Hawaiian cultural and natural resource advocate - Hoku Cody
About Hoku Cody
Hoku Cody, a Native Hawaiian, seabird biologist, and life-long ocean lover, protector, and advocate advocates for community stewardship in actions, that revitalize traditional rights within Hawaiʻi natural and cultural resource management industries. Hoku works with the National Ocean Protection Coalition to create and supports marine protected areas. Hoku is working to have the Pacific Remote Islands designated a National Marine Sanctuary.
Hoku on Hawaiian Ocean Conservation, Coral Reefs, and Indigenous Stewardship
Hoku grew up in Hawaii, rooted in a culture deeply connected to the ocean. Some of her strongest memories—and family ties—are shaped by life along the water. While she initially studied media design in college, it was there she realized a career connected to the ocean was possible beyond traditional roles. That discovery led her to pursue marine science and biology.
Her work focuses on protecting coral reef ecosystems, which she sees as critical to ocean health. In Hawai‘i, reefs face growing pressure from coastal development and heavy recreational use, making conservation an ongoing challenge.
Hoku also speaks to the importance of Native Hawaiian perspectives in conservation. Though Native Hawaiians make up a small percentage of the population, their cultural responsibility to care for the land and ocean—passing it on better to future generations—remains strong. She explains practices like “salvage appropriate,” where deceased seabirds, often lost due to plastic ingestion or human impact, are respectfully used in cultural ceremonies. These birds continue to hold meaning, serving as indicators of ecosystem health, climate patterns, and environmental change.
She highlights the significance of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, a vast and ecologically important region southwest of Hawai‘i. Expanding protections—from 50 to 200 nautical miles—would strengthen conservation efforts, particularly in areas like Palmyra Atoll, a globally important research site.
Native Hawaiian communities are advocating for three key priorities: a culturally appropriate name for the sanctuary, full environmental protection, and a co-management system that includes Indigenous leadership alongside federal oversight.
Hoku’s message is clear: effective ocean conservation must center both science and culture—protecting ecosystems while honoring the knowledge and voices of the people who have stewarded them for generations.
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00:00:00 Pamela Ferris-Olson Today on the Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series on womenmindthewater.com, I am speaking with Hoku Cody, a native Hawaiian seabird biologist and lifelong ocean lover, protector and advocate. Hoku advocates for community, stewardship and actions that revitalize traditional rights within Hawaiʻi’s natural and cultural resource management industry. Hoku currently works with the National Ocean Protection Coalition in this capacity to create and supports marine protected areas. Hoku, who also is working to have the Pacific Remote Islands designated and a National Marine Sanctuary.
The Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast on womenmindthewater.com engages artivists in conversation about their work and explores their connection with the ocean. Through their stories, Wo(men) Mind the Water hopes to inspire and encourage action to protect the ocean and her creatures.
Today I'm speaking with Hoku Cody, a Native Hawaiian and life-long ocean lover, protector, and advocate. She acknowledges a deep kinship with the ocean’s creatures through a broad lens that marries conservation, community, protection, diversity, equity, inclusion and culture. Hoku co-founded a program that works in partnership with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. This program employs the principles of community stewardship into management actions at Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge. Hoku also initiated The Kiamanu Project. It facilitates a multi-stakeholder cooperative, for the procurement and repository, of salvage-appropriate seabirds. The cooperative effort revitalizes the use of seabird parts and feathers, in socio-religious ceremonies across Hawaiʻi.
00:02:06 Pamela Ferris-Olson Welcome Hoku. I feel extremely grateful that we have the technology to connect you in Hawaiʻi some 5000 miles away and six hours apart. I am honored that you are joining me today to talk about Hawaiʻi. I’d like to begin by having you briefly provide for our listeners an overview of Hawaiʻi’s history. Hawaiʻi was an internationally recognized kingdom until 1893 when American and European interests overthrew the Hawaiʻian monarchy. Five years later, Hawaiʻi was annexed by the US. Nearly 60 more years passed before it became our 50th state. It was another 30 years before the U.S. government formally apologized for its role in the overthrow of Hawaiʻi’s native government.
