring a fishpond by hand, you’re not creating nearly that same kind of discharge,” Kotubetey says.

Gates like this one at He‘eia fishpond regulate the flow of water between the pond and the ocean.

“The rules weren’t written with this place in mind.” An entire legal treatise was written on the subject in the late 1990s. There are manuals available. The He‘eia staff uses these instructive tools and their wits to navigate overlapping regulations from the Army Corps of Engineers, the State’s Department of Land and Natural Resources, the federal government via the Environmental Protection Act, and their funders. A turbidity curtain is but one symbol of these requirements.

There are several ways to run a pond. While bobbing along between buoys, I’m told of Moli‘i just up the road at Kāne‘ohe Ranch, where a different system is in place. At the massive 125-acre pond, predatory ulua (giant trevally) enter as pāpio, their juvenile form, and are joined by barracuda, crustaceans, cephalopods, and mollusks. Smaller fish are picked off by the predators, which grow until they die or are caught. “How big do they get?” I ask, and Branco responds with centuries-old Hawaiian measurements for the size of mullet: pua‘ama‘ama is the size of an index finger, kahaha when it reaches the size of a hand; ‘ama‘ama at two shakas long; and ‘anae at longer than an arm. At He‘eia, predators must be fished out before eating all the pua‘ama‘ama-sized fish, and as the closing of the wall impends, a series of $10 family fishing days will be scheduled to assist with the task. None of these efforts are without the possibility of mishap. In 2010, an experiment to grow moi in pens ended in disaster: During an El Niño summer, the oxygen dropped to low levels and the Kona winds didn’t allow for the pond to be aerated, killing the fish.

“Of course it’s both a science and a cultural experiment, a site of cultural recovery,” says Frank. The young Frank, who earned her doctorate in molecular biology from Harvard after being at the top of her class at Kamehameha Schools, spent the last few years off the coast of Washington State, where tectonic plates open to vent superheated, dissolved minerals. “They say it resembles other planets down there. It’s an interesting place to study microbes— about how they cycle nutrients. Those same question can be answered here.” She and the other researchers at CMORE are presently answering questions about the elemental relationships of life in the pond with

regards to sulphur trading, iron oxidation, the cycling of arsenic and nitrates. “It’s a mesocosm of the coastal environment,” she says as the science flies over my head, directing me to the research website. “This fishpond is where we can evaluate questions about coastal processes.” Kotubetey adds, “It’s one big, necessary experiment. … But it’s for the purpose of feeding people, that’s why this matters.”

at the site since the late 1990s, at times laboring with dozens of volunteers but more often alone.

If the pond at He‘eia on crowded O‘ahu represents the hard sciences of cultural recovery, Keawanui fishpond, just past mile marker 11 on Moloka‘i’s south shore, represents the other end of the rainbow. It’s said that sleepy Moloka‘i once supported a population of 35,000 Hawaiians with its abundant shores and valleys. The island now supports 7,000 residents, with a comparatively small tourist and agribusiness economy. Here, statewide battles regarding genetically modified crops, and the chemicals used to grow them, have become pitched as multinational corporations have become the latest usurpers to a traditional way of island life. At sea, a massive study published in 2013 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration supported what fishermen have known for decades: that the waters surrounding the “friendly island” are healthy, abundant, and ideal for a model oceanic fishery. However, there remains scant data regarding the capacity of near-shore aquaculture husbandry in Hawai‘i, which prior to Western contact, was amongst the most advanced in the world.

Keawanui was once one of more than 60 vibrant fishponds on Moloka‘i’s south shore, most of which have crumbled to the sea. In the late 1990s, with federal EPA assistance, the State of Hawai‘i started a fishpond restoration project known as Project Loko I‘a. Famous Hawaiian activist and nationalist Walter Ritte and his son Kalaniua, “Ua” for short, created the Hawaiian Learning Center at Keawanui and the non-profit Hui o Kuapā, which is working to determine how mauka development on land affects makai, or at shore, capacity to produce fish. Ua and Guy Hanohano Naehu (“Hano” for short) are the guardians of the pond and have worked

“We made this to demonstrate how it works out there,” says Hano as he slaps a wide palm on the fitted stone of a mākāhā, a fishpond gate, on the grassy shore fronting Keawanui fishpond. The loko kuapā (porous rock wall) lets in nutrients and small fish from the sea, the waters are circulated by wind and current, limu and other flora are grown and managed, predatory fish are caught at the sluice gate, and herbivorous fish like mullet grow and multiply. As is the case with many other fishponds, at Keawanui, two men can do the majority of the work.

In March of 2011, sirens forebode a disaster. The Japanese Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami sent a squat, powerful wave that wreaked havoc on the rebuilt fishpond, designed to withstand only the tides. When Ua and Hano arrived at first light, much of the wall had fallen, leaving large patches of submerged boulders piled in disarray where the jagged wall had once stood. Fish escaped to the sea. It took the men and their friends a year to rebuild. They ferried stones to the wall, or muscled them back into place with their feet in the slippery silt. Only a 10-yard patch of mangrove-entwined wall required no mending.

