Carnegie Discoverers: Can Conservation Areas Support People and Biodiversity? A Case-study of Biocultural Stewardship in the Hawaiian Islands

Nicole Heller, PhD, Associate Curator,
Anthropocene, Carnegie Museum of Natural History

Protected areas are designed to protect biodiversity, but they are also linked to the dispossession of land and lifeways for local and indigenous people. To improve conservation, scientists and local and indigenous people are collaborating to revitalize place-based stewardship traditions and restore land and community health. A case study of Hawaiian’aina stewardship and how it is responding to contemporary struggles related to water scarcity, over-tourism, invasive species, and Hawaiian sovereignty politics and, more generally, the importance of land stewardship for effective and just conservation in the Anthropocene will be discussed.

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