Kamanamaikalani Beamer

Kamana Beamer (born Brenton Kamanamaikalani Beamer in the late 1970s) is an author, geographer, and educator on natural resources and Hawaiian Studies. He currently holds the Dana Naone Hall Chair in the Center for Hawaiian Studies with a joint appointment in the Richardson School of Law and the Hawai‘inuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa (UH Mānoa). He is one of eight panelists appointed by Hawai'i Governor David Ige to hold stewardship over Mauna Kea.

Personal life Beamer was born in Hawaiʻi and raised on the islands of Hawai'i, Kauaʻi, and Oʻahu and comes from a family of Hawaiian musicians. In 1972, his father, singer-songwriter Kapono Beamer (who founded "The Beamer Brothers" with his brother, Keola Beamer), worked with Keola to release an album titled "This Is Our Island Home - We Are Her Sons," followed by several other albums that influenced "Hawaiian contemporary music." She was also the cousin of Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame inductee Mahi Beamer and the granddaughter of musician and composer Helen Deisha Beamer.

Education Beamer graduated from Kamehameha Schools in 1996 and went on to Marymount College, where he received an Associate of Arts degree in 1998. Beamer demonstrated that, despite Euro-American imperialism and the colonization that ensued, Native Hawaiians persevered not by resisting change, but by using it for their own means. Kamana Beamer has been a prominent figure in the movement to protect Mauna Kea, a sacred dormant volcano in Hawai'i, from what many native Hawaiians see as environmental and cultural desecration. Beamer has used his position as a cultural practitioner and scholar to raise awareness about the importance of Mauna Kea to the people of Hawai'i and the government. He has been a critic of the construction of a large thirty meter telescope on Mauna Kea's summit.

Beamer has also used his academic background to research the cultural and environmental significance of Mauna Kea, publishing numerous papers and articles on the subject. He has argued that the mountain is not only a site of cultural and spiritual importance, but also an important ecological resource, with unique plant and animal species that are endangered by the construction of the telescope.

Career In 2009, Beamer became an assistant professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa's Center for Hawaiian Studies and Richardson School of Law.

In 2013, Beamer was confirmed serve four years on Hawai'i's Commission of Water and Resource Management by then-governor Neil Abercrombie. He was reconfirmed in 2017. In 2015, he became the new president and CEO of the Kohala Center, a Hawai'ian non-profit and research institution. In 2022, he was one of six individuals appointed to a panel by then-governor David Ige to manage the future of Mauna Kea. He is also the Director of Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

Published works

No Mākou Ka Mana—Liberating the Nation, Kamehameha Publishing, (2014). Beamer, Kamanamaikalani; Tuma, Axel; Thorenz, Andrea; Boldoczki, Sandra; Kotubetey, Keliʻiahonui; Kukea-Shultz, Kanekoa; Elkington, Kawena (2021). "Reflections on Sustainability Concepts: Aloha ʻĀina and the Circular Economy". Sustainability Beamer, Kamanamaikalani; Elkington, Kawena; Souza, Pua; Tuma, Axel; Thorenz, Andrea; Köhler, Sandra; Kukea-Shultz, Kānekoa; Kotubetey, Keliʻi; Winter, Kawika B. (2023-01-01). "Island and Indigenous systems of circularity: how Hawaiʻi can inform the development of universal circular economy policy goals". Ecology and Society. 28 (1).

Awards and recognitions 2014: Named one of "20 leaders for the next 20 years" by Hawai'i Business Magazine.