May 1, 2026      11:30am        POST 723

Candace Fujikane

Professor, Department of English, Honolulu, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

When Climate Change Events Enable Renewed Abundance:
Lessons fromJellyfishat Hale o Meheanu Fishpond

One of the unexpected effects of climate change is that events like pulse flooding can actually create the conditions for renewed abundance. Warming seawaters have triggered an aggressive explosion of invasive Cassiopea andromeda jellyfish at the Hale o Meheanu Fishpond, their numbers rising to one million in 2025. It actually took a climate change event to manage the invasive jellyfish. February brought flash floods of cold water from the uplands that killed the jellyfish. What lessons can be learned here by non-linear moments of possibility brought about by a changing Earth? What can Kanaka Maoli elemental cartographies teach us about abundance?