Bret Mossman

Name Bret Mossman

social media @birds_hawaii_pastpresent

Age 37

Town/Moku Hilo

Island Hawaii

Leadership Category Mālama ʻāina

Nominated by Malu Dudoit

Share with us a little about yourself and what you do.

Bret was born and raised on the continent in a small town called Heber City in Utah. In middle school he attended Hoomaikaikai Explorations and had his first exposure to Hawaiian feather work and native birds at the Bishop Museum. Seeing these incredible works and reflecting on the abundance of what once was pushed Bret to pursue a career in the conservation of Hawaii's birds. Today Bret works as a biologist with the Hawaii Island Natural Area Reserve system and operates Birds Hawaii Past Present, a collection of social media pages striving to return our manu back into our everyday lives. Bret believes that in order for the conservation to be successful we must be able to once again engage in our practices around manu and crucially restore our kinship to our manu.

Why is the work that you do important to you? The community?

Working to keep our native birds alive helps keep me alive. Helps keep Hawaii alive. Our native species are an integral part of what makes Hawaii and what makes Kanaka. Every bird we lose we lose a little piece of ourselves and a vital connection to the past and future. Rebuilding our connections to our manu and restoring the practices that manu have sustained is a key element to rebuilding our communities and reconnecting us to the aina that sustains us all. We are still here, manu are still here, both of us need each other to survive in an ever changing world.

Share with us the qualities of leadership you admire and how you express those in your life.

The most important quality of leadership is being able to separate yourself from an issue and be open to new information. Leaders need to be able to keep up with change and be able to seek the foundations to adapt and keep their team together regardless of the challenge.

Who has inspired you to do the work that you are doing?

For me it often comes back to kia manu and lawaia manu. All we are doing today to striving to learn what they once knew. We still catch birds in similar ways and the purpose has changed but now we are working to recover the knowledge that was cultivated over centuries. I also look at the movements around the revival of Olelo, wayfinding, and Loko 'ia. These movements and the people that made them have done what would have been considered impossible. Saving our aina and our manu has been termed impossible but each and every Kanaka is an impossibility, and the lahui is what inspires me to keep moving forward.

What is one word that describes something you are excited about for the lāhui?

Reconnection

What is one word that describes a pressing issue that is facing our lāhui?

Extinction