I hack at the husk of a young coconut until the shell cracks and reveals a button of white flesh. I pop the top with the tip of my tool to create a container of the sweetest water and take a sip. Fresh wai niu, coconut water. A luxury in Hawaiʻi — but it shouldn’t be.
Contrary to the paradisiacal image of Hawaiʻi lined with swaying coconut trees, the precious palm is in the biggest fight of its life.
“Nowadays when people talk about coconuts, they talk about death, about CRB,” coconut rhinoceros beetle, said Manu Aluli Meyer, co-founder of NiU Now, a cultural agroforestry movement to preserve coconuts — and consequently, people. She grounded volunteers, inspiring the workday in the adjacent coconut grove. “But this is about life, the Tree of Life.”
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Each month, Aunty Manu and Indrajit Gunasekara co-lead community workdays at UH West Oʻahu to care for an uluniu, traditional coconut grove. Together, they weave cultural knowledge to reconnect a once-thriving coconut community with Kumu Niu, the sacred plant relative.
In ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, “kumu” may be defined as source, foundation, and without coincidence, teacher; “niu” is coconut. Kumu Niu is revered across the Pacific as the “Tree of Life,” the source of never-before-touched water suspended above as nourishing gifts. Every part of the plant is life-giving — food, medicine, ceremony, tools, shelter, and cultivation.
Damage from coconut rhinoceros beetles is most evident in the V-shaped cuts in palm fronds, as seen above in a construction site near Ala Moana Center. But there are even greater threats to the palms. (Thomas Heaton/Civil Beat/2025)
At NiU Now workdays, Aunty Manu and Indrajit acknowledge the importance of speaking about CRB, including prevention and treatment, but they emphasize something deeper: the relationship with niu.
CRB is a fast‑spreading invasive pest, but not the first or primary threat to coconuts. The beetle follows a long line of foreign impacts that cleared ancient groves for development and plantation farming, ornamentalized trees by castrating the coconuts for liability concerns, and separated people from their plant relatives and practices. Still, for many, Kumu Niu are more than trees; they are living ancestors holding intergenerational wisdom.
The greatest threat to coconuts is not just a beetle — it’s people. CRB accelerates a pre‑existing crisis. Introduced nearly 13 years ago, the beetle benefits from the extractive practices that began with colonization over two centuries ago.
The erasure of ʻike kūpuna, ancestral knowledge, of caring for coconuts created the perfect conditions for CRB to infiltrate an already vulnerable ecosystem. Protecting coconuts isn’t an isolated pest issue; it’s about food security, land rights, cultural heritage, sustainability and responsible resource management.
In 1866, farmer Luhua urged his community through the newspaper “Ka Nupepa Kuokoa”:
“My fellow farmers, let us plant coconuts. Before, when our ancient chiefs were living all of our beaches were made beautiful by the coconut groves.
“But we are the new generation who have grown tired of coconut trees and let them fall. These beautiful groves which made Hawaii proud are vanishing.”
It’s hard to imagine that Waikīkī was once one of Hawaiʻi’s most productive agricultural areas. Home to an uluniu called Helumoa, planted in the 1600s by chief Kākuhihewa, nearly 10,000 coconut trees fed and enriched Hawaiʻi’s royalty and community. Today, most trees have been replaced by hotels and tourists. Look up and you’ll see no fruit; coconuts are routinely removed lest they drop on the heads below.
Beyond cultural significance, uluniu are ecological systems that inherently function as carbon banks and natural climate solutions. Coconut trees provide windbreaks, erosion control, shade and promote biocultural, regenerative production.
Warnings from Pacific neighbors who have battled the beetle for years and fight for their vital life source were not heeded quickly enough in Hawaiʻi. Today, inconsistent CRB strategies utilize emerging science without sufficient data, like chemical injections that render trees unsafe to consume — a continuation of colonization in modern times.
Today, grocery stores are stocked with coconut milk and water sourced everywhere else but Hawaiʻi, largely from the Philippines, Thailand, or Vietnam, where coconut traditions have endured.
At face value, coconuts are one of the most intimidating fruits. They are unlike mangos that can be plucked and peeled. Coconuts require experienced climbers, the knowledge to process at various stages, and a community of committed caretakers.
There is no better time or reason to plant more coconut trees.
People and plants have co‑existed since time immemorial, and today is no different. The community must deepen its understanding of safe CRB mitigation and coconut protection practices that perpetuate the people‑plant connection. The best way to combat CRB is to care for the plant and its stewards, join a coconut community, and help rebuild relationship.
At the UH West Oʻahu uluniu workdays, the blazing sun illuminates the NiU Now shirts that read, “Kupu ka niu, kupu ke kanaka. When coconuts grow, humanity flourishes.” Volunteers from across Hawaiʻi and beyond continue to show up, dig, plant, weed, set net traps, learn, and listen.
Despite the looming threat of CRB, there is no better time or reason to plant more coconut trees, drink more fresh coconut water, weave more coconut baskets.
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