Natalie Kurashima

Kamehameha Schools · Natural and Cultural Resources

Indigenous stewardship of lands and waters has been suppressed around the world for centuries by colonization, but it has nonetheless persisted. Specific places that are cared for through such stewardship are known as Indigenous and community conserved areas (ICCAs). Some ICCAs are formally recognized in bureaucratic government systems, whereas oth...

The IPBES Scoping document for the values assessment highlights the need to assess the types of values of nature that have (or have not) been incorporated into decision-making, the types of valuation approaches incorporated into decision-making, the challenges that have hindered the incorporation of diverse conceptualizations of values of nature in...

In Hawai‘i, as is the case globally, sea level rise threatens the availability of suitable habitat for waterbirds and other coastal species. This study examines Hawaiian wetland agro-ecosystems (loʻi) as social-ecological systems that may meet human needs while expanding nesting habitat of endangered waterbirds, if restored under an Indigenous Reso...

Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) around the world are increasingly asserting ‘Indigenous agency’ to engage with government institutions and other partners to collaboratively steward ancestral Places. Case studies in Hawai‘i suggest that ‘community-driven collaborative management’ is a viable and robust pathway for IPLCs to lead in t...

Globally, an increasing recognition of the importance of ecosystem-based management (EBM), Indigenous resource management (IRM), and Indigenous-led research and management is emerging; yet, case studies within scholarly literature illustrating comprehensive application of these theories and philosophies are scarce. We present the collaborative mana...

Here, we expand on the term “ecomimicry” to be an umbrella concept for an approach to adaptive ecosystem-based management of social-ecological systems that simultaneously optimizes multiple ecosystem services for the benefit of people and place. In this context, we define ecomimicry as a strategy for developing and managing cultural landscapes, bui...

Declining natural resources have contributed to a cultural renaissance across the Pacific that seeks to revive customary ridge-to-reef management approaches to protect freshwater and restore abundant coral reef fisheries.We applied a linked land–sea modeling framework based on remote sensing and empirical data, which couples groundwater nutrient ex...

Declining natural resources have contributed to a cultural renaissance across the Pacific that seeks to revive customary ridge‐to‐reef management approaches to protect freshwater and restore abundant coral reef fisheries. We applied a linked land–sea modeling framework based on remote sensing and empirical data, which couples groundwater nutrient e...

The value of land-use strategies that increase food production while conserving biodiversity is widely recognized. Many indigenous agroecosystems are productive, adaptive and ecologically principled, but are largely overlooked by planning in terms of their potential to meet current and future food needs. We developed spatial distribution models of...

Globally, there is growing recongition of the essential role indigneous people have in biocultural conservation. However, there are few cases of applied indigenous resource management today, especially from the indigenous standpoint. In this paper, we provide an example of the maintenance and adaptation of an indigenous resource management system i...

Through research, restoration of agro-ecological sites, and a renaissance of cultural awareness in Hawaiʻi, there has been a growing recognition of the ingenuity of the Hawaiian biocultural resource management system. The contemporary term for this system, “the ahupuaʻa system”, does not accurately convey the nuances of system function, and it inhi...

Abstract: 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, whe...

With growing calls to scale up reforestation efforts worldwide, conservation managers increasingly must decide whether and how to restore highly altered ecosystems. However, empirical research on potential trade‐offs remains scarce. We use a Hawai'i watershed to demonstrate a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach to identifying synergies and tr...

Declining natural resources have led to a cultural renaissance across the Pacific that seeks to revive customary ridge-to-reef management approaches to protect freshwater and restore abundant coral reef fisheries. Effective ridge-to-reef management requires improved understanding of land-sea linkages and decision-support tools to simultaneously eva...

Modeling framework predictor variables description and processing methods. This table provides a description of all the predictor variables modeled in the coral reef models. Each metric is classified by type (terrestrial drivers or marine drivers) and assigned a code for modeling. The table below indicates the data source and analytical tool used t...

Copyright permission Charles Fletcher. (PDF)

Response variables and drivers’ relationships. This table provides the hypothesized relationships between the drivers and coral reef indicators. (DOCX)

Measured versus modeled nutrients for groundwater and coastal discharge at Ka‘ūpūlehu. (TIFF)

Response curves of benthic indicators at Ka‘ūpūlehu. (TIF)

Response curves of herbivore fish indicators at Ka‘ūpūlehu. (TIF)

Response curves of piscivore fish indicators at Ka‘ūpūlehu. (TIF)

Observed versus predicted coral reef indicators at Hā‘ena. (TIF)

Observed versus predicted coral reef indicators at Ka‘ūpūlehu. (TIF)

Fish species composition per functional groups. (DOCX)

Coral reef predictive model performance per indicator. The percent deviance explained (PDE) by the BRT models for the calibration and cross-validation (CV) processes and the final number of predictors (Xi) is shown for Hā‘ena and Kaʻūpūlehu. (DOCX)

Response curves of the benthic indicators at Hā‘ena. (TIF)

Response curves of the herbivore fish indicators at Hā‘ena. (TIF)

Modeling framework response variables description. Benthic (% cover) and fish biomass (g.m-1) coral reef indicators were derived from the coral reef surveys and used as response variables in the coral reef models. (DOCX)

Coastal water quality data at Ka‘ūpūlehu. See Carlson and Wiegner [169] for more details on sample collection, processing, and analytical methods. (DOCX)

Response curves of the piscivore fish indicators at Hā‘ena. (TIF)

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, precludi...

Monitoring and evaluation are central to ensuring that innovative, multi-scale, and interdisciplinary approaches to sustainability are effective. The development of relevant indicators for local sustainable management outcomes, and the ability to link these to broader national and international policy targets, are key challenges for resource manage...

Human activity has altered nearly every landscape on earth, and ecological restoration to repair degraded ecosystems has become a conservation necessity. Hawai'i is a microcosm for intense landscape change, where levels of native biodiversity and threats to it are among the highest in the world, and where Kanaka Maoli (Hawai'i's indigenous people),...

Resource managers increasingly seek to implement cost-effective watershed restoration plans for multiple ecosystem service benefits. Using locally adapted ecosystem service tools and historical management costs, we quantified spatially explicit management costs and benefits (in terms of groundwater recharge and landscape flammability) to assist a s...

The geographic distribution and relative importance of traditional agricultural systems in Hawaiʻi, based on ethnohistoric and archeological data, is only partially understood. Knowledge of the size and distribution of these systems is critical in estimating island populations, production, and surplus, as well as for assessing societal dynamics and...