Reintroducing Native and “canoe” plants, paired with ancestral planting techniques, are helping the island move toward restoration.
Three years have come and gone since Yayoi Hara watched a fire ember fly through the sky in her hometown of Lāhaina, Maui, before landing on a coconut tree. A minute later, it was engulfed in flames.
Hara fled at 7 p.m. Twelve hours came and went before helicopter footage showed the true devastation. “Everything was gone,” Hara said. “The entire town had just completely been decimated.”
Lāhaina translates to “cruel sun” in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language). Without the shady cover of the trees, the community—once the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom—has only grown hotter since the calamitous wildfire. “The conditions just have been so hard and harsh for us to deal with,” Hara said.
But now, alongside other locals, she is reimagining Lāhaina’s future. Their priorities: resilience and sustainability. The island persevered through tragedy, and its residents are embracing this moment to reset and build a better tomorrow. Native and endemic plants are proving to be the key to environmental restoration. Canoe plants—around two dozen crops originally brought by ancient Polynesian seafarers to Hawai‘i for sustenance—also have their own role to fulfill.
“It’s not about fighting against nature,” Hara said. “It’s about working with nature, and I think Native plant landscaping does that.”
“The Worst Natural Disaster in Hawai‘i’s History”
On Aug. 8, 2023, her community lost so much.
Hara grew up hearing the mo‘olelo (stories) of the infamous Kauaʻula wind. Hawaiian writer G. W. P. Kauanui described it in an article dating back to 1871. “When the residents of Lāhaina hear the roar, they tie down buildings, fastening them securely to the earth, and put properly fitted braces,” according to a translation by the Institute of Hawaiian Language Research and Translation. “When this wind comes, it is dreadful to see.”
That wind helped make the fires so disastrous. When Hara saw it for herself, she compared it to “a giant blow torch” that spread the blaze originally caused by a downed powerline. NASA reported gusts as high as 67 miles per hour tracked by the National Weather Service. “It just came ripping right through the valley, and that’s what helped carry the fire through Lāhaina town so rapidly and destructively,” Hara said. “It was devastating.”
At least 102 people were killed. Over 2,200 structures were left in ruins. More than 21,000 trees were destroyed, per The Outdoor Circle, an environmental preservation organization. The U.S. Fire Administration referred to the wildfire as “the worst natural disaster in Hawai‘i’s history.”
After the smoke cleared, a few glimpses of hope remained standing: an ‘ulu (breadfruit) tree at Lāhainā United Methodist Church, a manakō (mango) tree outside the Old Lāhainā Prison, a 153-year-old banyan tree overlooking Lāhainā Harbor.
The County of Maui’s Lāhaina Long-Term Recovery Plan, as finalized in late 2024, lists projects that will take as long as six years—or more—to complete. Those long-term priorities include recycled water expansion, an inter-island ferry system and the revegetation of the community.
“People don’t know what Native plant landscaping looks like. We’re so used to going to the hotels and seeing what is tropical, but that’s not necessarily Native.”
I Mua I Ke Ola translates to “forward toward life.” That’s the name of the three-year project spearheaded by Hara, a network specialist at Maui Nui Botanical Gardens, which is using community forestry to restore tree canopy and improve soil health in fire-affected areas like Lāhaina. The initiative serves community organizations, nonprofits, schools, parks, families, cultural practitioners, and more. “For myself, it has been a healing process,” Hara said.
Almost one year in, the project’s first phase centers on outreach, including site visits, pilot distributions of trees, and educational workshops. “People don’t know what Native plant landscaping looks like,” Hara said. “We’re so used to going to the hotels and seeing what is tropical, but that’s not necessarily Native.”
In Hawai‘i, there are plenty of options—and, interestingly, they don’t include classics like plumeria and bird of paradise flowers, which were introduced to the islands.
“The Hawaiian Islands are famous around the world for the high level of endemism,” per the National Tropical Botanical Garden. “Of Hawai‘i’s roughly 1,300 Native plants, 90% of them are endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. Many are single-island endemics, for example, found only on Kaua‘i or only on Maui.” Native flora include ʻōhi‘a lehua, a type of tree recognized by its red flowers and revered in Hawaiian culture, and koki‘o ‘ula‘ula, a species of red hibiscus.
