‘A ̄ina
T
HERE’S A HAWAIIAN PROVERB
that says, “The land is a chief,
man is its servant.” Kaua‘i is a
55-minute flight west from the Big Island,and
is the oldest of the archipelago’s major islands,
as its deeply carved emerald valleys show.
‘Āina (land) had a paramount importance
in the traditional cosmology and culture of
the islands. But Tobias Koehler will tell you
that ‘āina was not well ser ved in Hawaii
by modern man’s long and intense cultivation
of sugarcane. Tobias is the director of two
adjoining Kaua‘i south-shore public gardens,
the 80-acre Allerton Garden and the 250-acre
McBryde Garden. Both of these riots of
vegetation are part of the multi-site National
Tropical Botanical Garden.
I stand on a ridge above the McBryde with
Tobias, who was born in Germany, grew up
in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has lived
in Hawaii for 20 years. “Just about every
speck of land you see was once wiped clean
of anything living, and planted in sugarcane,”
he says. “We’re still trying to bring back the
soils and the landscape.”
Acting as a sort of botanical ark of tropical
species, the gardens use sustainable practices
to reintroduce the precepts of aloha ‘āina (love
of the land) and mālama ‘āina (care of theland).
Inthegardens,popularwithbothkama‘āina
(‘childoftheland’ora Hawaiiresident)
andtourists,birdsongfillstheair,andpaths
meanderundertoweringrainforesttrees,
bya splashingwaterfall,andalongsidestands
oftropicalfruittreesandendangeredloulu
palms.Thereareplotsof‘canoeplants’
suchastaroand,ironically,sugarcane,
introducedbyHawaii’sfirstPolynesian
settlersmorethan1,000yearsago.
Thegardenalsopropagatesplants
forreforestation.“Foroneprojectinthe
mountains,weplanted10,000ferns
ofa singlespeciesinanareawhereonly 40
ofthatspeciesexistedbefore,”saysKoehler.
“Thehealingneedstohappennotjustin
thesegardens,butthroughoutHawaii.”
A combined garden tour starts at ` 4,200
(www.ntbg.org; Timings: 10.30 am – 2.30 pm).123