Grassroots, women-led nonprofit co-founded by UH Hilo alumni offers bioremediation expertise rooted in Native Hawaiian protocols
The local nonprofit EarthRM implements place-based, culturally grounded bioremediation to address post-disaster situations in Hawaiʻi with the goal to create a blueprint for bioremediation globally.
Three University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo alumni who are co-founders of the local nonprofit EarthRM, specializing in community-based bioremediation activities, were invited to share their manaʻo (thoughts) about their work on a panel at the South by Southwest conference held last month in Austin, Texas. The annual SXSW conference brings together innovators in film, music, media, and technology.
UH Hilo alumni Hannah Hartmann (2023) and Mio Kamioka (2024) both earned master of science degrees from UH Hilo’s tropical conservation biology and environmental science program, and Kauʻi Lopes (2019) earned her bachelor of arts in Hawaiian studies from Ka Haka ʻUla o Keʻelikōlani College of Hawaiian Language. At EarthRM, Hartmann serves as executive director and Kamioka is director of outreach and research. Lopes is director of cultural protocol; Native Hawaiian values are a foundational pillar of the organization.
As Kamioka explains in an email, EarthRM “is dedicated to advancing bioremediation through research, implementation, and community education to address the impacts of pollution. For more context, bioremediation is the process of allying with plants, fungi, and microbes to extract heavy metals and break down other pollutants, offering nature-based solutions to environmental challenges.”
Among its community-based work, the nonprofit implements place-based and culturally grounded bioremediation to address post-disaster situations in Hawaiʻi with the goal to create a blueprint for bioremediation globally. Among other activities, the group offers bioremediation research, conducts contaminant testing, develops curriculum for K-adult, and conducts workshops on bioremediation in areas heavily impacted by pollution.
The group says the March 13 panel at the SXSW conference, titled “Old Age Tech for New Age Disaster,” was an important milestone for them recognizing both their community education efforts and the growth of their nonprofit. Hartman points out that the application process to present at the conference was not only evaluated by an SXSW committee but also members of the local community. EarthRM was selected with other presenters and panelists from a pool of 1,400 applicants.
“It’s totally unheard of to get it your first round,” says Hartmann. “So we’re so, so grateful.”
Combining Indigenous knowledge with Western environmental science to aid restoration efforts in Lahaina
On the panel, Hartmann and Kamioka talked about their work in bioremediation — working with microbes, fungi, and plants to break down pollutants and extract heavy metals — as a more sustainable solution to mechanical or chemical remediation methods. Lopes discussed the importance of allying with the communities impacted by contamination.
The foundation of EarthRM’s work is grounded in the impacted communities and in the ʻāina (land) itself. The group relies on microbes harvested within or nearby the ahupuaʻa or area they’re working in, utilizing indigenous microbes versus shipping in standard shelf-stable microbes. Consulting the local community is an important step in knowing where to go to harvest these microscopic helpers.
In their panel discussion, joined by EarthRM co-founder Sanae Hartmann who is currently a doctoral candidate in the geography department at Penn State University, the EarthRM group described how they’ve been combining Indigenous knowledge with Western environmental science in actual practice as they aid restoration efforts in Lahaina following the devastating fire there in 2023.
“The project in Lahaina was done by the EarthRM crew through our sister organization and predecessor Maui Bioremediation Group,” says Kamioka. “MRBG is the organization that was formed in immediate response to the fires, while EarthRM was later formed to carry out bioremediation in broader pae ʻāina and beyond.”
EarthRM received permission to work in Lahaina from community members, and have been thankful at the active role the community has taken in guiding their work.
One Lahaina resident gave Hartmann useful advice on harvesting microbes from the top of the watershed, which they’ve used in compost mix. EarthRM is also working with the naturalized pleurotus cystidiosus or abalone mushroom using the fungi in biofiltration socks that breaks down pollution in water that passes through.
On the panel, the group heavily emphasized that bioremediation’s focus is healing versus just removing pollution. Kamioka contrasted holistic practices with government use of less effective methods like mechanical remediation, giving Lahaina as an example. “What they did at Lahaina to address the fires first and foremost was scrape the surface of the soil. They took it to landfills lined with single tarps and dumped the soil there. Is that healing? No,” says Kamioka.
The group also outlined pitfalls of using chemicals to neutralize contamination; chemical remediation can often result in toxic byproducts or completely wipe out helpful organisms living in the soil. “It’s using poison for poison,” says Hartmann.
Pointing out that some organizations simply choose to monitor microbes in a contaminated space, EarthRM emphasizes biological remediation to break down the pollution. “It’s hard to even have these conversations of what a healthy ecosystem can be when the baseline is below the floor,” says Hartmann, “We are in the field of actually bringing that life back.”