00:02:59 Pamela Ferris-Olson Hoku, let's talk about Hawaiʻi in broader terms. I imagine most listeners have a picture in their minds of Hawaiʻi. I think we might all agree that it consists of a group of islands situated in the Pacific Ocean. Some of you probably think of Hawaiʻi in terms of volcanoes and vacations. I'm not sure how many think about Hawaiʻi as a homeland. Hoku, it might be helpful for you to provide insight into how a native Hawaiian views Hawaiʻi.
00:03:32 Hoku Cody Thank you so much for having me and a great summary of the history of Hawaiʻi in relationship to the United States and for me, you know, I am not nearly as old as Hawaii is as a state. I was born in the 80s and as long as I've been alive, I grew up and been fed by and held by the ocean.
00:03:58 Hoku Cody I think there are different experiences that people have being from Hawaii as well as being native Hawaiʻian. For me, I come from a family of ocean people. So naturally for me I grew up by the ocean. Many of my days and my off time outside of the obligations of, you know, family and school or even within the obligations of family, we were by the ocean. Some of my most formative as well as my most happiest memories are near the ocean. I grew up in a musical family. We played a lot of music both at the ocean and at home. I also danced and played sports and for me, there was better place. I went to university, originally was a graphics and new media major and got a bachelors in that. I found out that it was possible to have a job at the ocean that was not a surfer or professional surfer or a lifeguard. That you could in fact have a job that spoke towards or even acted towards helping or taking care of the ocean. And so that's kind of how I landed as a marine scientist or marine biologist. I identify with Hawaiʻi as very much the ocean. It is my home ocean.
00:05:27 Pamela Ferris-Olson So what would you say is the most pressing issue or the most pressing issues that face the Hawaiʻian coast?
00:05:35 Hoku Cody You know, when we look at life in the islands and as well as if you look to traditional knowledge, we have this creation story called the Kumulipo. It is a creation story that speaks of Hawai’ian origins, of a Hawai’ian existence. The first things were born out of the darkness, the darkness being the start of life. Some of the first things that were born was Ko'a, which is a coral polyp. So fundamentally we would look at coral reef ecosystems as some of the most important things to take care of on an island.
00:06:23 Hoku Cody Today, there's a lot of coral. Coral reef ecosystems along our shoreline are inundated by development and many people wanting to go and be part of that. While we are more than happy to share our place with the world, we hope they get the message that without coral near the islands, without corals, as an extension of our lands, it would be really hard to sustain an island lifestyle or ecosystem. I would say that that is important.
00:07:04 Pamela Ferris-Olson Thank you for including the Hawai’ian cultural perspective. I'm wondering how much of that is considered in decision-making. I believe that approximately 10% of the state's current population is native Hawai’ian or Pacific Island. So how does that affect the decision-making process, particularly when it comes to conservation and preservation issues?
00:07:31 Hoku Cody I guess personally speaking I would consider conservation to be an uphill battle in Hawai’i. Politically, there's, as you said, 10% of the population is Native Hawai’ian. We have a small but mighty perspective, deep sense of responsibility. Some would call it an ancient mandate to protect and love it and make sure that it remains as pristine as it was when I received it. I hope to pass it on to the next eneration in as good or better condition.
00:08:19 Pamela Ferris-Olson In the bio that I was provided, it said that you were a seabird biologist. In the intro, I said “salvage-appropriate” when it came to seabird parts used in socio- religious action. I wonder if you could define what salvage appropriate means and how it relates to conservation.
