Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation

In the swirling volcanic steam and misty rain forest of Kilauea volcano’s east rift zone on the island of Hawai’i, two forces meet head on. Geothermal development interests, seeking to clear the rain forest for drilling operations, are opposed by native Hawaiians seeking to stop the desecration of the fire goddess, Pele. Pele is a living deity fundamental to Hawaiian spiritual belief. She is the eruption, with its heat, lava and steam. Her family takes the form of forest plants, animals and other natural forces. But geothermal development interests see Pele as simply a source of electricity. When Hawaiians take the issue to court, they find that nature-based religions are not respected by U.S. law.

Although the mountain volcano Mauna Kea last erupted around 4,000 years ago, it is still hot today, the center of a burning controversy over whether its summit should be used for astronomical observatories or preserved as a cultural landscape sacred to the Hawaiian people. For five years the documentary production team Nā Maka o ka 'Āina ("the eyes of the land") captured on video the seasonal moods of Mauna Kea's unique 14,000-foot summit, the richly varied ecosystems that extend from sea level to alpine zone, the legends and stories that reveal the mountain's geologic and cultural history, and the political turbulence surrounding the efforts to protect the most significant temple in the islands: the mountain itself.

This short documentary chronicles a four-month period between 1979 and 1980 when residents of Hawaii's Sand Island "squatter" community attempted to resist eviction from the Honolulu shoreline - resulting in displacement, arrests, and the destruction of a community.

From an ancient burial site at Honokahua, Maui, to the streets of Honolulu, the issue of protecting ancestral remains from development is brought passionately to the public’s attention by Hawaiian descendants. A few days before Christmas, 1988, a 24-hour vigil is held at the state capitol to protest the excavation of almost 900 ancient burials from the sands of Maui’s Honokahua bay by archeologists contracted to clear the area for construction of a new Ritz Carlton resort. The effort to stop the desecration is met with overwhelming support from the community and soon an agreement is reached between the state government and the developer to move the hotel site and reinter the bones. This collective action eventually resulted in legislation to repatriate ancestral remains from universities and museums throughout the world and protect burial sites throughout Hawai‘i.

Recorded in 1983 during a ten-day gathering in Vanuatu, a newly independent island nation in the south Pacific that had recently declared itself a nuclear-free zone, this program takes a look at the Pacific-wide movement towards independence and de-nuclearization. 
Testimony is presented by Pacific islanders and Pacific Rim representatives who experience various aspects of the nuclear cycle, from uranium mining in Australia and Canada to nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands and Tahiti. Health, social, economic, military and political effects of the nuclear presence in the Pacific are the subject of the conference and the focus of a march through downtown Port Vila to the French consulate on Bastille Day.
 


The Hawaiian system of land use allowed access to all resources in the ahupua‘a, a land division that stretched from mountain to sea. Within the ahupua‘a, highly specialized technologies such as fishponds and lo‘i kalo (taro gardens) ensured an abundance of food. 
Our Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) ancestors achieved a rare balance between meeting their needs and enhancing the productivity of the land and sea. Their social system ensured survival from generation to generation.