We are excited to present the 22nd annual Buy Back the Beach benefit lūʻau, which raises vital operating support for HILT’s mission. This year’s event will be held at Molokini Lookout in Wailea. We are grateful to our new hosts and look forward to returning to The Old Lāhainā Lūʻau with hope in the future.
The August wildfires served as a stark reminder of the critical need for pono land and water stewardship in our beloved islands. Hawaiʻi Land Trust serves as a dedicated partner, working with communities across the state to protect and steward invaluable coastal landscapes, farms and ranches, and wahi kupuna that define our unique heritage.
Buy Back the Beach, one of Maui’s most sought-after and exciting events, sells out each year! Your participation in this event directly supports HILT’s mission to protect and steward the lands that sustain Hawai‘i and enables HILT to effectively meet land conservation needs on Maui and the rest of the State.
PARKING
Parking for this year's event is on the corner of Wailea Ike Dr and Wailea Ekolu Pl in the grass lot. Shuttles will be waiting to take you and your guests to Molokini Lookout. Please keep your eye out for our volunteers who will be directing you to the nearest parking space. We will have a volunteer on duty the entire night in the lot, but please do not leave valuables in your vehicle.
This event is sold out! Mahalo for your support!
2024 Champion of the Land
Dana Naone Hall
HILT is humbled to honor Dana Naone Hall as our 2024 Champion of the Land at the event.
Each year HILT recognizes a person, group, or organization that has made a substantial impact on land conservation in Hawai‘i. Naone Hall helped lead the permanent protection of the 277-acre Waihe‘e Coastal Dunes & Wetlands Refuge prior to the establishment of the Maui Coastal Land Trust, which became part of HILT in 2011. She is also a dedicated, eloquent, and effective advocate for numerous other ʻāina protection efforts on Maui and throughout Hawaiʻi, and is an acclaimed poet and author.
A nationally recognized poet, Naone Hall’s decades of effective advocacy for Native Hawaiian and environmental issues began in 1984 as a founding member of Hui Alanui o Mākena, an organization that successfully prevented the closing of the Old Mākena Road (including the ancient Alaloa known as the “King’s Highway” or “Pi‘ilani Trail”) fronting the Maui Prince Hotel. She was at the forefront of the Native Hawaiian burial movement born during the struggle to protect the multitude of iwi kūpuna resting in the sand dunes of Honokahua, Maui. Efforts there led to amendments to Hawai‘i State historic preservation laws, including new protections for Native Hawaiian burial sites and establishing Island Burial Councils for Hawai‘i. In 2011, Dana Naone Hall received the Hawai‘i Cultural Stewardship Award cosponsored by Nāki‘ikeaho, an organization of Native Hawaiian archaeologists and anthropologists, and the Society for Hawaiian Archaeology (SHA) honoring individuals who have exemplified the spirit of stewardship.
Naone Hall graduated from Kamehameha Schools and earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She was the editor of Hawai‘i Review, the university’s flagship literary journal, and has published poetry in national and international literary journals. Among her many contributions are 2017’s “Life of the Land: Articulations of a Native Writer,” winner of an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation; and editorship of Bamboo Ridge’s winter 1985 issue, “Malama, Hawaiian Land and Water.”
The Dana Naone Hall Endowed Chair in Hawaiian Studies, Literature and the Environment was established in 2020 at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge in honor of Naone Hallʻs poetry and environmental activism.
