Maui sustainability program gets $300K in USDA funding for project in wake of Maui wildfires

University of Hawaiʻi Maui College’s Sustainability Program Coordinator Nicolette van der Lee has received $300,000 in funding from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture for a new project entitled Puʻuhonua Kauluwehi: Maui Wildfire Rapid Response Strategies for Agroecosystems Resilience, Food Security and Community Wellbeing.

The Puʻuhonua Kauluwehi project will collaboratively establish a network of biocultural refuges supporting the cultivation of native plants to accelerate landscape-scale ecological restoration, food security, and community wellbeing strategies.

It will host immersive, work-based learning experiences in the natural resources sector for local participants including youth and adults from disadvantaged and displaced communities.

University of Hawaiʻi Maui College Chancellor, Lui Hokoana thanked van der Lee for contributing to this important research and announced the project in his weekly communique, highlighting the UHMC spring 2024 semester.

Goals include the following:

• Increase community stakeholders’ access to environmental, human health, and socioeconomic benefits in disadvantaged communities.
• Broaden youth and adult engagement and education in agroecosystem planning and restoration.
• Increase local capacity for agroforestry restoration across Hawai‘i’s landscapes.
• Enhance awareness of the best practices of biocultural refuges to improve resilience to climate change and extreme events like the on-going threat of wildfires.

This grant was awarded under the US Department of Agriculture’s Grants for Rapid Response to Extreme Weather Events Across Food and Agricultural Systems program.