Words by Tom Stevens <\/b> \u2022<\/b>No Ka Oi Magazine <\/b> \u2022<\/b>March 2008<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> Each of these environmental heroes has found a niche in which to channel his or her passion, from preserving coastlines or native forests, to dealing with stuff most of us choose to overlook, like what gets tossed on our roadways, or dumped into our waters. But here we honor them for something more. True heroes, by definition, inspire and lead by example. And in doing so, they elevate us all.<\/p>\n To compile our list, we poke around, solicit comments from readers and all of the people we know, and get the coconut wireless a-jingle. Resoundingly, certain names come back to us over and over. Like epicenters of their own little earthquakes, these folks radiate knowledge and energy into the community, directly inspiring those around them and benefiting the rest of us in ways we sometimes aren\u2019t even be aware of.<\/p>\n Painstakingly restoring an overgrown valley, willingly assuming the advocate\u2019s hot seat, averting the ecological disaster invasive species can wreak\u2014the work is seldom glamorous. But we live on the best island in the world. Like the bumper sticker says:<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div> Lucky We Live Hawai`i. After thirty-three years of teaching in Maui\u2019s public schools, the affable Lahaina native retired from the school system, but he didn\u2019t leave his classrooms. He just moved a couple of them outside.<\/p>\n Lindsey\u2019s bigger classroom is five miles long, half a mile wide, and runs from the mountain to the ocean. Instead of desks, chairs and bulletin boards, it has petroglyphs, temple ruins and taro ponds.<\/p>\n It\u2019s Honokowai Valley, a place Lindsey likens to \u201ca natural book, with all the pages still intact.\u201d Since 2000, Ed, his wife Pua, and hundreds of volunteers from all over the world have been clearing the valley of invasive plants, boulder by boulder.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div> School\u2019s out for Ed Lindsey. Out of doors.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> A smaller and more recent teaching venue is high on a West Maui ridge at Hana\u2019ula, the site of Maui\u2019s first wind farm. There the Lindseys and their volunteers spend Sundays replanting indigenous trees in a tract of native forest displaced by three towering wind turbines.<\/p>\n In both situations, the Lindseys\u2019 nonprofit Maui Cultural Lands, Inc., has negotiated what Ed terms \u201cwin-win\u201d relationships with the landowners. Honokowai owner Ka\u2019anapali Development Corporation, and wind-farm lessor the State of Hawai\u2019i, gain green karma through Maui Cultural Lands\u2019 work. The organization, in turn, gains regular access to remote sites deemed vital for the restoration of Hawaiian flora and culture.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not an environmentalist in the Western sense, but a culturalist,\u201d Lindsey explains.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s because my culture depends on the environment and its primordial cadences and rhythms.\u201d<\/p>\n Maui Cultural Lands welcomes volunteers at both sites, but doesn\u2019t need mere sightseers. \u201cThe only way to visit us is to work,\u201d grins Ed. His husky physique and strong hands attest to his own labors in family lo\u2019i (taro paddies) and aboard the twin-hulled Polynesian sailing canoes on which he logged 3,000 nautical miles earlier in life.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/mauiculturallands.org\/mcl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Ed-Lindsey-Enviromental-Hero-001.webp\" "\\"Ed-Lindsey-Enviromental-Hero-001\\"")
<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>Around here, we look forward to spring\u2014not because of what\u2019s blooming, or how epic the surf\u2019s been, but because it\u2019s when we at Maui No Ka \u2018Oi get to champion a handful of Maui folks who work tirelessly to preserve and protect the natural beauty of the island\u2014without pomp, fame, or stock options, we might add.<\/h3><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\nLucky we live among people like these.<\/p><\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div>![\"Ed](\"https:\/\/mauiculturallands.org\/mcl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Ed-Lindsey-Enviromental-Hero-005.webp\" "\\"Ed")
<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>Nature Studies<\/h2><\/div>
Ed Lindsey<\/h3><\/div>
![\"Ed](\"https:\/\/mauiculturallands.org\/mcl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Ed-Lindsey-Enviromental-Hero-002.webp\" "\\"Ed")
<\/span>Ed Lindsey<\/h4>
![\"Ed](\"https:\/\/mauiculturallands.org\/mcl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Ed-Lindsey-Enviromental-Hero-004.webp\" "\\"Ed")
<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>![\"Ed](\"https:\/\/mauiculturallands.org\/mcl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Ed-Lindsey-Enviromental-Hero-003.webp\" "\\"Ed")
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