Lopes plays an important role in spiritually connecting her team to these beings and the ʻāina itself through oli (chanting). She always addresses specific akua (gods/spirits) related to the spaces they enter and work in. “I think that’s what’s so important about Native Hawaiian perspective is we’re so specific in our asking and we’re specific in what we’re asking for. Asking permission is essential. Consent matters.”
- Listen to the full one-hour panel discussion on the SXSW website.
UH Hilo: Scientific training and Hawaiian cultural education
Hannah Hartmann
UH alum Hartmann, who hails from Los Angeles, says she had an interest in soil and pollution from a young age. “I’ve always had my hands in the soil, in backyards and in cracks,” she says. “I was the one poking around in little pots to see who was living there. It’s just been something that’s always been on my radar.” Before coming to UH Hilo, she earned her bachelor of environmental science and management from California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, and was inspired by the research of a mycologist working with the Karuk people, an Indigenous people of California, to remediate diesel contaminated soil using fungi.
Hartmann says earning her graduate degree at UH Hilo was important in expanding her knowledge. She learned more about wastewater and water quality from Professor of Marine Science Tracy Wagner and environmental toxicology from Professor of Chemistry Jon-Pierre Michaud. Hartmann also found support from Professor of Biology Becky Ostertag, who at the time served as program director for the tropical conservation biology and environmental science graduate program, and Lisa Canale, the program’s coordinator.
Hartmann notes that along with her scientific training, her Hawaiian cultural education was just as important. She credits Hawaiian language teacher Kumu Malu Dudoit, facilitator of the campus’s Hawaiian protocol program Uluākea, as a “key figure at UH Hilo who opened the door for cultural grounding.”
Kauʻi Lopes
For Lopes, her cultural education at UH Hilo is centrally significant to her current work as EarthRM’s director of cultural protocol.
She notes the efforts of Kumu Hiapo Perreira, an associate professor of Hawaiian language, in guiding her to look to traditional moʻolelo (storytelling/myth) as a resource for practical guidance and cultural grounding. Lopes has a background in hula as a ʻūniki ʻailolo (has gone through graduation ceremonies) of Taupouri Tangarō, who serves as director of Hawaiian culture and protocols engagement for UH Hilo and Hawaiʻi Community College. And she is learning traditional Hawaiian healing through Ka Pā o Lonopūhā, a group with the mission to train the next generation of lomilomi (massage) practitioners.
“If we are doing place based remediation efforts, it is very important to have a cultural person show the cultural nuances that may be overlooked by Western scientific methods,” observes Lopes.
Mio Kamioka
As a woman of Papua New Guinean heritage, Kamioka also enjoyed the strong presence of Indigenous frameworks and mentors at UH Hilo.
She came to UH Hilo to follow her dream of studying marine biology; she studied aquatic biology and stream restoration but soon became interested at looking at sustainability in the Pacific. She took a course on environmental history of the Pacific taught by “Kumu Kai” Kerri Inglis, a professor of history. “It was the first time I’d ever taken a course about the Pacific that was very much grounded in literature from Pacific Islands by Pacific Islanders,” says Kamioka. This led to her being partnered with Assistant Professor of Sustainable Tourism Angela Faʻanunu as a professional internship mentor.
“Dr. Angela Faʻanunu introduced me to the field of Indigenous sustainability,” says Kamioka. “Under the mentorship of Dr. Faʻanunu, I carried out research in Indigenous sustainability of Oceania. It was through this internship that I helped Dr. Faʻanunu organize the 2023 Mālama Honua: Indigenous Perspectives on Sustainability Conference, July 19 – 21, 2023. This was a working conference that brought together people from across Oceania to add to the body of knowledge on Indigenous sustainability.”
- UH Hilo’s Mālama Honua Conference will explore Indigenous perspectives on sustainability (July 13, 2023, UH Hilo Stories)
Kamioka also received encouraging mentorships from Associate Professor of Anthropology Kathleen Kawelu and former UH Hilo Assistant Professor of Anthropology Tarisi Vunidilo.
“Coming to UH Hilo and meeting very influential Pacific Island women has been such an inspiring tool for me,” says Kamioka.
The future: Things that have not been addressed
Kamioka says a future goal of EarthRM is to expand placed-based bioremediation throughout Oceania, and she spent time at the SXSW conference networking with others doing work in the Pacific.
“We have so much pollution to be addressed from nuclear pollution in the Marshall Islands to litter from WWII,” she says. “Oil tankers and planes that have been shot down into our reefs. All those things have not been addressed.”
Story by Sophia Kim-O’Sullivan, a graduate student in library science and information at UH Mānoa.