The experience engendered a sort of reverence for the invading plant. “It’s an oxygen-producing saltwater tree with roots for small fish to hide in and the ability to hold together the shoreline. It withstands climate change. We even made a hale (house) out of its timber. What’s not to like about it?” Hano asks. “Like anything else, it needs to be managed. This fishpond is like everywhere else: Everything get one purpose, one role to play.” Hano’s appreciation of the mangrove is countered by his hatred of egrets, which he shotguns with glee. “But it’s our decision on how to adapt,” he says, before abruptly ending the discussion to introduce me to Walter Ritte, the Hawaiian Learning Center’s official coordinator.

Ritte needs no introduction. Whatever is written or said of him here or in the future will not affect his posterity in deeply shaping the course of Hawai‘i’s modern history. His legacy was fixed in 1976, when he was one of the “Kaho‘olawe Nine,” a

group of activists who occupied the island to end the Navy’s bombardment. He also fought expansion on Moloka‘i, was briefly imprisoned, was in and out of politics, and now, he attacks the giant agribusinesses on the island. As telegenic as he is charismatic, Ritte remains in high demand as a community organizer and Hawaiian rights and environmental advocate. In person, like the pugilistic Frankie Dunn character played by Clint Eastwood in Million Dollar Baby, he’s similarly aged without carrying a spare ounce on his body. There’s no padding in his discussion of politics, either.

“Before all the work, this was a typical fishpond, a dead fishpond,” he says, barely over a whisper. “We’re going on five years of partnership with Kamehameha Schools, using this place as a classroom. But this place can’t be run like a corporation, that’s not what this is about. We are reviving the genius of our kūpuna.”

We board a small boat and Ua motors

us out past the plastic pens that house an experimental mullet research project, continuing onward for a quick check of the oysters being grown in plastic boxes (Japanese Kumamoto oysters, specially developed for Hawaiian waters, which could take the demand off local ‘opihi at graduation). We end at the mākāhā, where everything happens. Here, fish can be taken with a scoop net, a box, or your bare hands.

I ask Ritte about the various legal requirements of the pond, about the turbidity curtain at He‘eia. “I heard about that. The state wanted us to put floaters in our barrier, too. We told them, ‘Fuck you, no.’ And if they ask again? ‘Eh, you know what, another big fuck you.’ Those things do more damage than good.” Hano responds with an affirmative, “That’s right,” and I get the sense that I’m privy to a call and response that’s been going on for years. “These are the feet of sovereignty, in these silt waters, I’m not going to ask the

colonizer for help with this one. This is a fertile island. There’s a reason the GMO guys want to grow here. It’s not just for fishermen, we know how alive this reef is,” Hano says. Ritte continues, “If you’re not gonna help, then don’t bother us, leave us to learn what our kūpuna knew. Until we get used to telling them, ‘Fuck you,’ we won’t be able to move forward. The law says a fishpond is a conservation district. But we don’t live in museums. We are here, working. Until that gets sorted out, leave us alone.”

Heading back to shore, where the whole ahupua‘a of Ka‘amola is laid out like a diorama, it’s easy to imagine fish multiplying by the basketful, a miracle of sorts, enough to feed the staff, its volunteers—the entire valley. As we disembark, Hano repeats to me, “Our future looks more like our past than it does our present.”

Keawanui fishpond, located on Moloka‘i’s south shore, is one of the last left on the island.

“The pineapple hybridization was a curious incident,” says Frankie Tsuruda of the creation of the Meli Kalima, a sweet, acid-free version of the spiky fruit.

“What I’m doing is getting the branch from a good tree and putting it onto a seedling. The plant will mimic the original cultivar, but in way less time.”

FRANKIE AND THE FRUIT FACTORY

ONE WAIMĀNALO FRUIT TREE FARM HOLDS THE GOLDEN TICKET IN AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE.

TEXT BY KELLI GRATZ

IMAGES BY JOHN HOOK

A brown pueo flies from the entrance of a farm marked by a sign that reads, “Frankie’s Nursery—Tropical Fruit Tree Specialist.” As I drive up the narrow pathway, large mango, sapodilla, and avocado trees planted firmly in the ground seem to turn toward me. The wind rushes through their leaves. At the top of the hill, a robin-egg blue building stands in the middle of lush, green farmland. Hundreds of trees and bushes yield fruits in all sizes, shapes, and colors. Some are tall, some are short, and some are hidden in the shadows of the 15-acre farm. I wander on foot until I reach a lovely hillside overlooking Waimānalo bluffs. The back of my neck begins to tingle, and I realize that this is no ordinary farm. “Hello,” says Lynn Tsuruda, wife of the farm’s namesake, Frankie Tsuruda. “Follow me, I want to show you something.”

