A deal is underway to protect over 1,000 acres in Maunawili Valley, located in the ahupuaʻa of Kailua. The area was historically favored by aliʻi for its productive kalo lands.
Decades ago, there were plans to develop more golf courses and luxury housing across the fertile ground on the windward side of Oʻahu.
Now groups are working to keep the prime agricultural land in production to help with food security — and they’re stepping up efforts to raise $500,000 toward that effort.
The Conversation spoke to a cross-section of the coalition about the importance of increasing food production, including Reyna Ramolete Hayashi with the Trust for Public Land and Dane Kealoha from the Hawaiʻi Land Trust.
“The community stood up and fought against that subdivision and development, and as a result, a really strong partnership formed between Hui Maunawili-Kawainui, which is a coalition of residents and nonprofits in Maunawili and Kailua, and the landowner,” Hayashi said.
“TPL (Trust for Public Land) was brought in to help to broker, basically a win-win solution, where we could buy the land and protect it, and see this community's vision through, to really returning it back to ʻāina momona (fertile land)."
Hayashi added that they are in the final stages of completing real estate due diligence to transfer the lands to community and public ownership. Other parties involved are the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Weinberg Foundation — the current landowner.
"We've already raised, actually, all of the money from various funding sources, federal, state and City and County of Honolulu funding," she said. "We are waiting on final appraisals, but it's north of $30 million."
Kealoha of the HLT said that his organization is focused on the conservation values of the land
“Then in perpetuity, even after the land is acquired, we remain, with our partners and the City and County of Honolulu, as co-holders of a conservation easement to make sure that those values we set in place in the beginning are perpetually managed and followed and stewarded, so that in the future, as different generations come along, we make sure that the land stays in the vision that the community originally thought,” Kealoha told HPR.
About 900 acres will go to the DLNR's Division of Forestry and Wildlife, 116 to the nonprofit Hoʻokuaʻāina, and 59 to the nonprofit Kauluakalana.
Dean Wilhelm is a co-founder of Hoʻokuaʻāina. He and his wife manage 3 acres of loʻi kalo in Maunawili, growing about 30,000 pounds of kalo annually.
He said this land deal represents a major win for all of Hawaiʻi nei.
“When we think of today, 2025, on the island of Oʻahu, over a million people, that this land exists and that we have the opportunity right now to protect it in perpetuity for future generations, and bring these lands really back to life, to once what they once were — that's really the story, as I see it,” Wilhelm said. "It can be a potential pathway for other lands to be protected and, at one point, stewarded for all of us.”
Kaleo Wong, the executive director of Kauluakalana, based in Kailua, also spoke to HPR.
“This project, really this 1,000 acres, is about land protection, community stewardship, and the regeneration of ‘āina, putting these areas back into community use, where our keiki and our community can come back and put their hands in the dirt, grow food and learn from land as a teacher and as a classroom,” Wong said.
Meanwhile, Hayashi said the long-term stewardship project is currently fundraising. The four organizations involved are collectively working toward raising $500,000.
"This endeavor is like a once-in-a-lifetime generation opportunity, like Dean shared earlier, and so we're just asking everyone to join this movement. It's really incredible," Hayashi added.
This story aired on The Conversation on Dec. 8, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻiulani Coburn adapted this story for the web.