00:08:52 Hoku Cody Sure. Most times when I say we're going to use sea birds to incorporate or revitalize practices within traditional ceremonies, people tend to think that we are taking live birds and killing them. And to be clear, that's not the case. When we say salvage that most definitely means that they are already dead. You know we either collect them fresh dead or we provide a system where others work. You know, there's a collaborative effort. So maybe perhaps myself or practitioners, cultural practitioners, perhaps are not the ones collecting. We have to relay messages to the scientists, the biologists or managers of what would qualify to be part of traditional ceremonies. So salvage-appropriate quite simply means that these birds are dead and they could have died from a number of things. On Papahanaumokuakea we have birds that are salvaged. Often they die from plastic ingestion. They eat plastic and become malnourished. They die and we gather them at a point of their dying process that's more fresh than decayed. And then in the main Hawai’ian islands they are often procured from partnerships with wildlife rehabilitation centers and National Wildlife Refuge. Places where you have people cohabitating with birds, you will have issues of light pollution. Perhaps cars will drive and hit them. So they die due to other factors as well as having plastic in them. We work closely with managers, biologists and folks who have access and ability to take these birds. In wildlife rehabilitation center, once they’ve done necropsy, determining what the death is, instead of tossing it out, haphazardly or hastily, we say ‘hey, maybe consider an opportunity to have this bird live a little longer in the hearts and minds of the community through these ceremonies. In this way, you know, allows this conversation to happen, to go from the hands of federally protected into the hands of culturally protected. We have an opportunity to not just see our seabirds, but also save our relationship to these places and each other. See birds as a whole, a living resource very vital to the lifestyle and to the survivability of oceanic people and island people.
00:12:30 Hoku Cody They're not just useful when they're dead. They're useful alive. They tell you all kinds of things. Seabirds are nature’s alarm system. They tell you, you know, if you have seabirds in your community that it is an indication of a well maintained, very ecologically sound environment. You have the ability to tell the weather. You have the ability to tell the climate patterns of the year. Usually seasonal in the way they come back to land. So a lot of their nesting habitats can give other indications to environmental patterns. And then, as you know, as they pass on and transition into the next realm they're often celebrated within ceremonies using leis made of feather lace. They can be used as part of staff with feathers on them. Almost all of them are an indication of the ability to communicate with a realm that we as humans are not able to. So in a Hawai’ian perspective, you know, feathers and birds in Hawai’ian, the word for bird is manu. So manu, especially sea birds and forest birds, are amazing conduits of mana. Mana meaning the spiritual energy of you or your family and your people. So the presence of seabirds in your community is a very rich and abundant life.
00:14:30 Pamela Ferris-Olson Let's turn our discussion to the Pacific Remote Island National Marine Sanctuary. Isn't there already a Remote Islands National Marine Monument? Tell me the difference between a National Marine Monument and a National Marine Sanctuary?
00:14:48 Hoku Cody Yes there is a National Marine Monument that exists within the Pacific Remote Islands. The Pacific Remote Islands make up five units. To glaze over a lot of the details, there's five units across this mid area of the Pacific. I'd say it's about 1000 miles southwest of Hawai’ian. Within those five units, there's actually seven islands and atolls altogether . When the protections were originally pursued in 2009, they were given National Marine Monument status through the Antiquities Act with protections from the shoreline to the 50 mile or 59 local mile zone in the ocean. And then in 2014 the PRI Coalition known as the Pacific Remote Islands Coalition was formed to try and expand those protections from the 50 nautical mile out to the 200 nautical mile EZ, which is the exclusive economic zone. So in 2014, they tried to protect all five units to the full extent. And was only able through the Antiquities Act to protect three of those five units. The two that remained were Howland and Baker Island, as well as Kingman Reef and Palmyra Atoll, usually known today as one of the premier research field stations in the world. It’s part of one of the last remaining wild healthy marine ecosystems in the world.
This year the PRI Coalition has pursued to finish the protections, to continue completing those protections for those last two units of Howland and Baker Island and for Palmyra and Kingman Reef.
00:16:53 Pamela Ferris-Olson What's the current status of the Pacific Remote Islands National Marine Sanctuary?
00:17:00 Hoku Cody Currently the Pacific Remote Islands National Marine Sanctuary has just finished what's called the public scoping comment period. Which is what I was just alluding to. The public had an opportunity to provide input as to whether the nomination was legit or not and if they want to give critiques towards it or caveats. That public comment period closed on June 2nd. And so now we wait. The public, including myself, we wait for the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries to review all the comments, analyze them, and incorporate them into the Federal Register. And then from there, the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries drafts a management plan according to the nomination and the comments.
