Cindi Punihaole and Christine Zalewski have long championed the beauty and importance of Kahalu'u Bay. Their work has paid off, as the bay has been called a "Hope Spot" from Mission Blue.
Mission Blue is an international marine conservation nonprofit organization. Kahalu'u Bay is Mission Blue's 141st hope spot and Hawaii's second hope spot.
“Kahalu‘u Bay serves as a model for other smaller bays around the world and shows how they too can harness the deep relationships between people and the environment to protect these cherished places,” Sylvia Earle, founder of Mission Blue, said in a release. “[The] bay has become a beacon of hope and a source of inspiration for the community.”
Punihaole talked about how her Hawaiian culture and heritage have shaped her view on ocean conservation. ”We were taught that taking care of the ʻāina, the land and sea, is your survival. It’s second nature for me to look at what gives us life,” she said.
Kahalu’u, which roughly translates to "diving place,” gets about 400,000 visitors each year and is a hub for snorkeling, surfing and recreation. Additionally, the bay is home to several marine species listed as threatened and endangered by NOAA, including humpback whales, hawksbill turtles, green turtles, and Hawaiian monk seals.
Environmental stressors have resulted in the considerable shrinking of the coral reef that calls Kahalu'u Bay home. Examples of such stressors include poor water quality, recreational use, increased runoff from Hawaii's industrial growth, and rising sea levels from climate change.
"We need to be cognizant of ‘shifting baseline syndrome,’ in which perceived accepted norms for an environment gradually change over time, causing the previous state to become forgotten,” Zalewski warned.
Punihaole and Zalewski have teamed up with other for-profit and nonprofit organizations, along with state and local governments, to protect and conserve the bay for the past decade and a half.
With Mission Blue's provided resources, they strive to further their goal of restoring the bay to what it was decades ago.
"Our work at Kahaluʻu Bay fully aligns with Mission Blue’s views on empowering local communities, and we hope to prove that even geographically small bays can create profoundly large global impact,” Zalewski said.
Punihaole expressed her goals of what the bay can become.
”It’s our hope for Kahaluʻu Bay to be a model for other bays, communities, and grass-roots organizations around the world to integrate local government, scientists, and citizens working together to create change,” she said. “The land, the sea, the air, and the people are all connected. It’s this connectedness that extends the size of Kahaluʻu Bay far beyond its physical boundaries.”