S.4.E.3-- Taking Back Our Waters with Eric Enos and Jonathan Scheuer

In this episode we have the esteemed pleasure to have a talk-story session with two beloved water protectors about historical and present day struggles. Both of them uplift the brilliance in water and land protection movements that continue to be a force of resilience against decades of extraction, diversion, and disconnection. 

Eric Enos is co-founder and Executive Director of Kaʻala Farm Inc.- whose mission to reclaim and preserve the living culture of Poʻe Kahiko (people of old) stretches back all the way to the Hawaiian Renaissance of the 1970’s, and Jonathan Scheuer, Ph.D who consults clients in managing environmental conflicts involving cultural, economic, and conservation stakeholders and sits on the Hawaiʻi State Land Use Commission. 

In this conversation, we get a snapshot into the water struggle Kaʻala led to restore water sheds in the Waiʻanae Moku after years of depletion from sugar plantation diversions. But through community organizing and solidarity during an epic era of activism throughout Hawaiʻi, Kaʻala was birthed as a farm, cultural education center, and an oasis for local people to reconnect to and heal through ʻāina. Jonathan offers an analysis of the structural inequity in institutional decision making and resource distribution of water management affecting the health of our waterways. 

The conversation was empowering, filled with deep knowledge and passion for our wai embodied with insight into the ongoing struggle that kanaka and allies have endured to protect it.