Ka Huli Ao’s Community Education and Outreach program seeks to shape and evolve public policy impacting Maoli people and communities as well as the resources upon which they depend.  Essential to this goal is informing and engaging Native Hawaiian and other peoples to appreciate, protect, and restore the invaluable natural and cultural resources of Indigenous island communities. Our training problems, in particular, aim to further this goal by advancing the understanding, appreciation, application, and evolution of Native Hawaiian Law.  

Native Hawaiian Law Training

In partnership with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the Native Hawaiian Law training course is focused on the trust obligations of state and county decisionmakers regarding Native Hawaiian natural and cultural resources.  Act 169, Session Laws of Hawaiʻi 2015, requires council, board, and commission members of designated entities, with an initial appointment date of July 1, 2015 and onward, to complete the training course within twelve months.  We also encourage decisionmakers, including members of all boards, commissions, and councils as well as their staff to join us.  Specific subjects include: 

• • The public land trust
  • Traditional and customary Native Hawaiian rights
  • Water and the public trust doctrine
  • Laws relating to iwi kūpuna (Native Hawaiian burials)

Past attendees have expressed their satisfaction with the training and agree that it has helped them to better understand their fiduciary duties and kuleana to administer the public trust in the interest of the beneficiaries, including Native Hawaiians.

I Mana i ka Wai: DHHL Water Law and Advocacy Training

Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law, in partnership with the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, conducts water law and advocacy trainings for homestead communities across the paeʻāina. The goal of the trainings is to provide a brief overview of Hawaiʻi’s legal framework governing water resource management and to discuss specific ways homestead communities can advocate for the pono use and protection of wai.