Collaborative research to inform adaptive comanagement: a framework for the Heʻeia National Estuarine Research Reserve

Globally, an increasing recognition of the importance of ecosystem-based management (EBM), Indigenous resource management (IRM), and Indigenous-led research and management is emerging; yet, case studies within scholarly literature illustrating comprehensive application of these theories and philosophies are scarce. We present the collaborative management model for the Heʻeia National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) as a contemporary Indigenous Community and Conserved Area (ICCA) that has synergistically operationalized these principles, as well as one that approaches research as a reciprocal collaboration with the Indigenous people and local community (IPLC) of place. The Heʻeia NERR was designated in 2017 through a process led by IPLC members in Hawaiʻi. This research framework is aimed at informing EBM within social-ecological systems. It, therefore, serves as an example of a program designed to demonstrate and provide practical solutions for adaptive resource management. The framework of the Heʻeia NERR embraces the values, perspectives, and IRM strategies that have been foundational for the people of the Pacific to thrive sustainably in the context of limited resources for millennia. As a program, the Heʻeia NERR aims to build bridges between coexisting worldviews as a means of informing policy in the realms of conservation and sustainability. We do this by weaving together conventional and Indigenous science to collaboratively develop research and collaboratively produce new knowledge. We examine these issues through the lens of holistic ecosystem services that consider both the reciprocal benefits that humans provide to nature as well as the full range of existential benefits that humans gain from nature. Research collaborations between the Heʻeia NERR and its partners (University of Hawaiʻi, state and federal agencies, and Indigenous-led NGOs operating in the community) are grounded in Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) with applications that will guide a future of enhanced ecosystem services in a changing world.