After 3 years, the double-hulled canoe Hōkūle‘a has completed its Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage—a 42,000-mile open-ocean journey around the world using only ancient Polynesian wayfinding techniques—and returned home to Hawai‘i.

From the launch in Hawai‘i in May 2014, around the world to Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and North and South America, the is beautiful hard-cover book chronicles Hōkūle‘a’s epic mission to raise awareness of and nurture worldwide sustainability.

Interwoven with descriptions of Hōkūle‘a’s experiences in port are the voices of the master navigators and crew members, who guide the ship along the ocean’s trackless path, and the local pioneers – scientists, teachers, and children touched by Hōkūle‘a – who work tirelessly to weather the many environmental challenges in our modern lives. This is a story about our need to draw together into one global community. By respecting one another and nature’s delicate and intricate systems, this book captures the many ways indigenous cultures are committed to living in ecological balance.

Mālama Honua means “to care for the earth.” Of the journey, Nainoa Thompson, the president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, says, “Hōkūle‘a is a needle sewing a lei of flowers around the world as an act of peace . . . and that is why we sail.” In the foreword, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu writes, “The Worldwide Voyage of Mālama Honua is a testimony to the human spirit—that human beings can be so courageous, that human beings can be so inventive that they are ready to sail around the world to share the message of the peace of sustainable living. It is a voyage of respect for each other, for our whole planet, and for all who live on it. The message is that we must care for each other and for all life on Earth, for it is only then that Earth can take care of us and our future generations.”

* Chapters highlight local voices and environmental solutions in Hawaiʻi, American Sāmoa, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Cuba, New York, Galapagos, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and Tahiti.

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Written by Jennifer Allen

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hardcover  |   352 pages   |   8.25" x 11.25"   |   color