Because Hawai‘i is so geographically isolated, “it took so long for these things to seed here and then to evolve.”
The second phase of I Mua I Ke Ola entails more tree distribution, arborist services, and stewardship support. So far, progress has been made. Among the flora in the ground are Indigenous plants naupaka kahakai (beach cabbage), pōhinahina (beach vitex), and pili (tanglehead grass), alongside canoe plants like kalo (taro) and ‘uala (sweet potato).
Maui Nui Botanical Gardens isn’t alone in its work. Treecovery Hawaiʻi, a local nonprofit, has planted more than 9,000 trees, including Native loulu palms, per its website.
Because Hawai‘i is so geographically isolated, “it took so long for these things to seed here and then to evolve,” said Michael Reyes, senior ecologist and principal for Maui Environmental Consulting. For that same reason, wildfire recovery can’t happen overnight. Flora continues to face other ongoing threats.
“Not only is it climate change and wildfire and drought,” Reyes said, “it’s also us bringing in pests to affect these plants.” They travel by air and sea to wreak havoc on vegetation.
Restoring Native Hawaiian Culture
Several Hawaiian islands have battled a scourge of coconut rhinoceros beetles for over a decade. Many plants haven’t developed defenses against the invasive pests, which munch on palms.
This scarab beetle “has the ability to destroy an island’s entire palm population within one year, earning it the regional nickname of ‘Palm Killer,’” according to the Pacific Community, a scientific and technical organization. That’s a problem, particularly because a number of benefits accompany Native plants. They not only anchor the soil and the shorelines, but they also require less water and care “because they’re being planted where they belong,” Reyes said.
Native plants encourage the return of other Native species, too. Take the Blackburn’s sphinx moth, an endangered insect that is Native to Hawai‘i. Much of the greenery that it normally uses for foraging and egg laying is either endangered or extinct, Reyes said. Instead, the moth has turned to the invasive tree tobacco as a host plant.
“To be able to bring back some of these host plants that are Native would certainly help the Blackburn’s sphinx moth,” Reyes said. So why weren’t Native plants the go-to choice in the past? Reyes largely pegged it as a supply chain issue. “It may be that it’s just easier to purchase a landscape species,” he explained. Today, that’s changing.
“After the wildfires, we identified the need to stockpile Native seed banks and to begin growing these plants, so that they would be available more widely,” Reyes said. He’s watched some recent developments on Maui, including Kihei’s new Kūlanihāko‘i High School, feature Native plants as part of their landscaping.
In Hāna, the National Tropical Botanical Garden’s Kahanu Garden and Preserve has played its own part in the recovery efforts. On top of Native and endemic plants, the botanical and cultural preserve has provided more than 1,000 propagules and potted canoe plants, director Mike Opgenorth said. Canoe plants include kukui (candlenut), mai‘a (banana), kō (sugarcane), and niu (coconut).
“After the wildfires, we identified the need to stockpile Native seed banks and to begin growing these plants, so that they would be available more widely.”
“We have focused on these Polynesian-introduced plants (aka kūpuna crops) because they are so deeply storied in the history of Lele,” which is the original name for Lāhaina, Opgenorth said, “and local ʻohana (family) are familiar with how to utilize them for food and medicine.”
The Kahanu Garden and Preserve has focused on distributing ‘ulu and kī (ti) to residents, Lahainaluna High School’s agricultural program, and more. “We find that species like ʻulu, kī, or kukui can create an ecological ‘bridge’ from areas currently dominated by aggressive invasives to an environment that is much more conducive to Native species,” Opgenorth said.
While some exotic species can turn vegetation into “monotypic, fire-prone zones,” canoe plants “play nice” with Native plants, he added. Locals especially want to see Indigenous plants like pili and lama, a flowering tree, used in areas with high fire risk.
Hara’s vision for Lāhaina is all-encompassing. She pictures food security, economic diversity, water restoration—in other words, abundance. A social embrace of Native plants counts as a step in that direction.
“Restoring Native plants is restoring Native Hawaiian culture,” Hara said, “but also the Native ecosystem.”
