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What does contemporary Indigenous stewardship look like in urban spaces? We answer this question by exploring Urban ʻĀina, a practice-based Native Hawaiian paradigm that shapes how we engage urban landscapes as Indigenous spaces, revitalizes the expression of Indigenous knowledge, and relies on Indigenous sensibilities to address and respond to modern issues such as food security, ecological degradation, and the climate change crisis. We find that places shaped by Urban ʻĀina practices serve as cultural kīpuka—biocultural refugia where kincentric, reciprocal relationships are honored through the engagement of ancestral knowledge. In Hawaiʻi, efforts to maintain these kincentric relationships continue to be challenged by political, socioeconomic, environmental, psychological, and spiritual disruptions that have their origin in the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Our research methodology and the paper's resulting structure rely on ceremony and the Pewa Framework, which were selected to transport you through our restoration process. This exploration and the sharing of innovative case studies from urban Oʻahu bring breath and the healing power of Indigenous knowledge and ancestral practices to urban spaces, with the aim of transforming contemporary conceptions of urban stewardship. Through our process, we demonstrate how revitalized ancestral practices foster ecological sustainability, restorative justice, biocultural continuity, food sovereignty, regenerative forestry, and community wellbeing in urban spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semistructured interviews were conducted to explore local, lay perceptions and valuations of native and nonnative flora in order to better understand and anticipate community perceptions of, and potential participation in revegetation or eradication conservation efforts in multiethnic communities of Oahu, Hawai'i. The authors detail the ethnographic procedures used, and what worked and did not work, in catalyzing discussions and gaining an in-depth understanding of peoples' cultural and ecological valuation of plants. The study provided a first step toward the larger initiatives of the Division of Ecology and Health at the University of Hawai'i Medical School that strengthen relationships with (and within) local communities to improve natural and social environments. (Contains 2 tables and 2 footnotes.)

While it is true that healers selectively adopt and/or refashion aspects of biomedicine, the influence is not unidirectional with information flowing exclusively from hospitals into the workplaces of healers. This article examines healers in Tanga, Tanzania to explore the reciprocal relations between practitioners of indigenous medicine and biomedicine. An abbreviated ethnography of one healer in coastal Tanzania is used to illustrate some of the relevant influences and possible adaptations of contemporary healers. His experiences illuminate how multiple factors, especially sociocultural changes, biomedicine, AIDS, and related research(ers) can influence healers' adaptations. In his case, biomedical health workers from a non-profit HIV organization call upon him not only to act as a liaison between their services and the community, but more importantly, to provide treatment for opportunistic infections and counseling for patients and to participate in biomedical and scientific projects. Reflecting on his experiences as a healer who has negotiated a position that straddles the world of biomedicine and the world of healers facilitates examination of important issues affecting healers today, including their relationship to biomedical health workers, bioprospectors, governments, non-profit organizations, and professional organizations of healers. Although the healer featured in this article is a pioneer in his own town, there are other examples in Africa where healers and biomedical practitioners are interacting. Therefore, he may represent a trend in healer adaptation. Keywords: Tanzania; Healers; Adaptation; HIV/AIDS; Biomedicine

E ulu ē E ulu kini o ke Akua Ulu a'e 'o Kāne me Kanaloa Ulu ka 'Ōhi'a a lau ka wai Ka 'Ie'ie Ulu a'e ke Akua a noho i kona kahu Eia ka wai lā He wai ola E ola ia'u i ke kumu E ola i ke po'o, ke po'o pua'a E ola i ka pae, ka paepae E ola i nā haumana, nā haumana a pau 'Eli'eli kapu, 'eli'eli noa In this Pule Ho'oulu (prayer for inspiration), we are calling ourselves and you, the reader, to embrace growth and perpetuation of life's many sacred manifestations, to honour the guardians of our places and the sources of our knowledge, and affirm the profound responsibility that is conservation management. This chant initiates the process of kuahu , an altar of Native Hawaiian spiritual practice within Hālau 'Ōhi'a , a ritual-based stewardship program in Hawai'i led by Kumu (master teacher, a primary holder and source of knowledge for the community) Kekuhi Kealiikanakaoleohaililani. This paper outlines how the kuahu process has advanced learner capacity to embrace the many sacred dimensions of resource stewardship, thereby transforming conservation biology, and related conservation practices, through Indigenous perspectives. We examine