This two-year project will use the Service First Authority to assist two communities in Hawai’i to develop resilience plans in partnership with Native Hawaiian, State, and Federal organizations. This partnership will build on existing DOI-supported projects that already have begun to articulate the resilience and adaptive capacity of Hawai’i’s ecosystems, such as the President’s Resilient Lands and Waters Initiative and the Pacific Islands Climate Change Cooperative (PICCC) Hawaiian Islands Terrestrial Adaptation Initiative. It aligns with the Service First goals of enhancing mission delivery through interagency collaboration and improving operational efficiency by bringing together knowledge, information, and decision support tools via a singular initiative. It aligns with the DOI Strategic Plan, principally the goal to Protect America’s Cultural and Heritage Resources and the mission area of BUILDING A LANDSCAPE-LEVEL UNDERSTANDING OF OUR RESOURCES, by providing a biocultural framework for resilience planning at scales relevant to island communities (landscape-level), informed by both local/traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and cutting-edge, actionable science.
While community emergency preparedness plans are becoming more common in Hawai’i, few communities have engaged in forward-looking resilience planning that encompasses projections of environmental change and variability (specifically changes in precipitation and temperature) and the accompanying impacts to ecosystems and their services. The PICCC is uniquely posed to support community resilience planning due to a diverse membership of 30 agencies and organizations that are leaders in natural and cultural resource management, a broad network of experts throughout Hawai’i and the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands, and producers of state-of-the-art science. By working with two communities in a robust co-development process, this project will provide a model for resiliency planning in Native Hawaiian communities across the Hawaiian Islands.
Specific Objectives
Objective 1 - Build Capacity for Native Hawaiian Communities and Organizations to Engage in Resiliency Planning
Objective 2 - Develop Two Community Resilience Plans to Serve as Models for other Hawaiian Communities
Objective 3 - Develop Greater Efficiency Between Federal, State, Native Hawaiian, and Local Partners in Understanding and Responding to Changing Environmental Conditions
