This week, initiator of the Butterfly Effect movement, Tatiana Howard shares her passion for watersports, active girls and protecting our oceans as well as Mother Earth

Interview by Anna Langer

Why not let the ocean be a place to just have fun on and enjoy each others company!

When I returned home after being in the professional windsurfing circuit, I was a bit frustrated and feeling left out. My home town was having a big water event and they didn’t even have a women’s division. So I wanted to have an event that was open to all women and without competition, judging, stress, seriousness etc. – not that I’m totally against all that, I just wanted to start a different way to have fun on the water. And really, isn’t that what it’s all about? Life these days seems to be so full of things to really be serious about and so many inhumane injustices… Why not let the ocean be a place to just have fun on and enjoy each others company?!

That is what The Butterfly Effect is: a place to support and have fun with our sisters on the water and promote the feeling that we are all “‘winners”. What’s so cool about the event is that it also brings in the guys! Of Course! Women and Water are Beautiful and if you put the two together…wham!, you have concentrated beauty all around you… Especially when everyone is laughing and having fun and helping. They love to support their women, cheer us on, help with the community and they just totally add to all the fun and aloha spirit of it all.

Women and Water are Beautiful and if you put the two together… wham!, you have concentrated beauty all around you

I have enjoyed beach going ever since I was a baby but didn’t start any board sport until I was 16. As a little girl, I remember being really happy whenever my parents would drive past Hookipa. I would always get butterfies in my stomach. I would feel so excited watching windsurfers fly over the waves. I was in love with the sport from a tiny age but it wasn’t until I was sixteen when I woke up one morning and I blurted out to my mom, ” We live in the windsurfing capital of the world Mom!! Take me down to Kanaha after school! I am going to be a windsurfer!” Somehow my mom was always willing and able to haul me down with my newly acquired board from my friend, Levi Siver.

A short time after that, I wanted to surf so my mom and I would go down to Hookipa for a “morning session”, me with a surfboard, and my mom with a boogie board. We would get some fun in and then she would have me back upcountry in time for my home room class. This lasted until I got my driver’s license and then I was in the water everyday… Often 2 or 3 times day.

We can’t take things for granted any longer. Things like: there will always be a beautiful blue ocean to jump into or healthy food to eat, or bountiful, vital land to live and farm upon.

We can’t take things for granted any longer. Things like: there will always be a beautiful blue ocean to jump into or healthy food to eat, or bountiful, vital land to live and farm upon. I think a lot of GMO [Genetically Modified Organism] lately because their main testing grounds are here in Hawaii. We are the guinea pigs for Monsanto [a major agriculture company in the US] in Hawaii and we must stop buying GMO foods, and allowing pesticides to be sprayed all over the place, which is killing our land and our ocean. Our precious island of Maui is being raped and used as a testing ground for Monsanto’s experiments.

As much as The Butterfly Effect is for having fun, even more important is the way we see the world and how we interact with it and with each other. As the founder of The Butterfly Effect movement, I hope to also promote awareness and action about this. I believe this is a very vital part of spreading Aloha around the world. I stand up against anything that doesn’t support life… Please join me as we love ouselves and our world so much that we drive Monsanto out of business and off the island. My dream is to plant more seeds, and live organically off the land. Mahalo

My dream is to plant more seeds, and live organically off the land. Mahalo

Join the movement on betheeffect.com