The 800-Year-Old Fishpond That’s Still Feeding Hawai‘i

Source: Atlas Obscura

During quiet moments in the day, after he’s checked the water quality, given tours, and pulled weeds, Keli‘i Kotubetey pauses to reflect on the hard work and creativity that enabled his ancestors to build the 88-acre He‘eia Fishpond 800 years ago.

The word “fishpond” doesn’t do it justice. Hawaiians blocked off the Pacific Ocean by constructing a 1.3-mile long lava rock wall— by hand— then harnessed the unique reservoir for aquaculture.

“I think about how this took hundreds and hundreds of people to build this,” he says, gesturing to the calm waters of the fishpond. “Then a whole other crew of people made food for them each day, and others cared for the kids. That’s community. That’s ingenuity.”

For the past 17 years, Kotubetey has managed and helped rebuild this pond in He‘eia, a small town nestled against the emerald cliffs of the Ko‘olau mountains along O‘ahu’s eastern coast. In 2001, he co-founded Paepae o He‘eia (pronounced “pie-pie oh hay-ee-uh”), a nonprofit dedicated to restoring and preserving the local fishpond. He now serves as the organization’s assistant executive director.

Traditional Hawaiian fishponds were engineered to feed entire communities. At its peak, He‘eia fishpond produced 150 to 300 pounds of fish per acre each year, says Kotubetey– nearly 10 tons from this pond alone. Fishponds also served as important communal gathering places. That community is what inspired Kotubetey and seven of his friends to start the nonprofit.

Kotubetey, a Hawaiian born and raised on O‘ahu, says they wanted to share the story of the He‘eia fishpond and traditional Hawaiian aquaculture with others, and involve the community in restoring it, and eventually eating from it, just as their ancestors did.

“This place needed a lot of love,” says Kotubetey, “but it has the potential to feed us again, and not just our body, but our mind and soul.”

When the He‘eia Fishpond was built, such ponds were prevalent in Hawai‘i. Fishponds were usually built along shorelines with shallow reefs. Lava rock walls were assembled to form pools of different shapes and sizes in which fish from the ocean would be trapped, raised, and harvested….

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