Amidst beautiful, dense lines of trees, workers pick exotic fruits like mangosteen, rambutan, and durian. They also harvest those of a more unusual variety: the miracle berry, which turns sour to sweet; the black sapote, a persimmon that tastes like chocolate pudding; and the Meli Kalima, a super-sweet, acid-free pineapple. Within half an hour, an entire crate is full to the brim with crunchy guavas, sugar pears, sweet limes, and jackfruits the size of a dog. Lynn hands me a piece of pineapple cut from a small, green body. “Try it! It’s world-famous! We made it ourselves!” The pale-yellow fruit is so sweet and juicy I think its core must be made of some rare, magical substance.

“The pineapple hybridization was a curious incident,” a soft voice behind me says. “Something happened with the pollen from the plant of a Hilo White and a Dry Sweet. I planted all the seeds from the plant, and two years later, we had about 50 selections that we thought were good. Number 13 was the winner.”

The voice, of course, belongs to Frankie. He has on a pair of glasses and is fidgeting with sticks, tape, and a dozen or so potted plants. His eyes zero in on a plant grafting system, which reminds me of something surgical. “What I’m doing is getting the branch from a good tree and putting it onto a seedling,” he says. “The plant will mimic the original cultivar, but in way less time.”

Frankie’s interest in botany and horticulture began at a very young age, when he would climb his grandfather’s trees and pick fruit. It was because of his grandfather that plants became not only a hobby but also his livelihood. Despite earning a business degree from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Frankie couldn’t shake his passion for plants. He spent years growing trees on his mother’s property in Mililani, and he worked as a production manager for Evergreen Nursery before opening Frankie’s Nursery in 1979. “It must’ve skipped a generation,” he says. “My father was never interested in this kind of stuff, but for me it comes naturally. Back then, it was harder to make a living off of plants, but now we have to think sustainable, and in case something goes wrong, at least we will

have something in our yard.”

Naturally, his words made me think about how sacred food is—especially in Hawai‘i. If we had to learn to live off the land again, how would we do it? What would we eat if our overseas food supply was cut off? The very dirt and silence of the farm seems to tingle with answers to hard questions like these. So do the dishes Frankie and Lynn prepare: miracle berryinfused Soylent, jackfruit stew, and black sapote mousse. I can imagine the couple

starting their own line of cookbooks with peculiar titles like Grass Is Good and The Joy of Cooking … with Fleshy Fruit. While the fruits at Frankie’s Nursery aren’t going to change everything, they may bring a little happiness to a dark and unstable future. Now if only they had snozzberries and lickable wallpaper.

Frankie’s Nursery is located in Waimānalo at 41-999 Mahiku Pl. For more information, visit frankiesnursery.com.

Lynn and Frankie Tsuruda show off the bounty of their Waimānalo farm.

Big Island kapa artists Roen Hufford and her mother Marie MacDonald remain among a select few responsible for a cultural renaissance in the transforming of wauke to cloth.

TRADITIONAL CLOTH-MAKING SURVIVES

NEAR EXTINCTION WITH THE HELP OF KAPA ARTISANS ON HAWAI‘I ISLAND.

TEXT BY LE‘A GLEASON

IMAGES BY JOHN HOOK

In Big Island’s Kamuela town, where cool breezes whoosh past lush grassy meadows, Roen Hufford walks the organic vegetable farm she and her husband operate. Her mother acquired it in 1978 with an agricultural lease to grow flowers, so wandering through the now foodproducing farm is more like taking a stroll through the gardens of a colonial mansion.

Along a path that winds through the lawn are lush ‘ōhi‘a, shady fern groves, brilliant clumps of flowering protea, and two large patches of wauke, used in making traditional Hawaiian kapa cloth. There’s the poa‘aha variety of wauke, with heart-shaped leaves and thick, felt-like bark, and mana lima, a taller variety.

In a single, swift motion, Hufford deftly harvests a stalk of poa‘aha using a tool gifted to her by a fellow kapa maker. Handmade from wood and shell, its barely audible scrape removes the outer bark of the plant with stunning precision and efficiency. Matching the curve of the niho ‘oki—a cutting tool made of shark teeth—to the curve of the stalk, Hufford runs it lengthwise, removing the “bast,” or inner bark, with a satisfying swish. The bast, which is the starting material of kapa cloth, is then rolled up and soaked in a bucket of saltwater to open up and bleach the fibers. Ancient Hawaiians would have placed it in a tidepool to accomplish the same effect.

In ancient times, women beat wauke every day to make kapa for loincloths, blankets, and other adornments. The pieces that came out rougher (determined by length of beating, precision, and tools) were worn by commoners. Other more embellished pieces were given to ali‘i, the royalty or nobility.

