On Saturday, residents of Kaua’i and guests from throughout Hawaii celebrated the inaugural Ko’olau Limu Festival.
The term “limu” describes the wide range of edible algae that may be found on the coral reefs that encircle the Hawaiian Islands. It is an iconic part of Hawaiian cuisine, varying in color, shape, taste, and texture: It’s highly likely that anyone who has tried poke, an internationally renowned raw fish salad, has also had limu.
The northern Garden Isle shoreline’s Anahola Beach Park served as the venue for the festival on August 17.
“My lineage is from limu pickers,” Ko’olau Limu Project leader Nālani Kāneakua stated. “In Anahola, my great-grandmother, great-great-great-grandparents, and my grandmother worked as limu pickers.
“Anahola is synonymous with the word limu,” Kāneakua said. “You get limu,” someone from Anahola village would probably approach you if you knew them.
At the age of three, Kāneakua, a chef who is semiretired, started harvesting limu with her father. Through the Hosea Lovell Foundation, a nonprofit organization created in his honor, the Ko’olau Limu Project advances limu culture and conservation.
Under a big tent on the grounds of Anahola Beach Park, more than 20 groups presented booths alongside food merchants and the local Tahitian dance company Tumoana. Numerous individuals represented limu hui, or Hawaiian Island societies. There were also commercial limu operations, such as Ocean Era of Kailua-Kona on the Big Island, and conservation organizations.
Neil Sims, cofounder and CEO of Ocean Era, and his spouse Kate eagerly shared samples of sea grapes and lepe-o-Hina. The sea grapes burst in the tongue like long strings of tiny, vivid green orbs. The juicy red lepe-o-Hina sprigs were abundant. Grown on land in vats filled with fresh seawater, both species burst with the ocean’s salty tang.
“Our research has been concentrated on discovering new fish species, followed by limu and exploring methods to increase the production of the seafood that we all adore consuming,” Sims stated.
At the moment, Ocean Era supplies wholesalers and eateries around the state with a variety of limu flavors, in addition to KTA Super Stores on the Big Island. Within the next year, Sims and his colleagues, who are now working on land, intend to set up a “limu array” eight miles offshore of Kona.
Every day, the submersible growth platform would get closer to the surface and fall 200 meters every night.
“We would have the limu offshore, but there is a problem: where are the limu’s nutrients? Where’s the manure for it? stated Sims. “Hawai’i’s stunning blue seas are incredibly deficient in nutrients.
He went on, “There are a lot more nutrients in deep water.” “We would have the array of limu.” descend into the deeper water to take up the nutrients, then during the day, bring it back to the top to engage in photosynthetic processes.
Another Kailua-Kona-based business, Symbrosia, advertised at a nearby booth how it uses limu kohu, or Asparagopsis taxiformis, to make SeaGraze, a feed that it says lowers livestock methane emissions by more than 80%.
Members of the statewide community organization Kuaʻāina Ulu ‘Auamo engaged with the public in several locations during the Ko‘olau Limu Festival. Annual gatherings for the 50-person KUA Limu Hui network of limu practitioners have been held, most recently in April on O’ahu.
Coordinator of limu hui Malia Heimuli stated, “One of the challenges that a lot of our limu practitioners are facing is that limu knowledge is not being passed down to our younger generations.” “The number of limu eaters has decreased over time. Although limu is present in our poke and poke bowls, many of our local limu lack ono [taste], particularly among our younger generations.
Heimuli claims that urbanization has lowered the quality of runoff required for limu growth on nearshore reefs, which has resulted in a fall in wild limu.
“Our oceans and other kai (sea or seawater) places are not receiving a lot of wai [fresh water] coming down into them. “Wai is an essential resource that our marine ecosystem requires,” the speaker stated. Many mistakenly believe that it is simply salt water, but it’s not. Because wai carries nutrients from the land that our fish, limu, and other marine species depend on to survive, we need it to flow into those regions.
The Ko’olau Limu Festival was praised by the emcee on Saturday as the inaugural event of many more limu festivals to be conducted in Kaua’i in the future.
“I have always had an immense affection for the ocean, and I still gather limu to this day,” Kāneakua declared. “I always say that I get grabbed by the limo.”
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