00:17:58 Hoku Cody And then what? What happens after that is when there’s a call for a second public comment period, but that's not the formal term. What that means is after the management plan is drafted the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries goes back to the public again. It releases the management draft management plan and says, “Hey, here's our draft given all the comments and the nomination. And here's our draft management plan.” They will go out to the public again asking for comments and critiques towards the management plan and that won't happen, let's see it's June, it won't happen till next year sometime maybe February, March or April.
00:18:39 Pamela Ferris-Olson If there's some cultural input from Native Hawai’ians and Pacific Islanders, what would they like to see on the management of the Pacific Island, remote Pacific Islands National Marine Sanctuary for Pacific Remote Islands?
00:19:14 Hoku Cody There were three big requests in the nomination. The first one was that the entire area be fully protected, to the full extent of the Exclusive Economic Zone. The second one is that it be renamed from the Pacific Remote Islands. Which is kind of already separate from the nomination. It was kind of already in play to be renamed. We are hoping that the process of renaming happens in a culturally appropriate and collaborative framework. Meaning we would like input from the Pacific Islanders to help rename this area. And the third ask is that the National Marine Sanctuary has a co-management system that is inclusive of Pacific Island voices as the equal at the decision-making equal to the level of decision-making as that of the federal managers.
00:20:03 Pamela Ferris-Olson OK. Well, let's explore that for just a minute. The issue of balancing ocean with social justice. I think our listeners already support efforts to promote a healthy ocean but may not have considered how management decisions may have on segments of a local population. How can we be more mindful?
00:20:24 Hoku Cody Citizens in the work toward achieving a healthier ocean while also balancing cultural local cultural issue. I really, really deeply appreciate this question. You know when we speak of the ocean, we tend to think of it as separate from our life, whether we are from an island community or from the continent or you know from somewhere else in the world. But you know, as humans on Earth, we have to find ways that humbly and lovingly remind ourselves that we are of this world which is 2/3 ocean. And so when we speak of social justice and ocean, you know, environmentalism it's to me it's one and the same. How do we do better? You know it's recognizing that everything we do impacts the ocean. And it's hard. To kind of equate what we do in perhaps the Rocky Mountains and how that affects the ocean that's thousands and thousands of miles away.
00:21:35 Hoku Cody One of the biggest ever present problems in the ocean is plastic pollution. So much of what we consume and what we need for convenience in our lives, you know, comes from the privilege of having OR comes from having plastic helping us get it to us a little more conveniently. And I think that, you know, addressing plastic pollution on a daily basis is an important thing to look at on a larger scale. When we look at social justice as intersected with the ocean. There's so many things that we can do every day. I will start first by saying sometimes we fight for a healthy ocean and yet we do it at the expense of a healthy community. And I think that, you know, as Islanders or even just people on this earth, we have to recognize that a healthy environment are one and the same.
00:22:47 Pamela Ferris-Olson So where can listeners learn more about the sanctuary?
00:22:50 Hoku Cody The Pacific Remote Island Sanctuary. They can learn more at protectpri.com. That is the coalition’s website. We've got a bunch of information there to look at. Feel free to e-mail protectPRI@gmail.com. Feel free to reach out and e-mail us. We're there to chat and talk story.
00:23:16 Pamela Ferris-Olson Hoku, I am really grateful to you for being on the Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast. I expect listeners have gained new eyes with which to look at Hawai’i and in the challenges that face our ocean. I'd like for my listeners that I've been speaking with hosting Hoku Cody, a Native Hawai’ian, an ocean advocate, a seabird biologist, and a proponent for community stewardship in approaching conservation and management issues.
Hoku Cody is the latest guest on the Wo(man) Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast. The series can be viewed on womenmindthewater.com, on Museum on Main Street and YouTube. An audio-only version of this podcast is available on womenmindthewater.com, on iTunes and Spotify. Wo(men) Mind the Water is grateful to Jaine Rice for the use of her song Women of Water. All rights for the Wo(men) Mind the Water name and logo belong to Pam Ferris-Olson.
This is Pam Ferris-Olson.
