Kuleana rights are certain land use rights once enjoyed by Hawaiian

tenant farmers A tenant farmer is a farmer or farmworker who resides and works on land owned by a landlord, while tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and mana ...

and in the modern day are attached to particular plots of land. The six distinct kuleana rights are:

(1) reasonable access to the land-locked ''kuleana'' from major thoroughfares; (2) agricultural uses, such as
taro Taro (; ''Colocasia esculenta'') is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, stems and Petiole (botany), petioles. Taro corms are a ...
cultivation; (3) traditional gathering rights in and around the ''ahupua'a'' eighborhood (4) a house lot not larger than 1/4 acre; (5) sufficient water for drinking and irrigation from nearby streams, including traditionally established waterways such as auwai''; (6) fishing rights in the ''kunalu'' (the coastal region extending from beach to reef).

A ''kuleana'' is the smallest portion of land in the traditional ahupuaʻa system of land management and would be cultivated by a single tenant family on behalf of a regional chief. These rights were first acknowledged in statute as part of the

Great Māhele The Great Māhele ("to divide or portion") or just the Māhele was the Hawaiian land redistribution proposed by King Kamehameha III. The Māhele was one of the most important episodes of Hawaiian history, second only to the overthrow of the Hawa ...

of King

Kamehameha III Kamehameha III (born Kauikeaouli) (March 17, 1814 – December 15, 1854) was the third king of the Kingdom of Hawaii from 1825 to 1854. His full Hawaiian name was Keaweaweula Kīwalaō Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa and then lengthened to Keaweaweula K ...

and the Kuleana Act of 1850 and continue to be protected by the modern-day

constitution of Hawaii The Constitution of the State of Hawaii (), also known as the Hawaii State Constitution, is the fundamental governing document of the U.S. state of Hawaii. As an organic text, it establishes the principles and framework of government, enumerate ...

and Hawaiian state law. Kuleana rights can be attached to the kuleana land itself or to a descendant's use of a specific plot. In 2012 the Hawaiian Supreme Court confirmed the viability of Kuleana rights in the present day. In late 2016

Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born May 14, 1984) is an American businessman who co-founded the social media service Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms, of which he is the chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling sharehold ...

filed suit to eliminate the ownership interests of more than 100 Hawaiians in Kuleana lands located within his larger parcel. Early in 2017 Mr. Zuckerberg announced that he would drop the litigation.Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg drops case to acquire Hawaiian land
BBC (January 28, 2017)

See also

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