By: Lorenzo Blanco
Volume IX – Issue II – Spring 2024
I. Introduction
The state of Hawai’i has a long history as “the island paradise” of the United States and one of the biggest tourism capitals of the world, where travelers can indulge in a host of luxury hotels, spas, outdoor tours, cuisine, and more. With an unprecedented influx of people from across the world moving to Hawai’i, the islands have become overwhelmed. Their efforts to accommodate these new residents as well as the exponentially increasing waves in tourism have come at the expense of Hawai’i’s Indigenous and native population, with rapid gentrification and the dedication of resources and infrastructure being prioritized for resorts and affluent communities across the islands. In recent history, it has become increasingly evident that the influence of settler colonialism on the Hawai’ian Islands has remained intrinsic to its statehood, from the kingdom’s original annexation to its present day socioeconomic and environmental struggles. The case of Navahine v. Hawai’i Department of Transportation is an example of Hawai’ian youth activists taking a stand against the federal government by filing suit against the state’s Department of Transportation, saying that “the establishment, operation, and maintenance of Hawai‘i’s fossil fuel-based transportation system violates the Hawai‘i Constitution’s public trust doctrine and right to a clean and healthful environment.” With a trial date set for the summer of 2024, this evolving case could be a significant win - or devastating loss - for Hawai’ian youth activists and the islands’ native people amidst the growing resistance to modern day settler-colonial practices as well as environmental degradation.
II. Hawai’i’s Colonial History
From the overthrow of the Hawai’ian monarchy to its statehood and the commodification of its culture, the Hawai’ian Islands are a microcosm of the historical cycle of settler colonialism in the United States. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, wealthy Europeans and American planters had moved to the islands and established a powerful “white minority.” [1]
Planters and the white minority first interfered in the Indigenous monarchy when they pressured King Kamehameha to implement the Great Mahele land division in 1848. [2] Some refer to the Great Mahele as “the single most important event in the history of land title in Hawai’i;” the Great Mahele was a months-long division of property among the royal family, officers, and the government itself that would become the genesis of private land ownership among the islands. [3] The tide would definitely change in favor for American businessmen when the United States and the Kingdom of Hawai’i, on January 30th, 1875, signed the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875. [4]
Under the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875, United States Secretary of State Hamilton Fish and the Kingdom of Hawai’i’s Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States Elisha H. Allen would together sign the treaty that originally allowed both countries to ship their agricultural commodities into ports of the other “duty-free” for a duration of seven years. [5] Now with private land ownership and direct legislation granting the United States privileged importation rights within the Kingdom of Hawai’i, the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 tied Hawai’ian agriculture closely to the United States and its wealthy plantation owners, thus making itself increasingly dependent on the larger country. The Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 was a pivotal turning point in the Kingdom of Hawai’i’s loss of sovereignty, giving American planters extraordinary political influence among the Indigenous monarchy now dependent on the United States for agricultural purchases. [6]
Mounting power in the hands of white American planters on the islands would set the stage for the adoption of the Bayonet Constitution on July 6th, 1887, where King David Kalakaua signed at gunpoint a new constitution written by the white rebel Honolulu Rifles group that stripped future Indigenous monarchs of all power past the ceremonial and extended voting rights to all those on the islands who owned land, giving political voice to a plethora of white settlers. [7] White rebel groups continued their subversive tactics and plotted a final coup where on January 17th, 1893, a mob of political revolutionaries would call for the overthrow of the Hawai’ian monarchy altogether. [8] Wanting to avoid violent war and in order to spare the lives of her people, then Queen Lydia Kamakaeha Liliuokalani abdicated her throne. [9]
United States planters and the white minority had successfully overthrown a centuries-old monarchy in the name of sugar cane. [10] Following the monarchy’s overthrow, American business would expand exponentially to transform the islands into a full plantation-based economy that briefly ran as a republic until annexation. Along with agriculture, the hospitality industry boomed on the Hawai’ian Islands with the construction of lavish resorts whose grandeur has continuously supplied the United States with a monumental influx of tourists and their cash since Hawai’i’s statehood in August 1959. [11]
The Great Mahele, Bayonet Constitution, and the 1893 overthrow of the Indigenous monarchy had set a precedent of forceful exploitation of Hawai’ian people and the islands’ land for United States interests, one that continues to show its face today through the case of Navahine v. Hawai’i Department of Transportation.
