About Us

Sustʻāinable Molokai is a 501(c)(3) non-profit community development organization committed to restoring `āina momona (abundant land) by uniting traditional practices with responsible and modern sustainability solutions. Our current programs include food security and sovereignty, agricultural education, energy resilience, conservation, conscious climate change, and more.

Sustʻāinable Molokai was established in 2011 in the wake of the breakdown of master land-use conversations between the community and the developers of Molokai Ranch. At the time, activists, including co-founder Malia Akutagawa, and board president Matt Yamashita, were looking for alternatives to Laʻau Point development.

This experience profoundly impacted the community — some were for the proposed land trust, and some were against it. The one thing that could be agreed upon was that we needed to be drivers of our destiny as a community to shape growth that aligns with our cultural values. This is the reason and purpose for Sustʻāinable Molokai, which was dreamed up in conversations between co-founders Malia Akutagawa and Harmonee Williams.

We offer our mahalos to everyone who has contributed their energy and vision to creating our organization. We are proud to work to ensure that our community’s voice and mana’o is incorporated into collective decisions about the future of our island.