Everthing Hufford knows about kapa making was passed down to her by her teacher and mother, Marie MacDonald, a self-taught living master who began making kapa in 1948. At 88, MacDonald no longer actively pounds kapa, yet she remains among a select few responsible for a cultural renaissance in the transforming of wauke to cloth.

When the missionaries brought fabric to the islands, beating kapa diminished almost instantly. With the end of this culture, so too came the end of sharing and learning about how to beat kapa. MacDonald had taught herself simply because there was no one to teach her. Today, Hufford is grateful for the instruction of her mother in this art, which has allowed her the foundation that she is now learning—one that will enable her to expand in her own unique way.

“Every kapa maker has their favorite tools,” Hufford says. With each steady thump of the carved wooden hohoa (tapa beater) against pohaku (stone) or kua la‘au (wood), Hufford ensures that the tradition is carried on. After soaking, the bast will be beaten, dried, then wrapped to be

preserved for later. That way, she can do the initial beating of several pieces while the weather is good, and re-soak them for second beatings another time. It’s an entirely physical, integrated process for Hufford, who seems to pound the wauke out of a literal necessity to keep her selfproclaimed “working hands” active. She says she doesn’t speak Hawaiian very well. Instead, the sounds—the swish of tools cutting bast and the hollow tap of hohoa on kua la‘au—are her language.

The finished product, resulting from several stages of pounding, is a thin sheet of cloth-like fiber that can be gently crinkled or rubbed with coral, stone, or shells to soften it further. In a small studio near her laundry room (“It’s very

appropriate,” says Hufford, who sometimes dons the traditional cloth for special occasions), she prints her kapa cloth using natural dyes made from fruits, leaves, roots, and earth—a process also passed down from her mother.

Though Hufford has tried tools made by others, she always comes back to those of her mother. It’s a shared art for this motherdaughter duo, just as it would have been in ancient times. When people see her work, Hufford hopes they will inquire of her artistry, “Where can I find somebody who will show me how to do this?”

Hufford’s pieces have shown at Bishop Museum, Merriman’s, and the Wailoa Arts and Cultural Center, to name a few. However, she insists she’s not that talented,

instead explaining that it’s really all about appreciating the history of this place. “What I like about [beating kapa] is this is transformed from that piece of bark I cut out there,” she says. “Then it gets transformed by beating on it, letting it get hot, and then adding color to it. And pretty soon it doesn’t look like anything it started out as.”

She continues, “These things are based in this land. If Kū, Kāne, Lono, and Kanaloa made this, why not make it beautiful? Why not adorn your body and say, ‘I’m part of this wonderful place that we live in?’”

Roen Hufford grows and harvests her own wauke, transforming the pieces of bark into traditional Hawaiian cloth.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN HOOK

STYLED BY CARRIE SHULER

MAKEUP BY ROYAL SILVER , TIMELESS CLASSIC BEAUTY

GUIDED BY FORAGER JENNIFER MELEANA HEE

MODELED BY KU‘ULEI ARRUDA , NICHE MODELS AND TALENT, AND BRETT MCELROY

INTO THE WOODS

Hawai‘i’s mountainous regions are filled with a bounty of edible plants—you just have to know what to look for. This undisclosed location is full of hō‘io, or fiddlehead fern, and apple bananas. Other foragible items you can find in the islands include the largeleaved monstera plant, whose fruit looks like a cob but

tastes like a mash-up of pineapple and banana; gotu kola, a wide, heart-shaped herb; Koster’s Curse, an invasive shrub with tasty berries; and māmaki, whose leaves can be used for medicinal tea. Once you develop an eye for foraging, expect your fast-paced hiking to become slow-paced gathering.

On Ku‘ulei: NV Jeans shorts from Jean’s Warehouse, Blu Pepper long-sleeve shirt from Cinnamon Girl, Acapulco Gold cap from Prototype, all available at Pearlridge Center; basket, stylist’s own. On Brett: Aloha Sunday tee from Aloha Sunday Supply Co. Kailua; TCSS bucket hat from Roberta Oaks; Tapa Threads shorts from Sears, Pearlridge Center.

FORAGING TIP: Do not forage without learning about edible plants from someone who knows what they’re doing. If you’re not completely certain of a plant’s identification, do not consume it.

On Brett: Levi’s cargo pants and Roebuck & Co. long-sleeve shirt from Sears, Acapulco Gold cap from Prototype, all available at Pearlridge Center. On Ku‘ulei: Passport flannel shirt from Jeans Warehouse, necklace from Cinnamon Girl, both available at Pearlridge Center; TCSS bucket hat from Roberta Oaks; jeans, stylist’s own; OluKai boots, olukai.com.

FORAGING TIP: Do not forage in someone’s backyard. If there is overhanging fruit from someone’s yard, ask before picking, and perhaps return with something you’ve concocted, or offer another foraged good as a trade.

