“Where are the Hawaiians?” asked Catherine Bauknight when she visited Maui to take a break from her schedule as a photojournalist. Hawaii is a beautiful paradise, but finding the locals is difficult. “I’ve always been attracted to the cultures of people, no matter what my assignment is. It’s the DNA of their ancient knowledge,” Bauknight says. Catherine travels across the continents to cover intensive news stories. Her assignments for national publications include Bad Water in Ethiopia, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in Beijing, the Renaissance of the Catawba Indians, and Tuberculosis in Peru.

After a year of asking, Bauknight discovered, through the voice of native Hawaiians, they had been a self-sustaining and sovereign people, taking care of the land, and receiving the necessary resources from the land in return to sustain life. The Hawaiian’s grew crops and lived off the land thousands of miles away from any other human contact. They preserved the purity of their waters. They hunted and fished to feed their families only during seasons that were compatible to sustain the survival of the fish and animals. Their ancient ways, handed down through many generations, also included growing medicinal herbs and using them to maintain good health.

Today native Hawaiians are facing issues of overdevelopment, and diverted and polluted waters. They have lost their rights to inherited land guaranteed by royal patents. In many cases, their land is being sold to developers. The Hawaiians are being denied access to their lands. They are no longer stewards of the land and cannot live off the land.

During her research, Bauknight found out where the Hawaiian people are located. She learned the locals were oppressed as part of an illegal takeover of their islands and the house arrest of their queen in 1893. Bauknight decided to develop a video documentary to give native Hawaiians a voice. The documentary promotes controlling development and communicates ways of preserving the land that Hawaiians have known since ancient times.

Three years later the documentary, Hawaii a Voice for Sovereignty, is in production. Hawaiians, in intimate interviews, reveal information that was passed down in their culture for centuries. The film shows the importance of everyone working together, as one people, to help save the land and natural elements. Taking responsibility today, just as Hawaiians have for centuries, is the only way to continue the beautiful paradise called Hawaii.

Hawaiians approved and supported the documentary short that was screened in 2007 at the Maui Film Festival and the Hana Film Festival. “The Birth of Vanishing Cultures, a series on indigenous cultures on the verge of being lost, is what we are working on now” said Bauknight.

Hawaiian’s are creating a network of people working together to enhance all life and to raise the bar for the power of thought. They work towards creating peace and well being in our own space. The world can learn from this ancient cultural knowledge; protect the land, protect the air, give back to the earth, and bring forth life to share. This is the basis of the Hawaiian culture, the aloha, love of “Ha- va – ii”, the breath, the water, and the land.

The ancient message of aloha is simple…love is a virtue, share it. Their cycle of life, love of the people and love of the land, must continue in order to support caring for the land and caring for the people. When we learn this from Hawaiians, we can live in paradise too.

You can help raise awareness of the need to preserve Hawaii by becoming a sponsor of the film. For more information, visit the website: www.catherinebauknight.com