“Just as a plant wilts and loses strength in the absence of water, Hawaiian life has suffered as access to water diminished through the dominance of foreign beliefs, values, practices and concepts of private property.”(Martin 1996).

            Our natural resources are dying. To reverse this effect, different interest groups have pushed for conservation and
resource management to varying but ultimately unsuccessful degrees. Of those interest groups, indigenous people who are historically and culturally tied to the land and recourses at the center of the issue, have the most at stake.  It’s this historical connection and dependency – having grown, lived and learned from the land, which is the key to saving our natural resources. Unfortunately, our governments, commercial corporations and environmentalists, have turned a blind eye to the indigenous people and their centuries of experience in responsibly utilizing and respecting our resources, and have allowed for our resources to continually wither.  The only way to help alleviate this injustice as well as effectively improve the management of natural resources is to adopt indigenous land management systems, and incorporate indigenous knowledge into research. This is difficult particularly because of the difference of world views that indigenous groups of people and those who create land management systems hold. Whereas many worldviews held by indigenous people are holistic and harmonious with nature, recognizing both the intrinsic and instrumental value in everything, other worldviews are anthropocentric and both economically and scientifically driven. To demonstrate this, I will focus on the water management practices of the ancient Hawaiian people of Polynesia between the 15^th and 19^th century, as well as contemporary environmental issues in Hawai’i. 

1. Brief History
2. Ancient Hawaiian Land Division and Water Rights
3. Sugar Barons
4. The New Law As Deemed by the Supreme Court
5. Contemporary Native Hawaiian Issues
6. Conclusion