III. The Kalama Valley Protests and the Resurgence of Environmental Activism on the Islands
The Indigenous and native people are no strangers to the modern and consistent appropriation and abuse of land that has come as a result of Hawai’i’s statehood. After statehood in 1959, the United States federal government wasted no time developing and clearing Hawai’ian land to settle their new tropical frontier. Due to the severe hardships the collapse of the Hawai’ian monarchy and its annexation into the United States had inflicted upon the native Hawai’ian population, activism against these new United States infrastructural projects took some time. [12] However, that changed with the 1971 Kalama Valley protests. The Kalama Valley had been part of an expansive land trust equal to nearly 10% of the entire archipelago’s land mass held by the Bishop Estate. The Bishop estate was the written will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, “great granddaughter and last descendant of King Kamehameha the Great.” [13] The Bishop Estate in the 1970s sought to exact the vision of the late real estate developer Henry J. Kaiser, who had planned the transformation of a 500-acre saltwater lagoon and its surrounding land that the Bishop Estate held within the Kalama Valley into “housing for the local marketplace” that could provide “a home for every lifestyle.” [14] Yet Kaiser’s plan and the Bishop Estate’s support paid no attention to the community of native Hawai’ians already living in the Kalama Valley, a community of “people who sold used-car parts from their makeshift carports, junkyards, homes with aluminum foil-patched ceilings,” and “large families of blue collar workers.” [15] Claire Shimabukuro, a member of the Kokua Hawaii activist group that staged the revolutionary protests, recalled that Kaiser’s development project was “bulldozing houses with people in them.” [16] On May 11th, 1971, 32 activists were arrested for standing in front of the bulldozers, blocking their paths of destruction. [17] Although the protest was unsuccessful in definitively halting the construction of the Hawaii Kai community from the ruins of the Kalama Valley’s former and native residents, Kokua Hawaii’s efforts lit the “‘single spark that started the prairie fire’” of widespread Hawaiian anticolonial resistance - a fire that continues to burn brightly in Nevahine v. Hawai’i Department of Transportation.
IV. Nevahine v. Hawai’i Department of Transportation and Carrying the Torch of Hawai’ian Activism
The Kalama Valley protests and activist efforts like it have empowered the voices of Hawai’ian activists tired of watching their lands be exploited and stolen for the benefit of a wealthy minority. Since the beginning of American influence in the Hawai’ian Islands, native rights and lives have been quite literally bulldozed. Article XI, Section 9 of the Hawai’i State Constitution directly states that “each person has the right to a clean and healthful environment, as defined by laws relating to environmental quality, including control of pollution and conservation, protection, and enhancement of natural resources.” [18] As long as Hawai’i should remain a state, the native people living in it as well as all residents of the islands should be protected by the full extent of their state constitution, which explicitly states that “any person may enforce this right” to a clean and healthy environment. [19] Article XI of the Hawai’i State Constitution firmly cements a public trust doctrine, affirming that the state has an obligation to protect its environment and natural resources specifically for the benefit of the public and the welfare of its future generations.
The youth plaintiffs are right to call for the Hawai’i state government to honor its public trust doctrine, especially since the state has repeatedly dismissed and failed the Indigenous population with respect to the appropriate honor and management of historic land. A prime example of the state’s violation of this public trust doctrine is in the case of the Coco Palms Resort on the island of Kaua’i. In October of 2022, the Hawai’i state Board of Land and Natural Resources approved the renewal of the land permits required for the resort despite the fact that Coco Palms Ventures, the company holding the title for the land, is defunct. [20] Furthermore, subsidiary companies have since begun unauthorized development of the land, including cutting down palm trees in the hopes of constructing and renovating the old resort’s decrepit parking and restaurant facilities; the act of cutting down palm trees is an act of war in Indigenous Hawai’ian culture, a sign of direct disrespect from corporate interests and disregard for the welfare of the public from the state government. [21] The Hawai’i state Board of Land and Natural Resources has clearly proven that it will not act in the best interest of the people, again providing the plaintiffs of Nevahine v. Hawai’i Department of Transportation, along with the rest of the Hawai’ian public, plenty of cause to sue for the violation of the state constitution promising a clean and safe environment for all living on the archipelago. If the plaintiffs receive a ruling that denies their claim, it would set a precedent for environmental activism in Hawai’i that declares to future advocates that Hawai’i as a state is committed to fighting not for the benefit of their people, but for the maintenance of the status quo - the antithesis to sustainability itself.
