It has been just over a week since wildfires gutted our community of Lahaina, and already the vulture capitalists are circling. It is so disgraceful to watch them trying to buy the land beneath our smoldering homes, and snatch up the precious water recently restored to our streams.

I am a kalo farmer. I hold kuleana land title in Kanaha, and I helped to restore the ancient loi of Kahoma. I know about the struggle to restore our streams. I am outraged to hear Gov. Josh Green and big landowners like Peter Martin’s West Maui Land Co. trying to blame the wildfires on the restoration of our streams.

Please remember that not long ago, Lahaina was called the “Venice of the Pacific.” Mokuhinia was a famous fishpond in the heart of our town. The streams flowed mauka to makai and our community was strong.

Then came those who would exploit Hawaii’s resources for personal profit. They talked our alii into supporting mass deforestation and dewatering of our streams.

Sugar plantations, like Pioneer Mills, took our water for their profit, leaving our loi kalo and communities to suffer in an artificial drought. These businessmen drained the life blood of our communities, but when they did not get all that they wanted from us, they instigated the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani and the annexation of the Hawaiian Kingdom to the United States.

The exploitation of our stream water for the profit of a few with wealth continued for decades. Pioneer Mills eventually got bought by Peter Martin and the West Maui Land Company, and now instead of food, or even sugar or pineapple, the land grows houses for foreign investors.

The depth of harm caused by the legacy of water mismanagement under the territory and then the state would take decades to fully understand, but we can see it now in the cracked red dirt, the dry invasive underbrush, and our many neighbors struggling with low-paying jobs and drug addictions.

It is the abuse of the streams that turned our lush Lahaina from a life-giving wetland to a box of matches. Though we have been fighting for years to return water to its natural course, the real restoration of our streams has only just begun. Maui Komohana was just designated as a Water Management Area last year. Everyone who relies on stream water just turned in their permit applications to the Water Commission on the Monday before the fire.

The truth is they had all of the water they could possibly use, but the infrastructure and equipment we had for firefighting were overrun by the massive fire.

But the truth never stopped the vulture capitalists.

They are wasting no time leveraging this disaster to line their pockets. Right now these business interests are trying to convince Gov. Green to suspend the minimum streamflows and halt the process to set up the Komohana Water Management Area. Why? Because they know that without oversight, they have the money and power to take however much streamwater they want, just like in the plantation days.

But I am here to say that the plantation days are over. We know our rights, we understand the law. We want our water protected and shared fairly because every living thing needs water.

Now that the ground- water in West Maui is polluted, the streams will be the only source of clean water for area residents and farmers. We must work together to make sure we have a fair system in place for determining how best to share the limited water we have between all of us. That is what it means to have a water management area. We should follow through on what the community started, and not get distracted by those chasing the dollar signs.

Kai Keahi is a kalo farmer in Kanaha, Maui.