By Alika Peleholani Garcia
As a first responder during the recent Kona Low storms, I know that addressing the impact of natural disasters on human beings comes first: getting people to safety, protecting their homes when possible, and helping them begin the long road to recovery.
But when the rains stop and the flood waters settle, I wear another hat as the executive director of Kuleana Coral Restoration. In this role, I can see the otherwise unseen impact of such storms below the ocean’s surface and the way that extreme weather is affecting our nearshore reefs – and the long-term cost of this damage to our communities.
After the Kona Lows were over, I went underwater and saw it clearly: a thousand corals torn loose, flipped, or shattered by storm surge waves and flood debris. And that was just a tiny portion of the reef that encircles our entire island.
Across Oʻahu and throughout our pae ʻāina, the damage is real and widespread.
When corals are ripped out, we lose more than coral – we lose shelter for reef life, habitat for fish, and part of the reef’s natural ability to take the punch out of waves before they reach our shoreline. That loss affects our food systems, livelihoods, and community health.
While repairing portions of the reef after the Kona Low damage, Kuleana Coral Restoration recently reached a milestone: 10,000 corals planted and repaired. The number is worth celebrating, but only if we understand what it represents.
A reef is not just coral. A reef is a community: fish moving through structure, crabs sheltering in crevices, shrimp flashing in and out of shade. When coral survives, it becomes structure, and structure invites life back. That’s the neighborhood returning.
But we hold a firm truth alongside the celebration: planting corals is not enough by itself. Corals live within a system shaped by what happens above them. In Hawaiʻi, our reefs sit at the ma kai end of the water cycle where everything collects.
Ma uka to ma kai water carries life. It also carries consequences. Our corals live downstream of our choices; what we allow to happen upstream affects the lived conditions for our reefs downstream. A Kona Low is an acute example of that connection, with damage to the land and stress underwater arriving together.
That connection can feel like a mirror of community health, especially for Kānaka communities trying to persist in a modern world that wasn’t built with our best interests in mind. Reefs get smothered, stressed, and pushed by forces bigger than any single organism can solve alone – not unlike the way that our people experience the socio-economic pressures that keep us from thriving in our homeland or that drive us away.
Coral restoration matters because coral is living architecture. It is housing underwater. When reef structure collapses, the smallest relatives lose shelter first. Planting and repairing corals helps rebuild that structure so life can return.
But just like housing on land, simply building more homes doesn’t solve the housing crisis. If the systemic forces that push families out remain unchanged, the crisis continues. Reefs face the same reality. If upstream pressures don’t change, coral planting becomes temporary.
However, “upstream” doesn’t mean “out of our control.” It means that changes must be made earlier in the system; what we choose, what we tolerate, what we prioritize, and what we build together. Durable reef recovery comes when we align coral restoration work in the ocean with actionable mālama ʻāina, from working to ensure that our freshwater streams are cleaner to making smarter shoreline decisions, and everything in between.
And the urgency is growing. With oceans trending warmer and the possibility of a strong El Niño pattern this year, coral bleaching and more damaging storms become more likely.
When reefs are already weakened they can’t slow waves as well, and storms can hit our coastline harder. That’s why preparation matters: ready crews, ready communities, and a shared plan to respond both above and below sea level.
Planting 10,000 corals is not a finish line. It’s a beginning: repairing the reef neighborhood while strengthening the human community that protects it.
By restoring reefs, our eldest kūpuna, we restore ourselves.
