Making a business case, ur welcome
Not much is known about how the earliest civilizations adapted to their environments except through their cultural habits (i.e. religion, games, etc). The Mayans took advantage of the surrounding rain forests and developed a very heavy agricultural and farming civilization, focusing in the cultivation of maize, beans, squash, peppers, avocado, and other important foods. They created a system for tearing down the rain forest in order to make room for their fields and left the watering of the plants up to the gods as they believed that the sun and rain were entirely divine. The Aztecs, however, settled in a more marshy land that was difficult to cultivate. Instead, they relied on military power and strength to conquer other civilizations and steal their food to keep their civilization alive. They did a bit of growing on their own, but not to the same scale as the Mayans, developing water ways and canals to transport goods from conquered cities to their capital.
Hawaii is very similar to Southeast Asia. I lived in Okinawa, Japan, actually, and the Ryukyu islands are very similar to the Hawaiian islands in the Pacific.
