Maile Melrose and her Passion to Preserve Kona

June 23, 2020: Hawai‘i Public Radio’s Ku‘uwehi Hiraishi interviews Maile Melrose about her family’s experience with the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 which took the life of her mother’s brother. Click here to listen.

April 23, 2020: Maile Melrose is a woman wedded to place. As a multi-generational kama‘āina of South Kona, Melrose has committed her life to protecting and perpetuating the history, flora and fauna of the Kona District. She is a highly respected historian, researcher, author, speaker and noted living history storyteller with a background in Anthropology and Hawaiian Studies.

Maile is the great-granddaughter of Henry Nicholas Greenwell, founder of the H.N. Greenwell Store, the oldest surviving store in Kona. Considered one of Kona’s living treasures, Maile holds deep knowledge of Kona’s families, places, businesses and history. With her understanding of intricate relationships between places and people, Maile is able to weave a complex narrative about the people who have shaped this incredible history. Her work highlights the Hawaiian families of the Kona ahupua‘a and their stories and traditions that have persisted through the disruption of Western Contact, the achievements of European adventurers in their curiosity about the Hawaiian Islands through the 1800s, as well as the families who shape Kona’s landmark agricultural industries, ranching and coffee.

Renowned for her storytelling skills, as a volunteer of the Kona Historical Society and Living History Museum, Maile inspires and educates visitors with place-based lore. Her passion is evident in her performances in the Society’s cemetery tours and historical Jeep Tours.  In the Hanohano ‘o Kona Lecture Series, Maile shares her knowledge of Kona’s natural history and unique bird and plant species. She has published stories of Kona in online form for several years via KHS’ website.

Maile’s incredible advocacy and leadership as President of the Friends of the Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden, a 13-acre site founded by her cousin Amy Greenwell, enabled the Friends group to purchase and save the property from potential closure in 2016. Set among the most intact remnants of the Kona Field System, the Garden includes agricultural, residential and sacred sites and plays a vital role in perpetuating Hawaiian cultural traditions of land management and plant use. This lush Garden contains over 200 species of native plants, many of which are rare and endangered, and is now federally protected as a Community Forest, the first ever designated in the Pacific region by the USDA Forest Service. Maile’s stewardship brought together a dedicated cadre of volunteers to maintain the grounds and plants through the transition and beyond.

The Preservation Award will be presented to Maile Melrose for Individual Achievement.

The 46th Annual Preservation Honor Awards Ceremony was originally scheduled to be held in May 2020. However, the current public health crisis caused by COVID-19 has resulted in postponement of the public event. A new date will be selected and notices sent at a later date.