On his first day back in office, President Trump signed an executive order that paused the release of Inflation Reduction Act funds. More than 4,000 miles away in Hawaiʻi, that order stopped several Native Hawaiian-led climate projects in their tracks.
"There is a direct response from that executive order… It absolutely is affecting us in our little corner of the world," said Toni Bissen, the executive director of the Pūʻā Foundation.
Since the executive order was issued, Pūʻā has been unable to access hundreds of thousands in federal funds it was promised through the Kapapahuliau Grant Program.
Pūʻā was incorporated in 1996 as part of the reconciliation process of the United Church of Christ's participation in the illegal overthrow of Queen Lili‘uokalani. In addition to running several programs to support incarcerated women in Hawaiʻi, the organization also stewards the Punahoa Heritage Forest near Hilo on Hawaiʻi Island.
"The 2,000 acres of forest lands that we are stewarding is a low-lying ‘ōhiʻa forest, and it's very significant to the Hilo watershed," Bissen said.
Bissen sees the Punahoa Heritage Forest as a natural extension of Pūʻā’s social justice work.
"The work that we do at the Pūʻā Foundation really focuses around how ancestral knowledge and cultural practices have, in fact, the power and potential to heal trauma," said Bissen, who argues that "trauma" can be experienced by a native forest struggling with a fungal disease like Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death.
Bissen saw Pūʻā’s approach to climate work reflected in the Kapapahuliau Grant Program, an initiative administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Office of Native Hawaiian Relations and funded through the Inflation Reduction Act. The program states that its purpose is to "enhance the ability of the lāhui to navigate environmental changes…in ways that maintain the integrity and identity of the Native Hawaiian people."
"I thought, wow, this is kind of made for us," Bissen said. Pūʻā applied for Kapapahuliau grant funding and was selected as a recipient along with 16 other Native Hawaiian organizations engaged in climate and cultural work.
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Last October, Pūʻā received just shy of $800,000 in federal funding, the bulk of which the organization intends to use to fence off a kīpuka of old-growth ‘ōhiʻa forest within the Punahoa Heritage Forest.
"This has been the largest grant award that we've received. We're so thankful," Bissen said. "It is so timely, and what we're really looking at — to accomplish fencing a very large area — is quite expensive."
But before Bissen was able to draw down a single dollar, the grant was frozen. Pūʻā is one of multiple recipients of the Kapapahuliau program who have confirmed to HPR that they are unable to access their funding, leaving their projects in limbo.
"It is extremely frustrating and chaotic," Bissen said. "It feels like a punch in the gut. It feels like a punch in the face."
She and her team are trying to figure out how the funding freeze will affect their project's timeline. She said they have the leeway to wait it out for six months in hopes that their grant funding will thaw.
"I happen to be a person of faith, culturally grounded," Bissen said. "We just have to lift it up to Ke Akua sometimes, ask our ancestors for strength and guidance. This too shall pass."
But other Kapapahuliau recipients have less flexibility.
The small nonprofit Hoʻomāhua Foundation works with students and teachers in Waiʻanae on the west side of Oʻahu. Hoʻomāhua was awarded more than $900,000 in Kapapahuliau funds to support a cohort of students engaged in climate work.
"A lot of the issues in our community, in particular, in Waiʻanae are around climate, things like fire mitigation, food security, water issues, as well as health and poverty," said Camille Hampton, the executive director of Hoʻomāhua.
Hampton said that many of the students they worked with were interested in climate solutions like sustainable agriculture and native reforestation.
"When the Kapapahuliau program was announced, we thought it was a great opportunity to focus in on that interest that a lot of our students had in helping to restore our environment," she said.
Hoʻomāhua has 25 students who are leading their own community-based climate projects. The organization pays each student a stipend using funds from their Kapapahuliau grant.
Now that their grant is frozen, the organization is trying to find other sources of funding to pay those students.
"Part of our programming is to be able to help students financially for participating with this learning experience, as opposed to going out and having to get a part-time job," Hampton said. "That extra income for their families is important for them."
When Hampton reached out to the Kapapahuliau grant administrators about why their funding had been frozen, she received a copy of President Trump's executive order. It states that agencies dispersing Inflation Reduction Act funds have 90 days to complete a review of their programs and submit it to the federal Office of Management and Budget and National Economic Council.
It's unclear what funds will be thawed after those reviews are completed.
Ninety days is longer than Hampton is willing to wait for clarity on her grant funding. She is "actively" looking for other sources of funding in order to pay students for the work they’ve already completed. She said that if necessary, Hoʻomāhua will help its students find other jobs.
Still, Hampton hopes that the Kapapahuliau grant will thaw before such steps are necessary.
"The funding is really important to us," she said. "People don't recognize that it's people they know that are part of [this program]. These students are actual family members of other community members that are benefiting from this."
