Streams connect the land and sea.  For a variety of reasons, most of the streams entering Maunalua Bay no longer run year-round and have been channelized (straightened) and hardened by cement in the process of urbanization.  Wailupe Stream is the only remaining non-hardened stream.  Channelized Streams have created a host of issues impacting the health of the bay.

Traditional Hawaiian and Pacific Island practices took into account the linkages between land and sea, with a clear understanding of the need for upstream-downstream stewardship.  The ahupua‘a traditional Hawaiian land management system extended from ridge to reef and was an effective way of addressing the protection of island ecosystems as opposed to the western system that draws an artificial border separating land and sea for regulatory purposes. 

 

Natural wetlands and Hawaiian fishponds served as filters of water coming from the land before entering the bay.  Today, wetlands and fishponds are scarce, having been converted into other uses. For example, at the east end of the Bay is a former 523-acre fishpond and wetland that was converted in the 1970s into housing and a private recreational salt-water marina.  But nature still prevails as part of Kuapā Pond and Paiko Lagoon provide habitat to the endangered Hawaiian Stilt, ae`o, as well as other migratory birds.

Paiko Lagoon Photo by Adam Taylor