Plover flats
Papa is a flat or a stratum and kōlea is the Pacific golden plover, the migratory bird that winters in Hawaiʻi and flies to Alaska to breed. The name describes the flats the birds gather on.
The kōlea's annual return — the same individual birds to the same patches of ground — was closely watched, and the bird is a figure in proverbs for someone who arrives, feeds well and leaves.
Why it is green
The sand is olivine, weathered out of the cinder cone behind the beach. Olivine is denser than the other minerals in the lava, so the surf carries the lighter material away and leaves the green behind.