The rapidly expanding renewable energy industry has made it abundantly clear that transportation is one of, if not the most, readily applicable and urgent sectors for the switch to alternative fuels and more sustainable systems as a whole. With that in mind, it would be well within a citizen’s right to maintain that to comply with its own state constitution, the Hawai’i Department of Transportation would be legally required to make all possible efforts to diversify the fueling of its present and future infrastructure. It would also be reasonable to conclude that a quantifiable decrease in carbon emissions would serve as evidence of the state’s commitment to follow-through on its constitution’s public trust doctrine with respect to environmental health. However, the Hawai’i Department of Transportation has failed to do so, with its greenhouse gas emissions increasing and expected to account for 60% of the state’s total emissions by 2030. [22] In response, 14 youth plaintiffs from the islands of Hawai’i, O’ahu, Moloka’i, Maui, and Kaua’i have filed suit against the Hawai’i Department of Transportation with legal representation from attorneys Isaac Moriwake and Leināʻala L. Ley of Earthjustice and Andrea Rodgers and Kimberly Willis of Our Children’s Trust. [23] The lawsuit itself is an imperative reality check from Hawai’i’s next generation of environmental and political activists. For centuries, the voices of each successive generation of the archipelago have been silenced by United States coups, agriculture, and legislation that would have the native inhabitants of the island remain docile in their own destruction.
A ruling against these plaintiffs would be a painful continuation of this cycle of oppression. In an era when decolonial educational and social frameworks have gained unprecedented traction, a ruling against these plaintiffs would expose the rampant performative activism of politicians along with state and federal officials who claim to hold racial and cultural activism as a top priority on their platforms. By citing the Hawai’i State Constitution, these youth plaintiffs have reversed the historical manipulation of United States law to justify the oppression and marginalization of BIPOC citizens and people living within the country. Instead, the plaintiffs of Navahine v. Hawai’i Department of Transportation have bravely decided to fight for their futures and the future of their homeland. A ruling from the Hawai’ian state government in favor of these plaintiffs would mark a genuine, quantifiable effort toward upholding Indigenous rights and justice for the islands and the country as a whole.
The lawsuit, though the first of its kind in Hawai’i, is not Our Children’s Trust’s first youth environmental lawsuit against a state government. In the August 2023 ruling of Held v. Montana, a group of youth activist plaintiffs backed by Our Children’s Trust won their case against the state of Montana and the Montana Department of Transportation, among other state department defendants, for failing to adequately consider the progression and evolution of climate change in approval and renewal of oil projects. [24] The ruling of Held v. Montana sets an important legal precedent in climate justice that definitively marks an acknowledgement from a state court that oil and gas companies like Chevron and ExxonMobile have perpetuated rhetoric that deceives the public and state governments on the true environmental implications of their business practices. The filing and favorable ruling of the Held v. Montana lawsuit provides strong legal evidence to suggest that environmental suits brought against state governments and their affiliate oil companies are based on legitimate, unavoidable fact that the plaintiffs of the Navahine v. Hawai’i Department of Transportation are seeking to prove. Considering its traditionally conservative political leanings that tend to turn a blind eye or show boldfaced apathy toward environmental issues, a ruling from Montana in favor of these youth environmental activists gives reasonable hope that the virtually identical case against the Hawai’i Department of Transportation could be a victory for the islands’ youth plaintiffs as well. Regardless, the Montana ruling signifies a growing American desire to discover and believe in the sobering truths behind the climate crisis - and to seek accountability from the oil companies whose practices caused and continue to exacerbate the problem.
V. Conclusion
If Navahine v. Hawai’i Department of Transportation gains similar traction, it would be a historic victory for the islands’ Indigenous population - the colonial government would finally be held to the promise of environmental prosperity it champions in the state constitution to the fullest extent of the law. A victory in Navahine v. Hawai’i Department of Transportation would be a victory in the face of settler-colonialism, in the face of a government that continuously and violently ignores the culture and values of Indigenous Hawai’ian people. By extension, a victory in this case would be yet another powerful reminder to the rest of the United States that the youth of the country are capable, powerful forces of legal action and accountability. The next generation of environmental activism already has a significant win under its belt in the matter of Held v. Montana, but a victory on the Hawai’ian Islands in Navahine v. Hawai’i Department of Transportation would draw particular attention to how environmental activism can and will flourish even in the exponentially growing source of United States revenue that is the tourism industry. That is to say, a victory in Navahine v. Hawai’i Department of Transportation for Hawai’ian environmental activists would set another example as a state of the union with especially major economic stakeholdership finally honoring its promise of environmental protection and health for the next generation. A victory for the plaintiffs in this case is a surefooted step toward ensuring that everyone may equitably experience the irreplaceable joy and conviction that comes with engaging with the natural wonders of the world.
