46 In Hawaiʻi there is a special care for nature and the natural environment. The proverb, “He aliʻi ka ʻāina, he kauwā ke kanaka”—land is chief, man is its servant—sums up this mentality perfectly. The belief that we should shape our actions and behaviors to fit the land instead of the other way around is a common indigenous belief that has allowed our people to live in symbiosis with the natural world for millennia. The more we cherish and protect our environment today, the healthier it will be for future generations. The Hawaiian word for land, ʻāina, is often broken down into the verb, ʻai, which means to “eat/consume/be eaten”, and na, a word with many meanings but in this case meaning “that which”. So a descriptive definition of ʻāina is “that which we consume” and also, “that which consumes us”. Pretty cool that the definition of land acknowledges the circle of life and calls for our continued protection and respect for this natural, and finite, resource. Environmental Moment
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