On Ku‘ulei: Blu Pepper long-sleeve shirt from Cinnamon Girl, Acapulco Gold cap from Prototype, both available at Pearlridge Center; basket, stylist’s own.

On Brett: Levi’s jeans and Roebuck & Co. flannel shirt from Sears, both available at Pearlridge Center; necklace, Roberta Oaks; OluKai sandals, olukai.com. On Ku‘ulei: Ci Sono button-up shirt from Jeans Warehouse, Boho Bandeau headscarf from Cinnamon Girl, both available at Pearlridge Center; compass necklace from Roberta Oaks.

CULTURE INFLUX

ON THE HORIZON

PHOTOGRAPHER ALISON BESTE DISPLAYS NEW WORKS AT THE 61ST ARTISTS OF HAWAI‘I EXHIBITION.

TEXT BY JAMES CHARISMA

IMAGES COURTESY OF ALISON BESTE

Where bright pink sky meets the lavender ocean, a neon orange glow fades on the horizon like an exhausted candle flame. Upon closer inspection, the source of the light becomes clear: They’re oil tankers, not sunsets, although they appear eerily similar.

For photographer Alison Beste, organic landscapes collide with a manufactured paradise as part of Oil Tanker Sunsets, a series of picturesque beach images portraying approaching tankers as standins for the sun. “It started when I took a long-exposure photo on Kaimana Beach at twilight, and I caught a commercial tanker in the background that burned bright

enough to light up the photo,” Beste recalls. “Before looking closely, it looked like the ubiquitous and iconic image seen in travel media depicting Hawai‘i.”

The series explores Beste’s fascination with the commercialization of Hawai‘i; the untapped natural beauty that these islands are known for versus the amount of manufactured development needed to accommodate and sustain the current and future populations of people who live here. “If anything serious happened tomorrow, how could we survive?” Beste wonders out loud. “On one hand, there’s an incredible power that comes with being able to

OPENINGS

CULTURE INFLUX

transport vast amounts of material to a series of islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. On the other hand, more than a million Hawai’i residents rely on resources brought in from tankers such as these.”

Beste’s critical work attracted the attentions of Honolulu Museum of Art, which selected her oil tanker photographs to be displayed in its Artists of Hawai‘i 2015 series. Beste is among one of just seven artists (and one artist collective) selected for the 61st biennial exhibition.

“When I had a gallery of these photos for my Master’s thesis exhibition in Boston, I put some of these photos on postcards as takeaways. How art, like paradise, can be commodified. But that’s a whole other issue,” Beste laughs.

View Beste’s work, along with works by Elisa Chang, Jesse Houlding, Akira Iha, Emily McIlroy, Lauren Trangmar, Maile Yawata, and .5ppi at Artists of Hawai‘i 2015, on display at the Honolulu Museum of art July 2 through October 25. For more information, visit honolulumuseum.org.

FERMENT IT

TEXT BY ANNA HARMON

IMAGES BY JONAS MAON

No refrigeration. No prepackaged meals. No cargo shipments of necessities or indulgences. What would go in your mouth in a post-apocalyptic Hawai‘i, just like in a pre-contact one, would be what you can find, what you can grow, and what you can keep.

For fermentation educator Ryan Peters, who lives in Kailua on O‘ahu, it is always a good time to ferment your foods; apocalypse would just allow for greater creativity. From sauerkraut to fish sauce to mead, long-lasting fermented staples have been part of independent cultures for thousands of years. The process actually adds nutrients to foods. Our gut evolved in anticipation of a healthy dose of probiotics (read: bacteria and yeast) from fermented foods such as sour poi to protect it from pathogens.

So, if the lights go out and your pantry is looking paltry, here is what Peters recommends: Dig yourself an underground cellar (essential for the cooler temperatures and consistent humidity that fermentation requires) and start gathering. Begin by looking for starches like taro, cassava, breadfruit, and pipinola, known more commonly as chayote. To make fermented breadfruit, a Pacific tradition, dig a pit, line it with banana leaves, and toss in ripe breadfruit that has been peeled and pitted (if you have time, soak it in seawater for 12 to 24 hours, in accordance with how it’s prepared in the Micronesian atolls). Top with banana leaves and cover. The resulting fermented breadfruit paste will last years, if not decades.

Next, go wild boar hunting. Once you snag one, you talented survivor, butcher it and dice the meat into very small pieces. Add found or grown herbs like rosemary or ginger, which introduce the lactobacillus needed for lactic-acid fermentation; spices like turmeric and pepper; salt, which deter unwanted bacteria; and sugar, which will feed the lactobacillus; and stuff it all into a casing of cleaned-out

Homemade daikon kimchee, made by FLUX editor-in-chief’s fiancé’s mother

Preserved duck egg, or pidan, purchased in Honolulu’s Chinatown

Oppot (fermented breadfruit), made by Paco’s

Hand-pounded poi (poi is only fermented if left to sour), made by Waiahole Poi Factory

Hawaiian dark chocolate, made by Madre Chocolate

Homemade sauerkraut, made by Ryan Jacobs of Ferment2Be

intestine. According to Peters, a temperature of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit is ideal for fermenting this sausage, so place it in that underground cellar you just dug. After it sours and smells fine again, your wild boar salami is safe to eat.

