These images at Baldwin Beach show before and after the large December swell. Each month volunteers with the Huli’ia for Kapukaulua program make an effort at dune restoration in this north shore location.

Every month a group of volunteers, scientists and curious individuals gather at Baldwin Beach or Kapukaulua to observe ongoing changes to the north shore landscape.

As part of the monthly huli’ia program, the effort is part of a larger goal to help develop site-specific plans for dune restoration projects in the area that support both habitat restoration and community resilience.

A recent assessment showed the area before and after the December swell, where about half of the plants volunteers seeded survived, said Tara Owens, a coastal processes and hazards specialist with the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program, the organization spearheading the efforts.

She and Wes Crile, the coastal dune restoration coordinator for Hawaii Sea Grant, are facilitating the dune restoration project at Kapukaulua in partnership with the Maui County Department of Parks and Recreation.

Owens said the effort is funded from a more than $1 million grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s National Coastal Resilience Fund to develop site-specific plans for dune restoration at Kapukaulua, from Lower Pāʻia Park to Wawau Point, or Baby Beach. As sea level rises, the long-term goal of the project is to implement dune restoration activities that have the added benefits of ecosystem restoration and community resilience.

The monthly huli’ia is one piece of the project’s overall puzzle, Owens said, with hopes of helping to rehabilitate the space that has been through many changes over time.

From the early 1900s, the area was mined for sand as part after the Spreckles Company, which became part of Alexander & Baldwin, built a lime kiln.

At one point, approximately 12,500 cubic yards per year of sand were mined from the area by Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. Debris from sand mining operations is still found in the area. The monthly observations are a part of rehabilitating the space, Owens said.

“It’s a way of getting together and doing kilo, which is observation of the landscape, and the idea is, if we do it together as a group over time, we will see more than we would as individuals and we will start to observe trends and we can use that information for the management of the dunes and the landscape and the park moving forward,” she said.

The process is facilitated and designed by Pelika Andrade, the Education and Community Specialist with the University of Hawaii Sea Grant Program, as well as the executive director of Na Maka Onaona.

Owens said Hawaii Sea Grant has conducted many dune projects on Maui and throughout the state and, through their research, have created a dune restoration manual to help navigate restoration on the island and elsewhere.

The project is slated to continue through 2026 but will likely go beyond that, she said. They also have been working for decades in South Maui in the Kamaole Beach Parks, she said, and have projects at airport beach in West Maui, Mā’alaea and more.

She said the information is also used to help inform the county to assist with planning and implementation. Owens also is a science and technical advisor to the county’s Planning Department.

While they were hoping the plants would survive through the winter swell, they are still optimistic for the project’s future.

“We did know going into this small pilot planting effort in the footprints of the old pavilion that there was a potential we would have high wave overwash during the winter,” she said.

The pavilion collapsed in August. She said that while it’s unfortunate that some of the plants didn’t make it, it’s just part of the process.

“When you’re doing dune restoration work, there’s a lot of science behind it, but there’s also a lot of trial and error,” she said.

She’s hoping the plants that did survive will have time to get established and grow, and eventually collect sand to help the dunes. If the dunes grow, they could help to mitigate future wave overwash events.

“If there were dunes there, these flooding impacts would not be as severe, but the reason the dunes aren’t there is because there’s been such an extractive and deleterious human impact on the park in the past,” she said.

The next huli’ia for Kapukaulu will be Monday at 9 a.m. until about 10:30 a.m. Attendees are invited to gather at the former pavilion location and bring a beach chair or blanket.

For more information, visit bit.ly/KapukauluaDunes.