themes evoked during the kuahu process at scales spanning the universal, the regional, and the personal. In doing so, we describe how kuahu practice can serve as a coparticipant, catalyst, and portal to sacred conservation, allowing learners to engage and grow more personal relationships with the environment, our communities, and ourselves. This paper outlines how the kuahu (altar of Native Hawaiian spiritual practice) has advanced learners in Hālau 'Ōhi'a (a ritual-based stewardship program in Hawai'i) to embrace the many sacred dimensions of natural and cultural resource stewardship. We examine themes evoked during the kuahu process at scales spanning the universal, the regional, and the personal. Kuahu practice can serve as a coparticipant, catalyst and portal to sacred conservation, allowing learners to engage and grow more personal relationships with the environment, communities and self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban parkland is a quintessential form of public space. Various actors—from government managers, to civic groups, to individual visitors—actively negotiate and co-create the governance, use, and meaning of parks. One form of negotiation occurs through signage and writing. Here, we focus on 42 parks in New York City and the multiple narratives within them. Through coding the messages, material qualities, and meanings in 784 signs, qualitative analysis of graffiti in parks, triangulated with ethnographic field notes, we identify and discuss what sort of urban park subjectivities are being constructed. These include not only an "ideal park subject," but also alternative subjectivities such as the neighbor or steward, the graffiti writer, and "free agents" who use wilderness as refuge. We seek to inform new ways of thinking about parks as social–ecological resources that are co-created by users and managers as places that allow multiple subjectivities to be expressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose that spiritual approaches rooted in the practice of Hawai'i ritual provide a powerful portal to revealing, supporting, and enhancing our collective aloha (love, fondness, reciprocity, as with a family member) for and dedication to the places and processes that we steward. We provide a case study from Hawai'i, where we, a group of conservation professionals known as Hālau 'Ōhi'a, have begun to foster a collective resurgence of sacred commitment to the places and processes we steward through remembering and manifesting genealogical relationships to our landscapes through Indigenous Hawaiian ritual expression. We discuss how a ritual approach to our lands and seas makes us better stewards of our places, better members of our families and communities, and more fulfilled individuals. We assert that foundations of the spiritual and the sacred are required for effectively advancing the science of sustainability, the management of natural resources, and the conservation of nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As ecosystem service assessments increasingly contribute to decisions about managing Earth's lands and waters, there is a growing need to understand the diverse ways that people use and value landscapes. However, these assessments rarely incorporate the value of landscapes to communities with strong cultural and generational ties to place, precluding inclusion of these values- alongside others-into planning processes. We developed a process to evaluate trade-offs and synergies in ecosystem services across land-use scenarios and under climate change in North Kona, Hawai'i, a tropical dry ecosystem where water, fire, biodiversity and cultural values are all critical considerations for land management decisions. Specifically, we combined participatory deliberative methods, ecosystem service models, vegetation surveys and document analysis to evaluate how cultural services, regulating services (groundwater recharge, landscape flammability reduction), biodiversity and revenue: (1) vary across four land-use scenarios (pasture, coffee, agroforestry and native forest restoration) and (2) are expected to vary with climate change (representative concentration pathway (RCP) 8.5 mid-century scenario). The native forest restoration scenario provided high cultural, biodiversity, and ecosystem service value, whereas coffee's strongest benefit was monetary return. The agroforestry scenario offered the greatest potential in terms of maximizing multiple services. Pasture had relatively low ecological and economic value but, as with native forest and agroforestry, held high value in terms of local knowledge and cultural connection to place. Climate change amplified existing vulnerabilities for groundwater recharge and landscape flammability, but resulted in few shifts in the ranking of land-use scenarios. Our results demonstrate that cultural services need not be sacrificed at the expense of other management objectives if they are deliberately included in land-use planning from the start. Meaningfully representing what matters most to diverse groups of people, now and under a changing climate, requires greater integration of participatory methods into ecosystem service analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]