SUMMARY
This piece centers itself in pa?akai (seasalt) practices as providing a critical lens for an ethnoecology of the rural Puna coastline on the island of Hawai?i. Grounded by ethnographic engagement with ?Oiwi (Native Hawaiian) tradition, interweaving mo?olelo (stories) from kupuna (ancestors, elders) alongside contemporary praxis in Puna, Hawai?i Island, we explore the role of pa?akai gathering, limu (seaweed) provisioning, and offshore spring water collection in what we are calling coastal care—the reciprocal relationship of care between communities and coasts. Hawaiian cultural practices around pa?akai are a striking home for biocultural linkages including practitioners’ understandings of human and other-than-human wellbeing that exemplify the diversity of cultural dimensions tangibly present in coastal places. Highlighting the plurality of roles culture plays in the sustainable stewardship and wellbeing of coastal places and communities, this work contributes to ongoing discourses around the role of human dimensions in coastal conservation and management. Here we use water, pa‘akai, and limu to make visible what we call the “unseen realm” within contemporary conservation—the persistent blind spots around Indigenous and local culture(s) within conservation policy, planning, and enactment. Encouraging conservation and island sustainability scientists and practitioners to better engage with their blind spots, we identify the need for collaborative coastal management inclusive of ?Oiwi practices and understandings of coastal care with implications for coastal studies in Hawai‘i and in other Indigenous contexts across Oceania.