Do you have, or did you find, a beehive? You are in luck—you can make mead. If not, gather fallen fruit to make your own wine. Worst comes to worst, you can even make cassava beer with your saliva, the method used by numerous indigenous cultures in South America. Cook and then chew up the starchy carb, spit into a vessel, add some water, and let it ferment. Fermentation is key if you plan on eating a fair amount of cassava, as it dramatically reduces the cyanogenic glycosides— which form cyanide—found naturally in the root.

Another labor-intensive but arguably more tasty option is pigeon pea tempeh. Pigeon pea is used as a cover crop and is also found wild around the islands, especially along roads or ditches. For tempeh, substitute beans harvested from the plant in place of soybeans. Originating in Indonesia, tempeh is traditionally made with mold-hosting Hibiscus tiliaceus leaves (identifiable by a flower that is bright yellow with a red center at the beginning of the day, eventually fading from orange to red before falling off). After removing the peas from their casing, wrap them into a dense block using three to four hibiscus leaves with the mold on their undersides. Once you see a white mat of mycelium, the vegetative part of a fungus, on the exterior of the block and between the peas, it is ready to eat.

Last but not least, poi. Even today, according to Peters, sour poi is one of the best options around when it comes to a healthful staple. Taro is hypoallergenic, and sour poi is both host to healthy bacteria and dense in nutrients. “A spoonful a day will give you an equivalent to almost any probiotic supplements,” he says. Put it in a smoothie or take it straight, post-apocalypse or right away.

Learn more at facebook.com/ferment2be. Peters also offers occasional workshops, one-on-one Skype sessions, or in-person classes.

FOOD

Miso, purchased at Foodland

Salted shrimp fry, or bagaoong, purchased at Foodland

Natto, made by Aloha Tofu

Natural rind tomme cheese, made by Naked Cow Dairy

O‘AHU’S BEST:

ADVENTURE AWAITS AT KUALOA RANCH

Kualoa Ranch offers you 4,000 acres of history, beauty, and adventure! Originally established in 1850 as a sugar plantation, and then later becoming a cattle ranch, Kualoa is among O‘ahu’s premier destinations, offering a truly authentic Hawaiian experience in a spectacular and unspoiled setting. The ranch is located just 22 miles from Honolulu, across from Mokoli‘i Island (Chinaman’s Hat) along the shores of Kāne‘ohe Bay.

There is something for everyone at Kualoa, from adventure seekers and eco-tourists to singles and families. Its newest attraction is a seven-line tandem zipline tour, featuring seven stations, five short hiking trails, and two suspension bridges. Lines range from 300 feet to a quarter mile in length, and the entire course takes about two and a half hours to complete. The treetop canopy zipline crisscrosses the lush Ka‘a‘awa Valley, gliding over streams and a native Hawaiian forest. In addition to the zipline tour, Kualoa is the only venue on O‘ahu to offer an ATV (all-terrain vehicle) tour, which is always fun, rain or shine. There are even horseback tours winding through the scenic mountain trails of the Hakipu‘u and Ka‘a‘awa Valleys.

In addition to these adventurous tours, there are several experiential eco-tour options as well, including the ever-popular Hollywood Movie Sites Tour, featuring site visits to film locations including Jurassic Park, Godzilla, 50 First Dates, You Me & Dupree, Windtalkers, Pearl Harbor, LOST, Hawaii Five-0 and more. A Jungle Expedition adventure will take you deep into the tropical Hawaiian rainforest of Hakipu‘u Valley, including a short 10-minute hike up to the ridgeline overlooking the ocean and both Hakipu‘u and Ka‘a‘awa valleys. For beach lovers, the Ocean Voyage Tour offers a catamaran ride across an 800-year-old ancient Hawaiian fishpond still in use today. Venture out to the ranch’s private Secret Island, where you will board another 48-passenger catamaran that will take you out on the sparkling blue waters of Kāne‘ohe Bay, and if you’re lucky, you’ll even be able to catch a glimpse of sea turtles feeding on the reefs.

For those visitors seeking a more relaxed pace, Kualoa’s Secret Island allows you several hours to enjoy the area’s abundant beach activities. Just for sport, try your hand at outrigger canoe paddling, kayaking, standup paddle boarding, snorkeling, beach volleyball, or a rousing game of horseshoes. You could even climb aboard a glass bottom boat, or simply revel in reading a book while relaxing in a hammock.

