NEWS

A recent publication explores how long-term relationships between communities, researchers, and the more-than-human world can transform the way we approach science, education, and climate adaptation. Scott Laursen, Climate Adaptation Extension Specialist with the Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center (PI-CASC), is the lead author on “Empowering long-term, relational research pathways: innovation and adaptation at the speed of trust within more-than-human and human communities,” which was recently published in the international journal Emotion, Space and Society. Co-led by long-term Kealakekua residents, cultural practitioners, and lineal descendants, the article showcases the implementation of the Kealakekua Bay Community Action Plan. Other co-authors include artists, NOAA and National Park Service employees, a policy professional, a UH Hilo faculty member, recent UH Hilo graduate students, and PI-CASC’s Executive Director.

Centered on trust, the article focuses on a community-driven pathway on Hawaiʻi Island that elevates multiple UH Hilo projects and related local outputs from the co-authors’ team over the past decade. The publication:

• immerses the scientific method within place-based pathways to drive impact on the ground through applied science,
• highlights the value of building and maintaining long-term relationships between community and research networks,
• emphasizes the importance of storytelling narratives geared toward a general audience in academic literature that utilize public-facing resources alongside scientific literature, and
• presents a detailed visual introduction to inter-island traditional outrigger canoe paddling as a metaphor for engaging a diversity of knowledge forms utilized within collaborative work (e.g., emotion, instinct, cultural norms, rational intellect, etc.).

Through the lens of “relational worldviews”, people, places, and ecosystems are deeply interconnected through experience. The article illustrates how such trust-centered partnerships are transforming approaches to climate adaptation. From coral restoration in Kapukapu to rethinking shoreline management in Hawaiʻi County, the article demonstrates how sustained collaboration is addressing urgent local challenges while training the next generation of scientists and resource stewards.

The article also uses the metaphor of hoe waʻa, or traditional canoe paddling, to illustrate how collaboration has functioned amid human and more-than-human communities for centuries. That is, when everyone knows their roles, trusts each other, and stays attuned to changing conditions. Successfully navigating change, whether on the ocean or in a research partnership, requires skill, humility, flexibility, and deep awareness of one’s surroundings.

“When science is co-led by communities rooted in place and guided by respect for human and more-than-human relationships, communities and science innovate rapidly; they drive effective actions, and create lasting solutions,” explains Laursen. “Moving at the ‘speed of trust’ has been fundamental to the human condition since the dawn of time. Locating and empowering long-term, place-based networks offers a powerful way forward in a rapidly changing world.”

Akoni Palacat-Nelsen, executive director of Hoʻāla Kealakekua Nui, Kapukapu ʻOhana co-founder, and second co-author on the paper, adds, “Climate adaptation is a global initiative. Hoʻāla Kealakekua Nui redirected its resources to address climate adaptation by implementing traditional ecological knowledge. It is critical to first re-establish the broken relationship between humans and the impacted resource(s), such that we transcend notions of ‘resources’ and instead engage such arenas as the ‘source’ of life. Place-based traditional knowledge employs methods like kilokilo (community-driven data collection), as seen in our Kanu Koʻa project, which focuses on rebuilding resilient coral communities and restoring the habitat for ʻopae ʻula in our anchialine pools at Kealakekua Bay.  The practice of kilokilo reinforces trust in the long-term relationship between humans and the more-than-human experiences”.

*S. West, L.J. Haider, T. Hertz, M.M. Garcia, M. Moore (2024) Relational approaches to sustainability transformations: walking together in a world of many worlds. Ecosystems and People, 20 (1), 10.1080/26395916.2024.2370539