Mo'olelo for Hanauma Bay

Personal Memories

Moving from the Philippines to Hawaii as a child, I did not remember much. However, some of my earliest memories take place in Hanauma Bay. I still remember seeing and feeling the white sands of Hanauma underneath my feet that moved with me as the years went by. I still remember seeing the fish and coral from above the water, then eventually underwater when I learned how to swim. I also remember seeing how it has changed over the years, its natural beauty eroding away with time. The Hanauma Bay from my memories is not the same one that I see today. It has become polluted with chemicals, plastics, waste, and people. Though this is not a problem unique to the location, I hold Hanauma Bay close to my heart for the memories it has given my family and I. Seeing the way it had changed over the years due to human disturbance and the introduction of many harmful elements was very disappointing and disheartening, and I cannot begin to imagine how the people native to this land– the people who depended on lands that provided valuable resources like Hanauma Bay must feel seeing this change in the bay over centuries as well.

History and Cultural Significance

Although the name Hanauma is believed to have multiple meanings, it is generally believed to translate to “curved bay,” with the word hana meaning “bay” and uma standing for “curved,” the curved stem of a canoe, or “hand-wrestling.” This bay was culturally and historically important for native Hawaiian people because although the climate at Hanauma was hot and dry (not an ideal place to reside in), it provided Hawaiians a location for fishing and a place to house canoes when they are not out to fare the seas. Archeological evidence found in 1952 indicated that there was ancient human presence in the area. It was also believed to be often visited by Hawaiian royalty in the 1800s for entertainment and fishing (Hanauma Bay State Park). When archeologists excavated a sheltering cave behind the beach, they found ancient campfires, fishhooks, and other tools that indicated that Hanauma was certainly a significant area to the Hawaiian people, and also explains one of the possible meanings behind the uma in Hanauma (City and County of Honolulu).

Mo'olelo

In addition to historical accounts of life there, a mo‘olelo related to the origins of Hanauma Bay was passed down from generation to generation was also found. A brief retelling of the mo‘olelo offered by Jamie Winpenny, which also gives some background on another possible meaning for Hanauma, states that:

“...Hanauma Bay was once the home to the beautiful Princess Keohinani, whose father was a chief with magical powers who looked after the bay and its bounty, Two powerful chiefs, Koko and Hana, sought Keohinani’s hand. Torn between the two chiefs, her father ordered them to arm-wrestle for the privilege of marrying her. The two love-struck and determined chiefs locked hands and struggled for hours, then days in a seemingly endless war of will. As Keohinani dispaired, her father ordered the two chiefs to end their battle. The two chiefs refused to concede. Keohinani’s father turned them into mo‘o, lizards, joined forever at their tails. The mouth of Hanauma Bay is said to be the ends of those tails (or their heads, perhaps), turned to stone for eternity.”

In addition to my own memories, Hanauma Bay also served as a place of importance and a location of generational memory to native Hawaiians, for it provided them with resources to live and had mo‘olelo that was passed down for generations– from one’s memory to another.

Historical Development

Although Hanauma remained culturally important to the native Hawaiian people up to this day, it had also begun to face some dramatic changes– an “urbanization” if you will, from the late 1800s to 1900s. After it was purchased by the City and County of Honolulu from the estate of Bernice Pauahi Bishop in 1928, there was a deed restriction that limited its use to public parks and rights of way. In the following years, roads were paved. In addition, following World War II, Hanauma Bay quickly became a popular fishing and picnic area for many Hawaii residents (City and County of Honolulu). In order to satisfy and fulfill the needs of the many individuals who visit Hanauma Bay and to keep up with urban development, many modifications to the land had been conducted, such as when a 200 ft. wide channel is dynamited through the bay to accommodate the first transpacific telephone cable, for landscaping, drainage, upgrading and adding new roads, and building an office, food concession stand, parking lot, and more (City and County of Honolulu). Just as how humans altered the state of the land to accommodate for more memory-making, the bay’s waters will forever remember the actions that humans had done to it. Human changes on the land will always have a lasting impact.

Human Damage

Climate change is a worldwide phenomenon that has caused lasting effects on the environment; in fact, global temperatures have increased by an average of 0.9℃ (33.62℉) over the past century due to an increase in anthropogenic atmospheric gases resulting mainly from fossil fuel burning (Sabine et al. qtd. in Bahr. et al, 2017). This increase in global temperatures resulting in worldwide global warming from human activities had caused many detrimental environmental effects. This includes (but is not limited to) global rising sea levels, changes in precipitation patterns, and coral bleaching.

