April is the month when the Earth gets a little more attention than usual. Saturday, April 22 marked the 53rd observance of Earth Day. There were activities around the island from beach cleanups to other gatherings.
It is also the last week of Native Hawaiian Plant Month. These are both reminders of the vulnerability of our natural world — and the crucial role of the people who help protect it.
As part of our series with the Center for Oral History at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, we heard from Rose Freitas Cambra and Walter Pu about Haleakalā National Park, and from Rhonda Loh, the superintendent of Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. Read or listen to their interviews with ethnic studies professor Ty Kāwika Tengan.
Rose Freitas Cambra was born and raised on the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar plantation in Puʻunēnē, Maui. She and her husband, Raymond Freitas, volunteered in Haleakalā National Park for over 60 years and she is recognized as an honorary park ranger.
CAMBRA: Raymond took me first into the crater in 1951. He said, "It’s a must, Rose, we must go, I must take you to Kaupō Gap because there’s maile down the gap and let's make leis for our hats.” So, we went, picked the maile, came back, and he taught me how to make maile lei. That was my first time that I learned how to make maile lei. And he said that's usually where he goes to hunt goats in that flat, little flats here and there. The goats are always around in that area. I was just intrigued to learn how they made maile lei, how they smashed it with the stone. Then you have to pull it off the vein that’s inside and use just the soft part, and he taught me how to join it together and get three strands, and then weave the three strands — you stand up and you just shake it around, and it kind of weaves itself, enough for the length of the lei to go around and it can even go around twice to make it look fuller. Oh, I was so happy to learn how to do maile lei. We would go all the time, we would always take a ride to the gap and, and we'd go sometimes, most of the time we went as far as the boundary. There was an old gate there and that was the old boundary. But I understand there's a new boundary now.
Walter Pu was born and raised in Hāna, Maui where his family has lived for seven generations. He has worked in the Kīpahulu district of Haleakalā National Park for over 20 years.
PU: Most of us are ʻohana. In the Kīpahulu District, it was a big living area. We are sons of many generations from this area, all of us. So to operate down here, this is not only home, this is our backyard. This is where we work, this is what we take care and this is what we do as our occupation, but this is our home. The Pools of ʻOheʻo aka the Seven Pools, was never a number on them — or the Pīpīwai Trail — it was a place of recreation, family, a place of food, gathering. But also a place of learning, yeah, where your grandfather would talk about this certain plant. If you get hurt you take this plant, the sap and rub it on top here. This is all educational. You have the summit district which is more of your geology and the adze quarries. You have the bird catchers on the slopes of Haleakalā, and you have the studies of observation, navigation. That was the purpose of the mountain, it was used by the ancient people like classrooms. So this is one big university.
Dr. Rhonda Loh, a botanist, started working at the Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park in 1992 where she is now the superintendent. She was born and raised on Oʻahu and started visiting the park during summers when she stayed with grandparents in Hilo.
LOH: I first started working down in the coastal lowlands, which is pili grasslands. And I thought I really liked it there. And then I remember when I first had a project in the rainforest, I was like, ohh, and I ended up loving working in the rainforest and ʻAlalā and the East Rift and learning all the species of ferns and the plants. I love being immersed in nature where you're not near other evidence of man. I think the times I really enjoyed myself the most is when I was by myself in the middle of nowhere and just like, be part of something so much bigger than you. That's important, knowing there's something so much bigger than you. And that's one thing I love about the nature in Hawaiʻi. Every place has a different feel. And for me, when I'm in Hawaiʻi in nature I always feel that I can surrender myself to it, and I don't always get that in other places, but I get it here.
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This oral history project is supported by the SHARP initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities through the American Council of Learned Societies.
This interview aired on The Conversation on April 24, 2023. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
