WELCOME TO DAY 1! From Flames to Futures: Navigating Wildfire Leadership with Hope and Resilience with Jennifer Gray Thompson | Land Acknowledgement with Paʻele Kiakona
“The most important people in the room are the people who have lived it, who went to bed one night and the next day when they woke up, their lives were absolutely never the same.” —Jennifer Gray Thompson
“In Hawaii, we call land Aina, and within that word is the word AI, and AI is food, and that is what nourishes you. So we understand the relationship between man and land. If we care for the land, in turn, it will take care of us.” —Paʻele Kiakona
2024 WILDFIRE LEADERSHIP SUMMIT
Welcome to the first day of the 2024 WILDFIRE LEADERSHIP SUMMIT!
We’re thrilled to have you join us as we come together to navigate the challenges and opportunities of wildfire leadership. This event is a testament to the resilience and determination of our community.
Today, we are joined by an incredible group of leaders, innovators, and community members who have come together to navigate the challenges of wildfire recovery and resilience. From frontline responders to policymakers, each guest in attendance has a unique story to share and valuable insights to offer. Their diverse perspectives and experiences will inspire you and ignite your passion for making a difference in the face of natural disasters.
Tune in as our host, Jennifer Gray Thompson, takes the stage to share a message of hope and vision for the future. Plus, hear Lahaina Strong’s Paʻele Kiakona as he delivers a powerful land acknowledgment speech about honoring the land that sustains us. Don’t miss this inspiring start to the summit!
Highlights:
- 00:47 6 Years and 11 Months Ago
- 01:49 Land Acknowledgement
- 04:48 From Flames to Future
- 09:54 The World Is Worth Believing In
Tweets:
Welcome to Day 1 of the 2024 WILDFIRE LEADERSHIP SUMMIT! Get ready for inspiring stories, practical solutions, and a renewed sense of hope as our host, @jengraythompson, opens this event with a warm welcome plus a powerful land acknowledgment from Lahaina Strong’s Paʻele Kiakona. #Recover #Rebuild #Reimagine #podcast #wildfire #DisasterRecovery #AfterTheFire #2024WildfireLeadershipSummit #FlamestoFuture #LandAcknowwledgement #ClimateResilience #DisasterResponse #DisasterRecoveryTips #DisasterRecoveryStories
Quotes:
02:02 “In Hawaii, we call land Aina, and within that word is the word AI, and AI is food, and that is what nourishes you. So we understand the relationship between man and land. If we care for the land, in turn, it will take care of us.” —Paʻele Kiakona
06:53 “The most important people in the room are the people who have lived it, who went to bed one night and the next day when they woke up, their lives were absolutely never the same.” —Jennifer Gray Thompson
11:36 “I like a leader that watches. I like a leader that listens and says that what the community wants matters.” —Jennifer Gray Thompson
Meet Jennifer Gray Thompson, MPA, Founder & CEO of After the Fire USA
Jennifer Gray Thompson, named one of Forbes’ “50 over 50” IMPACT Leaders in 2022, has led Rebuild North Bay Foundation since January 2018, transforming it into a national leader in megafire recovery. A lifelong Sonoma Valley resident, she holds a master’s degree in Public Administration from USC and has worked for the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. Post-2017 North Bay fires, she became Executive Director of RNBF, which aids wildfire-affected communities across the American West. As CEO, she developed the Wildfire Resiliency Network and Survivor Deployment Model, advocated for federal policies, and hosted national Wildfire Leadership summits. Jennifer also created the “How to Disaster” podcast and serves on boards supporting Latino communities and first responders’ mental health.
Connect with After The Fire USA:
- Website: https://afterthefireusa.org/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AfterTheFireUSA
- X: https://twitter.com/AfterTheFireUSA
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afterthefireusa/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/atf3r
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuTefxZgWUJkDVoZGZQpxgQ
LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Meet Paʻele Kiakona, Lead Organizer & President of Save Honolua Coalition
Paʻele Kiakona is the driving force behind Lahaina Strong, uniting the team and ensuring the community has a seat at the table for all critical conversations about Lahaina’s recovery. A Native Hawaiian with deep ancestral roots in Lahaina, Paʻele gained prominence as the president of the Save Honolua Coalition, where he led efforts to protect Honolua Bay’s fragile reefs from damage. His passion for environmental preservation is backed by his degree in Environmental Science from the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo.