Unfortunately, Hanauma Bay is no stranger to negative human impacts. The impact of booming tourism over the past century at Hanauma Bay had caused many damaging effects on the life and biodiversity of the bay due to overuse. Overuse at Hanauma Bay had introduced near-shore murky water, sunscreen in the water, litter, increased nutrients in the water, unhealthy and aggressive reef fish, and loss of the near-shore coral reef (Cox and Vieth, pg. 1). In fact, in the late 1980s, Hanauma Bay was being almost “visited to death,” with 13,000 visitors a day at peak times (Beukering and Cesar, pg. 250). With a total of 13,000 people visiting the bay each day, it comes as no surprise that the reefs would eventually become damaged. The reefs and coral found at Hanauma Bay faced threats of coral bleaching due to a variety of factors, which includes global warming and the introduction of chemicals (such as oxybenzone) found in the sunscreens used by visitors. According to a study titled Oxybenzone contamination from sunscreen pollution and its ecological threat to Hanauma Bay, Oahu, Hawaii, U.S.A, oxybenzone was found to be very hazardous to marine life for a variety of reasons:

Inducing acute toxicity or acting as an endocrine/developmental disruptor to aquatic and marine life
Toxic to a wide number of algae and plants, including marine phytoplankton and macroalgae
Detrimental to corals, ranging from mortality to inducting pathologies such as bleaching…
Detrimental interaction between oxybenzone toxicity and climate change factors, such as elevated temperatures and ocean acidification.

With this being said, the results of the study found that oxybenzone was detected in 100% of the water samples found within Hanauma Bay. To further support this, in a study conducted by Bahr et al., corals in the Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve showed signs of bleaching in October 2015.

Looking to the Future and Preservation

Despite these horrific findings, government officials have taken notice of these damaging effects at the bay and have passed a number of laws and programs to prevent and limit further damage to Hanauma Bay. In 1990, park authorities began a program to minimize the impact on the bay by reducing the number of visitors and by teaching conservation to visitors (City and County of Honolulu). Upon entering the bay, visitors were required to watch a compulsory short film that describes coral reefs in Hawaii and explains how visitors can help to minimize their impacts on the reefs (Beukering and Cesar, 252). In addition, fish-feeding bans were placed in 1999, and following the multitudes of studies that found oxybenzone was harmful to the reef, “the levels of oxybenzone utilization in sunscreen products have decreased after 2019 as a result of global response in consumer awareness of the dangers of this chemical to marine resources and from laws banning their sale or use in places such as Hawaii…” (Bishop et. al, 2021).

In addition, during the recent Covid-19 pandemic that caused worldwide lockdowns in 2020 and following years including shutting down visitation to the bay, researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) has found that the bay is now 42% clearer in water clarity during a regular day in the Covid-19 closure compared to when it was accessible to the public, which is important because water clarity is important for allowing corals to use sunlight to create food and energy sources (Morimoto). The lack of human presence during this time had given coral and marine life a chance to finally ‘breathe’ and recover from harmful human activities at the bay, such as diving and [accidental] trampling of coral.

Although Hanauma Bay is still a long way from ‘forgetting’ the damaging effects that it had experience from human interference, the bay still has hope in achieving recovery if more is done to preserve its current state and prevent further damage to marine life. One day, Hanauma Bay’s recovery will outweigh the harm it had faced in its past and future memories.

References

Beukering, Pieter van and H. S. J. (Herman S. J.) Cesar. "Ecological Economic Modeling of Coral Reefs: Evaluating Tourist Overuse at Hanauma Bay and Algae Blooms at the Kihei Coast, Hawai'i." Pacific Science, vol. 58 no. 2, 2004, p. 243-260. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/psc.2004.0012.

Downs, C.A. et al. “Oxybenzone contamination from sunscreen pollution and its ecological threat to Hanauma Bay, Oahu, Hawaii, U.S.A.” Chemosphere, Volume 291, Part 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.132880.

“Hanauma Bay History.” Hanauma Bay State Park, 28 Feb. 2023, https://hanaumabaystatepark.com/hanauma-bay-history/.

“Hanauma Bay History.” History, https://www.honolulu.gov/parks-hbay/2016-09-01-18-10-39/history.html.

Morimoto, Tianna. “A Time for Healing: Hawaii’s Coral Reefs Rebound During COVID-19.” The Hitchcock Project for Visualizing Science, 1 Sept. 2020, https://hitchcockproject.org/hawaii-coral-reefs-healing/.

Rodgers KS, Bahr KD, Jokiel PL, Richards Donà A. 2017. Patterns of bleaching and mortality following widespread warming events in 2014 and 2015 at the Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve, Hawai‘i. PeerJ 5:e3355 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3355

“The Legend of Hanauma Bay.” Hawaii Aloha Travel, 26 Oct. 2022, https://www.hawaii-aloha.com/blog/2021/12/15/hanauma-bay-legend-and-lore/.

Vieth, Gary R. and Cox, Linda J. “Sustainable Use Management of Hanauma Bay.” Cooperative Extension Service, July 2001, https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/RM-11.pdf

Page updated

Report abuse