The festival brings together the community of research and conservation partners, along with artists and cultural practitioners to showcase how we can develop a better community for Hawaiʻi’s future.

This is an opportunity to learn about, celebrate, and reconnect with the rich biocultural heritage of Hawaiʻi through hands-on cultural workshops and activities, talks by cultural practitioners, authors, researchers, and conservationist; family-friendly activity booths hosted by community partners; snail captive rearing exhibits featuring live endangered and rare snails from Bishop Museum’s Hawaiian Land Snail Conservation Program and the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Snail Extinction Prevention Program; art exhibits featuring local artists, cultural workshops, and more.

Although kāhuli is often mistakenly thought to refer primarily to the famous O‘ahu Tree Snails, the base of the word “huli” actually holds multiple meanings in Hawaiian. Huli means to turn over, as in turning the page of a book, but also turning, as we often do when looking under the leaves for the snails. It is also used to refer to searching, or seeking and exploring, as one does to better understand what the lands snails and their ecosystems need to thrive in our modern world. Kāhuli can refer to land snails broadly or to the singing of the land snails, or it may mean to change or to alter. In the broadest spirit we hope the Kāhuli Festival will serve as a change agent helping us to turnover our current way of thinking about conservation, to reconnect with the roots of what makes Hawaiʻi so special, and search for more sustainable and inclusive ways to bring about change. Through these efforts we want to bring awareness of not only the 759 species of land snails that are native to Hawaiʻi, but to the broader issues of biocultural loss that impacts us all. Like the snails, much of what is found in Hawaiʻi is unique to these islands yet provides a framework for us to better understand our place here, and in this world with one another. Together we can build a community that perpetuates and shares the rich cultural and natural history of the islands with one another, and the world, which is the only way we’ll be able to save the jewels of the forest, and other things that make Hawaiʻi so special.