A former Hawaiian immersion student and Kamehameha Schools graduate, Paʻele is deeply connected to his culture, ensuring that traditional values are at the forefront of his leadership. His voice is recognized and respected by elected officials, community leaders, and the public, solidifying him as a wise and passionate young leader with a bright future.
Under his leadership, Lahaina Strong advocates for sustainable, community-first recovery efforts. Paʻele’s ability to bring people together and ensure Lahaina’s long-term interests are protected has made him an indispensable figure in rebuilding Lahaina with its people, culture, and environment at the core.
Connect with Lahaina Strong:
Website: https://wearelahainastrong.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/6793808114003770/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officiallahainastrong
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LahainaStrong
Transcription:
Jennifer Gray Thompson: Good morning, actually, now it’s officially good afternoon. My name is Jennifer Gray Thompson. For those of you who have not met me, which is very few, if any of you, I would like to welcome you here to Sonoma and into what is my hometown. There are a few of us here. I’d also like to acknowledge that some of our best firefighters are also in the room locally. And note, I may give you some program notes today, but one of them is that when you look up into the hills beyond here, six years and 11 months ago right now, those were all aflame, and we were in deep crisis, and we did not know what to do. And so for the next year, I kept reaching for the phone, like, who am I going to call? What am I going to do? I don’t know how to do mega fire. We don’t know how to do it. Nobody had done it like that before. And so a lot of the work that we do, that I’ve been doing for six years and 11 months, is about, how do I make sure that other people don’t have that experience, because it’s also such a tough thing to go through. I’m going to do some housekeeping notes, but before we start anything, I’m going to come back in a minute, but Paele Kiakona, I’ve asked if you wouldn’t mind coming up and doing just an opening land acknowledgement. We did have a local woman here, but she is not here right now, so I’ve asked him to briefly do that. Thank you so much.
Paele Kiakona: Hello, everybody. My name is Paele. I got put up here last minute on the spot, but we’re winging it. But she asked to do a land acknowledgement. And in Hawaii, we call land Aina, and within that word is the word Ai, and Ai is food, and that is what nourishes you. So we understand the relationship between man and land is that if we care for the land, in turn, it will take care of us. So in this prayer today, I’d like you to keep that in your mind and keep that in your hearts as we move forward. So please bow your head in prayer, set the tone. Heavenly Father, we come here before you today, honoring the Aina and the land that sustains us, knowing that in caring for the land, they will care for us in return. As we gather today, we ask for strength and guidance in our journey of recovery from the wildfires and disaster that have touched our communities. Open our minds and our hearts to the wisdom shared. Help us learn from each other so that together we may rebuild with resilience and respect for this sacred land. May today bring forward new opportunities deeper understanding and a renewable sense of responsibility to malama aina, to care for the land, to protect, to nurture and to thrive. Amen.
Jennifer Gray Thompson
Perfect. Thank you so much, and for doing it on the fly, I really appreciate that. So did want to go through a couple of things. You know, every year, I want to make sure that the people who’ve been here for the past couple of years, or who was with us in 2019 that I don’t present you the exact same summit, but that you walk away sort of amazed and inspired by not only what’s possible, but to remember that you all have a role in it. Not to overstate my position here, but I personally curate this entire event. I say yes to every single person sitting here. And I do that because what I’m looking for when I go through the country is I’m looking for people who are the helpers. I’m looking for people who are hopeful. I’m looking for people who are willing to do whatever it takes to get to the other side of the era of mega fires and climate disasters, and I’m looking for people who want to help everybody from the very front line, most vulnerable people, all the way up to the people who regularly stock the halls of Congress, which I actually do too. But it’s really important when you look around this group and you think, “Well, I don’t know if I’ve ever been to a summit quite like this.” But I need you to know that I try to treat the whole body. I want people who are from frontline communities to be there.
So today we’re looking at not just a giant picture of me, but aren’t you glad I got my headshot to redone this year, though, From Flames to Futures: Navigating Wildfire Leadership with Hope and Resilience can be a very hard time to have hope sometimes right now, but I am a dealer of hope and optimism, but not in a way that isn’t constructive. It’s really important for you to know that the people that I’ve brought into this room and with Reva and Natalie because I would have died this year, in case you’re wondering, without their very wonderful help. The people we bring into this room are people who do have hope, who are hope dealers with me.