Winning TripAdvisor’s Award of Excellence for the past four years, Hawaii Magazine’s Reader’s Choice Award for the past two years, and being one of a few select companies with a sustainable tourism certification from the Hawai‘i Ecotourism Association, Kualoa Ranch and its friendly ‘ohana offer a little something for everyone.

For more information, call 808-202-2246 or visit kualoa.com.

Inspiration meets tradition where Waikiki meets the sky. Búho offers south-of-the-border classics with an inventive twist, fresh local ingredients and an open air cantina. It’s like a street party in Mexico, but on a rooftop in Waikiki.

COCINA

CANTINA

THE OUTLETS OF MAUI

BEST OF MAUI

Located in the picturesque west-side town of Lāhainā, The Outlets of Maui is the world’s only oceanfront outlet shopping center in a historic island destination. It is Hawai‘i’s newest and only outlet shopping on Maui. The center brings an unparalleled shopping experience to island visitors and residents with more than 30 world-class brand name outlet stores.

Full of life and brimming with history, the center is enviably located in Lāhainā’s bustling Front Street where shoppers are treated to front row seats of Maui’s famous sunsets, stunning ocean views, breaching humpback whales visiting in the winter months and playful dolphins year-round. “This perfect combination of globally renowned brand name outlet retailers, with the exceptional beauty and culturally significant history of Maui, Hawai‘i and our islands’ welcoming aloha spirit, makes this outlet shopping center a one of a kind destination, ” said Mona Abadir, for The Outlets of Maui.

With the latest in name brand apparel, accessories, and shoes for women, men and children, The Outlets of Maui Lāhainā showcases legendary brands at compelling and outstanding value outlet pricing.

Visitors can expect to find incredible everyday discounts at Coach, Michael Kors, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, Adidas, Skechers, Kay Jewelers, Guess, Brooks Brothers, Lucky Brand Jeans, Banana Republic, Perfumania, Solstice Sunglass stores and more. For those looking to shop local, the center also showcases Hawai‘i-based brand outlet retailers and island store favorites Hilo Hattie for all things aloha and Hawai‘i’s leading surf store HIC Surf Outlet, as well as Maui Jim and Aloha Swimwear.

A leisurely stroll throughout the openair center will reveal many artworks by local artists, lush rainbow shower trees, and plentiful seating areas under vibrantly colored umbrellas with ocean views and breezes. Come on a second or fourth Friday of the month and enjoy hula performances by the keiki of Na Pua O Kapio‘olani. Visitors enjoy complimentary free Wi-Fi while on center grounds. The center has its own West Maui Shopping Shuttle that offers daily service between Kā‘anapali and Lāhainā. Their restaurants feature Maui’s farm- and sea-to-table menus. Pi Artisan Pizzeria, the newest eatery with killer ocean front views of Lāna‘i, houses a kiawe wood

burning oven for handcrafted pizzas, served alongside garden salads picked daily, and customizable specialty drinks—perfect for any lunch or dinner get-together with family and friends.

The shuttle to and from The Outlets of Maui makes hourly stops at seven resort properties in Kā‘anapali and Lāhainā Harbor from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. At $2 per one-way fare, the shuttle provides convenient transportation that helps to reduce traffic for a more sustainable Maui. Additionally, tour bus company stops, a nearby public bus stop, and ample parking with a two-hour validation with purchase make it easy to experience The Outlets of Maui’s unique block of outlet shopping in a beautiful, one-of-a kind setting.

The center is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. (holiday hours, as well as restaurant hours at Hard Rock Cafe, Pi Artisan Pizzeria, Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, and Warren & Annabelle’s Magic Show vary). With its stunning Pacific Ocean backdrop, lively ongoing activities and entertainment, excellent shopping and inviting restaurants, The Outlets of Maui is a destination for all guests to enjoy the day, morning through evening. E komo mai!

THE RIM: AT THE HISTORIC VOLCANO HOUSE

Welcoming visitors since 1877, Volcano House is Hawai‘i’s oldest hotel and enjoys a unique location on the edge of Halema‘uma‘u Crater within Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, designated an International Biosphere Reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The hotel features The Rim, a stunning

new restaurant that utilizes bounty from Hawai’i Island farmers to serve up inspired local cuisine. The Rim offers guests a spectacular dining experience with excellent options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,

along with panoramic views of steaming Halemau’uma’u Crater and beyond. Diners will especially enjoy the new menu, which utilizes local farmers and growers for 95 percent of the restaurant’s protein, fruit, and vegetable needs.

Volcano House also features 33 historic guest rooms with modern amenities, two gift shops, and Uncle George’s Lounge, the perfect spot for a late afternoon cocktail with views of the sunset and fiery orange crater glow. An icon among Hawai‘i hotels, Volcano House is truly the hottest spot in the islands.