Endnotes
[1] Swenson, J. Patricia Morgan et al. n.d. “History of Hawaii.” Britannica. Accessed March 17, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/place/Hawaii-state/History
[2] Swenson, J. Patricia Morgan et al. n.d. “History of Hawaii.” Britannica. Accessed March 17, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/place/Hawaii-state/History
[3] “Land in Hawai’i.” 2004. RE3 LLC Real Estate Service. Accessed March 17, 2024. https://files.hawaii.gov/dcca/reb/real_ed/re_ed/ce_prelic/land_in_hawaii.pdf
[4] A Guide to the United States’ History of Recognition, Diplomatic, and Consular Relations, by Country, since 1776: Hawaii.” n.d. United States Office of the Historian. Accessed March 17, 2024. https://history.state.gov/countries/hawaii#:~:text=On%20January%2030%2C%201875%2C%20United,products%20into%20the%20United%20States.
[5] Ibid
[6] “Joint Resolution to Provide for Annexing the Hawaiian Islands to the United States.” February 8, 2022. National Archives. Accessed March 17, 2024. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/joint-resolution-for-annexing-the-hawaiian-islands#:~:text=On%20July%207%2C%201898%2C%20the,control%20of%20the%20Hawaiian%20government.
[7] National Geographic Society. “Jul 6, 1887 CE: Bayonet Constitution.” October 19, 2023. National Geographic. Accessed March 17, 2024. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/bayonet-constitution/
[8] “The Annexation of Hawaii.” 2021. Digital History. Accessed March 17, 2024. https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3159
[9] Ibid
[10] Ibid
[11] 1“Hawaii Statehood, August 21, 1959.” March 10, 2023. National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/hawaii#:~:text=On%20August%2021%2C%201959%20Hawaii%20became%20the%2050th%20state.&text=For%20more%20information%2C%20visit%20the,documents%20related%20to%20Hawaii's%20statehood
[12] Fujimori, Leila. May 12, 2021. “Kalama Valley protests of 1971 commemorated.” Star Advertiser. https://www.staradvertiser.com/2021/05/12/hawaii-news/kalama-valley-protests-of-1971-commemorated/
[13] 3Roth, Randall W. December 1998. “United States: Overview of the Bishop Estate Controversy.” The International Journal of Not-for-profit Law. https://www.icnl.org/resources/research/ijnl/overview-of-the-bishop-estate-controversy
[14] Milner, Neal. 2006. “Home, Homelessness, and Homeland in the Kalama Valley: Re-Imagining a Hawaiian Nation Through a Property Dispute.” The Hawaiian Journal of History. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/5014751.pdf
[15] Ibid
[16] Fujimori, Leila. May 12, 2021. “Kalama Valley protests of 1971 commemorated.” Star Advertiser. https://www.staradvertiser.com/2021/05/12/hawaii-news/kalama-valley-protests-of-1971-commemorated/
[17] Ibid
[18] “Environmental Court.” n.d. Hawai’i State Court. Accessed March 17, 2024. https://www.courts.state.hi.us/special_projects/environmental_court#:~:text=Article%20XI%2C%20Section%209%%2020of,and%20enhancement%20of%20natural%20resources.
[19] Ibid
[20] Dawson, Teresa. May 2023. “Developers of Coco Palms Site Face Violations Allegations, Injunction Lawsuit.” Environment Hawaii. https://www.environment-hawaii.org/?p=15115
[21] Dawson, Teresa. May 2023. “Developers of Coco Palms Site Face Violations Allegations, Injunction Lawsuit.” Environment Hawaii. https://www.environment-hawaii.org/?p=15115
[22] Navahine v. Hawaii Department of Transportation.” n.d. Earth Justice. Accessed March 17, 2024. https://earthjustice.org/case/navahine-v-hawaii-department-of-transportation#:~:text=The%20youth%20plaintiffs%2 0in%20this,Willis%20of%20Our%20Children's%20Trust.
[23] Ibid
[24] Castillo, Piper Jones. “Hawaii Climate Lawsuit Can Proceed.” November 14, 2023. The Legal Examiner. https://www.legalexaminer.com/environment/hawaii-climate-lawsuit-can-proceed/