In 2024, bulldozers were circling a 600-year-old Hawaiian fishpond on Kauaʻi, until a US$4 million cheque from Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO and Facebook’s co-founder, and his wife, Priscilla Chan, stepped in to secure its future as a community conservation site.
Alakoko Fishpond, also known as Alekoko or Menehune Fishpond, is a 102-acre historic aquaculture site in Niumalu, near Līhuʻe on Kauaʻi’s east side, featuring a 2,700-foot-long kuapā (fishpond wall) that makes it the largest remaining fishpond on the island. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and named one of Hawaiʻi’s most endangered historic places in 2009, the site had faced decades of environmental degradation and mounting development pressure.
When the landowner moved to sell in early 2021, community group Mālama Hulē‘ia—already four years into hands-on restoration—feared the pond would be lost to commercial development. The Trust for Public Land negotiated a conservation purchase, then turned to private donors to close the funding gap. Chan and Zuckerberg committed the full US$4 million needed through the Chan Zuckerberg Kauaʻi Community Fund of the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation, covering the purchase price, transaction costs, and support for the missions of both the Trust for Public Land and Mālama Hulē‘ia.
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This allowed the Trust for Public Land to complete the acquisition on 17 November 2021 and immediately convey the property to Mālama Hulē‘ia for long-term stewardship. Crucially, the couple do not own any part of the fishpond; the deed locks the land into conservation, education and community use in perpetuity, preventing any future sale to the highest bidder.
For many in Singapore and across Asia, the story resonates because it echoes regional struggles to protect ancestral landscapes, waterways and foodways from rapid development. Alakoko is not just a scenic wetland; it is a living archive of Native Hawaiian aquaculture knowledge, comparable in cultural weight to preserving kampongs, clan ponds, or heritage coastlines in Southeast Asia.
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The plan is to restore Alakoko as a working fishpond and outdoor classroom where students and volunteers can learn traditional Hawaiian aquaculture, native ecosystems, history and culture—an intergenerational, place-based model that will feel familiar to Asian audiences who value heritage conservation and food security.
Priscilla Chan, a pediatrician of Chinese-Vietnamese heritage, has increasingly anchored the couple’s philanthropy in Kauaʻi, where they own a home on the north shore. Through the Chan Zuckerberg Kauaʻi Community Fund, they have backed local health, education and environment projects—including more than US$4 million to Wilcox Medical Center for equipment and services, and a US$50 million, seven-year commitment to the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology to improve ocean health. The Alakoko gift fits that pattern: large, catalytic funding that enables community organisations to act quickly, without the couple taking ownership or control.
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Mālama Hulē‘ia will continue restoring the fishpond, surrounding wetlands and estuary, with the long-term vision of harvesting fish and seafood again while using the site for cultural and environmental education.
For residents and visitors alike, the saved fishpond stands as a rare win: a 600-year-old landscape pulled back from the brink and returned to the people who care for it—backed by the same team behind Facebook and Meta.
