The ‘Iliahi Project

Over the last several months Māla‘ai has been giving away ‘iliahi, koa and a'ali'i trees to community members thanks to a partnership with Yin Leung. Since May we have distributed over 200 trees! We have kept track, as best we can, of each tree distributed and hope to one day follow up with folks to see how and where the trees are growing, potentially offer workshops, and in general create a community of people growing ‘iliahi. With the goal of one day seeing more ‘iliahi growing throughout the moku, and especially in Waimea.

From Yin:

“I started this project to spread 'iliahi as a backyard tree as my small contribution to bringing back these trees that that were decimated in a time of political and economic turmoil for the kanaka maoli. My family, [who ran the] two Leung restaurants in Hilo, come from Zhongshan (a county in the Pearl River Delta) where most of the early Chinese in Hawai'i originate. Many Zhongshan folks intermarried into the Hawaiian population. They were also the traders who created the demand for sandalwood as the supply declined in India. This is a modest reparations project to help spread the canopy of these trees in the residential parts of Hawai'i Island and do a bit of education about this history.”

We will keep you posted and this project develops! Mahalo to Yin for this generous partnership aimed at reforesting our communities!