I would like to thank all of our sponsors, without all of this, one of the things you guys all asked for the last two years is more room and space and network. So we have provided that to you outside, yes, it looks like Wayfair exploded out there because it did. These are all of our sponsors, Airlink, United Airlines, CSAC, Amazon, IEM, IIBHS, esri, Good 360. Where’s my Jim Alvey, ah, Jim, okay. He always makes a joke at this point. Okay. Nano Nest, who has the lounge outside. 4 Leaf, Nano Tech, Tetra Tech, Hagerty, Embassy, Halter Project, Watch duty. Thank you John Mills for having a seat. I appreciate that. The TID was actually supportive in getting the shuttles for everybody from Maui. Obsidian and Wine company. I have an in, that’s my husband’s wine company, just so you know. We could not do all of this. One of the things that I’d want to remind you is we don’t charge for this summit. We do decide who sits in these seats or not, but we don’t charge you for it. Because I am never going to put myself in a position where especially vulnerable frontline leaders in small nonprofits cannot come here. I do not accept that, and I do not as much as I love everybody else. I don’t want to be a gatekeeper for being in the positions, understanding how decisions are made, and also talking about what you need and want. These are all the places that we work. And one of the things I’d like to do the very beginning, if you don’t mind, would you mind standing up if you’re from a wildfire community.
So this is how I know that we are successful, because you are, to me, the VIPs always the most important people in the room are the people who have lived it, who went to bed one night and the next day when they woke up, their lives were absolutely never the same. You can go ahead and have a seat, but you are the people for whom this conference was made and for whom it will always be made.
So the state of disaster in America is tough, and one of the things we’re going to talk about today is future thinking, and over the next two days. Where are we going? Like, how can we do better? How can we innovate? It is not enough just to look at the rest of the country and say the only place is safe is some upper Midwestern, perhaps Minnesota corner, and I’m going to run there. I choose to be with people who want to run towards the issue, who go running, who do not go running from it, who go and they feed their people, and they house them, and they figure out how to make this better. And we can survive it together, because we can actually solve for mega fire. It’s not quite like hurricanes. We can’t see the sea in the sky. We can’t, like hold those back, but we can mitigate, and it’s really important that we do that.
In 2014 to 2024, 173 separate billion dollar or over events FEMA responded to, that’s $1.2 trillion. In 2023, we had 28 climate based disasters and the worst mega fire in 100 years. And I’m very proud that such a large contingency of Maui people are with us in the room. We have about 35 total, and building trust on Maui is one of the things that I am most proud of, and it felt like life’s work for me. It’s hard to break through the noise of everybody wanted to go in. But I just want to note that a year ago, as we stood here, our hearts were broken. They were broken for Maui with you, but also in full admiration of how you were handling your Ohana and how you were feeding your people. And we knew that you did not need us to show up to tell you how to do that at all. In fact, many ways what I’ve learned in Maui this year has been breathtaking and inspiring, and I do believe that many of the things that have happened there and how we move forward, we can find solutions from Maui alone.
I’m actually going to skip this part, because most of you know these stats, but if you want them, let me know. But over 35 million acres have burned in the United States since 2017. We are very concerned about the health outcomes, especially with we didn’t do any of the things that you did on Maui were out there, like licking our ashtray homes and sucking up all the fumes. We just didn’t know any better, but you did, and you’re going to come out better for it. So what I’m going to say next is going to make me sound cool, but I’m not. So if you ask my husband about my taste in music, he will absolutely put his head in his hands, and it’s like top 40. No one ever lets me control that in the cars, which I resent a little bit. But I was watching this interview with Nick Cave, for those of you who know what it is, recently on Stephen Colbert, and he gave this quote, and I love this quote, “Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely planet Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position, either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and is are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in, and in time, we come to find that it is so.” And that is what we’re doing here today. We are doing the adversarial position of hopefulness. Day one, Ashes to Empowerment: Cultivating Resilient Leaders, Mental and Physical Well Being. That’s in Santa Rosa, by the way. This is from February. Very nice.
I’m gonna need the timer for me back there to you guys. Okay, so now what I would like to do is with great pleasure that I introduce you to Mayor Richard Bissen. I’m very, very pleased that he was willing to welcome us into Maui in December. Mayor Bissen would like me to say very little about him, but I will say this, I did have somebody who said to me who I don’t know, you know we maybe we need somebody out there who has better sound bites and all this. And I said, “Have you been watching his leadership? Because I have.” What I like is is a leader that’s slow. I like a leader that watches. I like a leader that listens and says that what the community what matters, and so you do have the right leader. You just don’t have somebody at the very front who’s just full of platitudes and promises they cannot keep. That’s the wrong leader. I admire your leadership. And thank you so much for being here.
