Herb Lee grew up in Kaneohe, about a mile from 11-acre, 400-year-old Waikalua Loko I‘a, but he never knew it existed until 1994, when he was 40 years old. That was the year he was hired as a consultant for Pacific Atlas Hawaii, then the owner of Bayview Golf Course.

“The fishpond was part of the golf course property, but Pacific Atlas didn’t have the knowledge or the means to care for it,” Lee said. “They offered it to the City & County of Honolulu, which wasn’t able to accept that responsibility either.”

One morning, he decided to get an up-close look at the pond, which at the time was surrounded by garbage, abandoned vehicles and several tons of debris that had been left from previous construction projects in the area.

“It was really bad,” Lee said. “Mangrove had grown around the entire circumference and went from 20 to 120 feet into the pond. Waikalua didn’t even look like a fishpond anymore.”

He walked on the pond’s wall, cutting a path with a cane knife through invasive mangrove standing 20 feet high — taller than his house.

“I was trying to get to the makaha (sluice gate) that was nearest to shore,” he said. “When I got there, I could feel the presence of my Hawaiian grandmother, who had passed away in 1963. She was telling me, ‘Herb, you have to bring this place back to life.’ Chicken skin! I took a deep breath and thought, ‘OK, but I’m going to need a lot of help.’”

LEE FORMED the Waikalua Loko Fishpond Preservation Society in 1995 to lead restoration efforts. Five years later, he partnered with the nonprofit Pacific American Foundation (see sidebar) on a grant to develop curricula focused on the pond (he’s now PAF’s president and chief executive officer).

In 2009, PAF received an $800,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to purchase the pond and an adjacent 2.5-acre pond, which is also named Waikalua Loko I‘a (fittingly, Waikalua means “two waters”). The initial preservation group was dissolved in 2014, and another nonprofit, the Pacific American Foundation Hawaii Inc., was established to hold title to and assume stewardship of the ponds.

“It has taken close to 25 years to remove most of the mangrove in the large pond; there’s only half an acre left to clear,” Lee said. “In the process, the pond has become a community classroom; we’ve transformed how kids are educated by developing curricula that meet Department of Education standards and embrace both Hawaiian values and traditions and 21st-century research, tools and technologies.”

He tips his hat to the early Hawaiians, who engineered simple but efficient aquaculture systems. Long ago, fishponds flourished in Kaneohe ahupuaa (land division extending from the mountains to the sea) thanks to water flowing into them from Kawa and Kaneohe streams. Makaha kept big predators out and controlled movement of smaller fish in and out of the pond.

Historians believe about 500 fishponds were built throughout the islands from around 1200 A.D. to the early 1800s. Over the decades, urbanization contributed to the loss and degradation of the ponds; today they are on the verge of vanishing.

“Only about 50 to 60 ponds — 10% to 12% — remain from the original 500,” Lee said. “Most of them are not in good condition, and to date, at the ponds that are being restored, there hasn’t been success propagating fish as it was originally done.”

That is one of PAF’s goals for Waikalua Loko I‘a; in the meantime, it has proven to be invaluable as a setting for hands-on, culture-based lessons. For example, students can create a model of an ahupuaa there. They can learn how to make a simple fish trap. They can see how kuapa (rock walls) are built without mortar. They can identify native and non-native coastal plants and get up-close looks at marine animals from the pond. Similar experiences can be arranged for corporate and community groups.

“Waikalua has become a piko (center) for PAF’s programs,” Lee said. “By the time visitors leave, they understand that everything that happens mauka (toward the mountains) affects everything that is makai (toward the sea). Things flow downward, so if there’s pollution upland, it will eventually reach the sea. Fishponds are the litmus test for the health of an ahupuaa.”

PAF works with more than 200 community and philanthropic organizations as well as city, state and federal agencies. They include Windward Community College, Harold K. L. Castle Foundation, the state Department of Education, Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology, Hawaii State Legislature Grant-in-Aid program, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Department of Education-Native Hawaiian Education Act.

The community has also pitched in to cut mangrove, pick up debris, move stones to rebuild the wall and other tasks at workdays called La Ohana Loko I‘a (Family Workday at the Fishpond). The next one will be on Saturday.

“How did people in Hawaii become one of the greatest land managers on Earth and now we’re dependent on ships bringing us 90% of our food and other necessities?” Lee said. “We have to flip that paradigm back to what it was. Everybody, not just farmers, has a kuleana (responsibility) to aloha aina (take care of the land) because that’s what takes care of us.”

Every La Ohana workday starts with volunteers holding hands in a big circle.

“It’s to remind us that collectively, we are a superpower bonded by one mindset and one purpose — aloha aina,” Lee said. “Together, we can accomplish anything.”

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.