The Waipā Foundation is a non-profit organization which sponsors a program called ''Aina Ulu'' (in the

Hawaiian language Hawaiian (', ) is a critically endangered Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family, originating in and native to the Hawaiian Islands. It is the native language of the Hawaiian people. Hawaiian, along with English, is an offi ...

), funded by

Kamehameha Schools Kamehameha Schools, formerly called Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate (KSBE), is a private school system in Hawaii established by the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, under the terms of the will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, who was a formal membe ...

. Its programs grew out of community efforts to manage the ahupuaa of Waipa in the late 1980s. The Waipā Foundation was established as a 501(c)3 non-profit in 1993.

The program

The foundation makes its home in the ahupuaa of Waipā, a valley on the north shore of the island of

Kauai Kauai (), anglicized as Kauai ( or ), is one of the main Hawaiian Islands. It has an area of 562.3 square miles (1,456.4 km2), making it the fourth-largest of the islands and the 21st-largest island in the United States. Kauai lies 73 m ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

, . The Waipa stream flows through the valley and empties into

Hanalei Bay Hanalei Bay is the largest bay on the north shore of Kauaʻi island in Hawaii. The town of Hanalei is at the midpoint of the bay. Geography Hanalei Bay consists of nearly of beach, surrounded by mountains. In the summer, the bay offers excel ...

. An ahupuaa is an

ancient Hawaii Ancient Hawaii is the period of Hawaiian history preceding the establishment in 1795 of the Kingdom of Hawaii by Kamehameha the Great. Traditionally, researchers estimated the first settlement of the Hawaiian islands as having occurred sporad ...

an land division from mountains to the sea, often corresponding to a watershed district. It was used in traditional Hawaiian times as a way to distribute the resources of the land to the people. The mission of the foundation is "the physical and cultural restoration of the ahupuaa of Waipa".About the foundation
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Ecological restoration

The restoration project at Waipā focuses on human interactions with plants and land. There are three types of sites. The first is native reforestation. Some of the plants being out planted are ''

Acacia koa ''Acacia koa'', commonly known as koa, is a species of Flowering plant, flowering tree in the Family (biology), family Fabaceae. It is Endemism, endemic to the Hawaiian Islands, where it is the second most common tree. The highest populations ar ...

(Koa)'', ''

Dodonaea viscosa ''Dodonaea viscosa'', also known as the broadleaf hopbush, is a species of flowering plant in the ''Dodonaea'' (hopbush) genus that has a cosmopolitan distribution in Tropics, tropical, Subtropics, subtropical and warm temperate regions of Africa ...

(Aalii)'', '' Munroidendron racemosum'', ''

Pritchardia The genus ''Pritchardia'' (family Arecaceae) consists of between 24 and 40 species of fan palms (subfamily Coryphoideae) found on tropical Pacific Ocean Pacific Islands, islands in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Tuamotus, and most diversely in Hawaiian ...

spp. (Loulu)'', and ''Microlepia strigosa (Palapalai)''. Some sites feature Polynesian introduction plants, such as ''

Piper methysticum Kava or kava kava (''Piper methysticum'': Latin 'pepper' and Latinized Greek 'intoxicating') is a plant in the pepper family, native to the Pacific Islands. The name ''kava'' is from Tongan and Marquesan, meaning 'bitter'. Kava can refer to ...

(Kawa)'' and ''

Cordyline fruticosa ''Cordyline fruticosa'' is an evergreen flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae. It is known by a wide variety of common names, including ti plant, palm lily, cabbage palm. The plant has been cultivated in Asia and Oceania, with a number of ...

(Ti)''. These plants all have value in

Hawaiian ethnobiology Hawaiian ethnobiology is the study of how people in Hawaii, particularly pertaining to those of pre-western contact, interacted with the plants around them. This includes to practices of agroforestry, horticulture, religious plants, medical plants ...

. The last designation of restoration sites is

agroforestry Agroforestry (also known as agro-sylviculture or forest farming) is a land use management system that integrates trees with crops or pasture. It combines agricultural and forestry technologies. As a polyculture system, an agroforestry system c ...

. Waipa is planting fruit and timber trees to satisfy this category. All of the agroforestry plantings are plants with commercial value. They can be harvested and sold as well as provide food and medicine. By planting the trees, Waipa community is rehabilitating the land as well as providing for the community.

References

{{Reflist Environmental organizations based in Hawaii Kauai 1993 establishments in Hawaii