The Rim is an upscale, full-service restaurant. Hours: breakfast buffet from 7–10 a.m.; lunch from 11 a.m.–2 p.m.; dinner from 5–9 p.m. Uncle George’s Lounge open from 11 a.m.–9 p.m. For more information or reservations, call 808-756-9625. For more information about Volcano House, call 1-866536-7972 or visit hawaiivolcanohouse.com.

DINE OUT

WITH STARWOOD HOTELS AND RESORTS HAWAII

From fine dining to exotic cocktails, you’ll find an eclectic mix of cuisines to delight your taste buds on O‘ahu at Starwood Hotels and Resorts Hawaii.

RUMFIRE AT SHERATON WAIKIKI

Known for its trendy interior, lively entertainment, and stunning views of Diamond Head, RumFire serves up local favorites with sizzling new twists. Introducing Spiked Afternoon Tea, RumFire “burns up” the traditional

afternoon tea and features bite-sized sliders, delectable desserts, and variations of teainspired cocktails.

LEGENDARY

MAI TAI BAR AT THE ROYAL HAWAIIAN

Setting the stage for world-class romance and elegant relaxation, the legendary Mai Tai Bar at The Royal Hawaiian has been the destination for Hollywood stars, international jet-setters, heads of state, and kama‘āina for decades. Live local entertainment melds with exotic handcrafted cocktails to provide the perfect atmosphere for winding down from a day at the beach or igniting an evening of island fun. Just steps away from the sands of Waikīkī Beach, Mai Tai Bar will leave you with an indelible imprint of Hawai‘i’s idyllic lifestyle.

VERANDA AT MOANA SURFRIDER

The ambiance at the Moana Surfrider’s Veranda is tranquil and relaxing, evoking memories of yesteryear beneath the Moana’s historic banyan tree. Indulge in a Waikīkī tradition of fine teas, elegant finger sandwiches, and sweet pastries.

KAI MARKET AT SHERATON WAIKIKI

Inspired by the plantation era that brought an influx of ethnic cuisine to the islands, Kai Market offers traditional Hawaiian delicacies using the freshest locally grown products. Nosh on Kai Market’s fare while enjoying the cool tradewinds near the resort’s new infinity edge pool and Waikīkī Beach.

For more information, call 808-921-4600 or visit dininginhawaii.com

WAVE GOODBYE

TEXT BY SONNY GANADEN ILLUSTRATION BY MARK GHEE LORD GALACGAC

What happens when the big wave comes?

The one we’ve heard of in stories, seen in the movies, had repeated to us in religion— the one that changes everything? A tally of disasters in recent years have sounded the island-wide tsunami sirens across Hawai‘i and made dispensationalist notions seem appropriate, as if some cinematic deluge was going to finally and inevitably crest over the islands and leave us nothing but spam and cockroaches. In 2007, the sirens sounded for an earthquake located off the coast of Hawai‘i Island. From 2009 to 2012, as American news reported economic collapse, they went off for multiple tsunami warnings. Some property was damaged. Some boats were unsalvageable. But really, these were an exercise in the schadenfreude of communal crisis mode, with news reporters giddily following anxious ladies buying copious amounts of gasoline, rice, and toilet paper. Here’s the thing about that wave: It’s

never coming. Or not the way you think it will. Even when societies do fall apart, it happens in stages, like a romantic breakup. Societal collapse, or the drastic decrease in human population size and/ or sociopolitical complexity over a certain area for an extended time, is something of an arbitrary phenomenon to measure and can only be done retrospectively. There’s usually an extended bleeding, that familiar period where things seem salvageable. It’s true that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it took centuries for it to really fall apart. It’s also true that if you wait long enough, everything

The actual islands won’t last forever, either. The Hawai‘i we know is part of a vast archipelago of populated and unpopulated islands, the HawaiianEmperor seamount chain, which stretches from Meiji Seamount, 3,000 miles away, to Lō‘ihi, about half a mile underwater

off Hawai‘i Island. All were created by an improbable hot spot, a hole, in the center of the Pacific tectonic plate. We’ve only figured this out recently. There have been Hawaiian islands before us, and there will be Hawaiian islands after us. Every living thing in Hawai‘i is predicated on life’s capacity to find something stable and grow on it, despite the odds. The TV specials have it right: Humanity’s time on this planet is remarkably recent. Humanity’s time on these islands even less so.

The sea that devours those unnamed islands will eventually devour us too, along with everything we know or build. That bit of knowledge is enough to allow some of us to chill out when the sirens blare and wake up the next day to make this place as lovely and equitable as it can be, by working out personal apocalypses that are the causes of our immediate anxiety; by rebuilding forests free of banana poka, strawberry guava, and chickens; by combating a zerosum, winner-take-all ideology. We use the knowledge of the waves to keep working. To make love and art. To surf amidst the monumental ruins.