![NATIVE SOIL](https://cdn.magzter.com/1450523306/1719899957/articles/SSLT9O8WI1722424350078/NATIVE-SOIL.jpg)
Early one Saturday morning in April, I find myself beneath a dense tree canopy in Maui's Honōkowai Valley. The air is still. Sparrows and mynahs chirp cheerfully. A wild pig, one of thousands that roam the mountain ranges of the Hawaiian Islands, darts in front of me.
It's hard to believe that the crush of resorts along Ka'anapali Beach, on Maui's western shore, are just a few miles away.
I've come with Puanani Lindsey, a former Maui Police Department dispatch officer who in 2002 cofounded Maui Cultural Lands, a trust to preserve the island's cultural inheritance sites, with her late husband, Ed. The organization was a response to the huge swaths of land the couple were seeing get bought up for development, with ancient dwellings and religious grounds often destroyed in the process. Ed, who had hiked all of Maui's major valleys, found Honōkowai the richest of them all.
Tan and fit from a life spent largely outdoors, Lindsey now runs the trust with her son, Ekolu.
Every weekend she comes here with a group of volunteers, including travelers like me, to rid the area of invasive species and repopulate it with native flora like pōhinahina and Hawaiian ti leaf.
Today I help them pull Guinea grass and koa haole under the hot island sun.
Removing weeds and planting native flora within this more-than-300-acre patch of land may seem like an inconsequential act on an island that spans 727.2 square miles. But the efforts of Lindsey and her volunteers lie at the heart of Maui's ecological health. "Our goal is to open people's minds, make them more aware of their cultural surroundings, and to leave the land better than when they got here," she says.
Denne historien er fra July - August 2024-utgaven av Condé Nast Traveler US.
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Denne historien er fra July - August 2024-utgaven av Condé Nast Traveler US.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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![The Slow Road - Rather than rush from Tokyo to Kyoto by train, as most visitors to Japan do, Tom Vanderbilt chose to bike - coasting down country roads, spying snow monkeys, and refueling with hearty bowls of soba](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/12188/1797065/lMTjBZqcT1724309506842/crp_Japans-Gifu-PrefectureJapan-travel-bike-traverl-Hakusan-National-Park-Shirakawa-gocyclistsTosuke-no-yu-Fujiyacycling-gearRaid-Cycling-Tokyo-Kyoto-luxury-bike-trips-brike-trip.jpg)
The Slow Road - Rather than rush from Tokyo to Kyoto by train, as most visitors to Japan do, Tom Vanderbilt chose to bike - coasting down country roads, spying snow monkeys, and refueling with hearty bowls of soba
Rather than rush from Tokyo to Kyoto by train, as most visitors to Japan do, Tom Vanderbilt chose to bike - coasting down country roads, spying snow monkeys, and refueling with hearty bowls of soba. At the peak of the day's heat, I pulled into the tiny hamlet of Hirase, in Japan's Gifu Prefecture. I'd just climbed a twisting, waterfall-lined road several thousand feet through Hakusan National Park before descending into the shimmering fantasy landscape of Shirakawa-go, an almost Tolkien-esque village (and UNESCO World Heritage Site) comprising centuries-old farmhouses with peaked thatch roofs.
![SHAILENE WOODLEY on FIJI](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/12188/1797065/QXb1ZfEWx1724314605218/SHAILENE-WOODLEY-ON-FIJI.jpg)
SHAILENE WOODLEY on FIJI
I was in Suva, the capital of Fiji, making a film, and our crew took over half of the Grand Pacific Hotel.
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easy does it
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gather round
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SANDS OF TIME
Sculpted by millennia, Chad is a place of ancient geology and epic grandeur. Aminatta Forna finds her place in it all
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THE PAST IS PRESENT
Beguilingly complex Istanbul has done a lot of soul-searching in recent years. Lale Arikoglu digs into the city's modern identity - while tracing the roots of her own
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Creation Story
Modern-day craftspeople are bringing back traditional Arabian arts in Jeddah's Old Town of Al-Balad
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Continental Drift
For her first trip to Africa, aboard an HX Hurtigruten cruise ship, Sarah Greaves Gabbadon confronts her assumptions about what a homeland means
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On the Rise
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Antiques Road Show
After buying a second home, in France, the designer Claire Vivier called up fellow designer Kate Berry to go on the ultimate shopping spree