If Andrew Pierce is right, Hawai‘i isapt to experience hotter and faster-

spreading wildfires with just a small rise intemperatures. When a warming climateforces the thermometer to climb evenhigher, the impact on Hawai‘i’senvironment will be devastating.

Our cover story, based on presentationsfrom the 2013 Hawai‘i ConservationConference, provides a sobering look atthe new breed of fire the islands will befacing with increased hot and dry spells.Inside the issue is an invasive species wrap-up from the HCC as well as reports fromPeter Vitousek’s 25th — yes, 25th —conference on Hawai‘i ecosystems held onthe Big Island.

New Yorker Ava Prince, our summerintern, describes her experiences at twovery different forest restoration projects.Rounding out the issue is our regularBoard Talk column and a last, final reporton legislative action in 2013.

in their history. The fire trend is due, in largepart, to climatic factors, something Pierce hasstudied extensively in California. More re-cently, he worked under Creighton Litton ofUH’s Department of Natural Resources andEnvironmental Management, and with Su-san Cordell and Christian Giardina of theU.S. Forest Service’s Institute of Pacific Is-lands Forestry, to determine the potentialimpact of climate change on fires in Hawai‘i.

I don’t mean to scare anybody,” Andrew Pierce said after he had probably done

exactly that.Pierce’s new research, which he shared at

July’s Hawai‘i Conservation Conference inWaikiki, suggests that recent climate changehas resulted in fires that can now spread 11times faster and can be 30 times more intensethan those in the 1950s. And that’s just froma two-degree Celsius increase in temperature.

IN THIS ISSUE

Price: !".##

Volume $%, Number & September 2013

2New & Noteworthy: Monk Seals, Leithead-Todd

3Scientists Gather in Hilo

For 25th Annual Vitousek Meeting4

Hawai‘i Is Quickly Becoming A Different Place6

Damages from Little Fire AntCould Top $170 Million on Big Island

9How I Learned to Love to Weed

10Board Talk: 3 Kayak Operators

On Maui Found to Violate Beach Rules12

Kaua‘i Drag Strip MatchesInvasives in Appropriations

Burning Issues Fire Dangers Increase ExponentiallyWith Just a Small Rise in Temperature

to page 5

“Even if we think in our brains, ‘It’s twodegrees warmer,’ ... we’re going to have expo-nential feedbacks into fire behavior,” saidPierce, a post-doctoral researcher at the Uni-versity of Hawai‘i.

Over the past decade, states across thenation – Texas, New Mexico, Georgia, Ari-zona, Utah, Florida and California – havehad some of the largest, if not the largest fires,

While waiting for a projection from thePacific Islands Climate Change Cooperative(PICCC) on what the climate here will be likein 40 to 50 years, Pierce and his team lookedto the past and found that climate change hasalready made the islands more vulnerable towildfire.

After decades without a single fire, three scorched some 3,000 acres on Kaua‘i’s west side last year, including statetimber management areas (pictured here).

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To better determine the degree to whichseals are affecting nearshore marine resources,Sprague compared what they eat with whatcommercial fishers catch and what apex preda-tory fish are estimated to consume.

“This is trying to put monk seal consump-tion in context,” Sprague said at a recent meet-ing of the Western Pacific Fishery ManagementCouncil’s Scientific and Statistical Committee.

She first estimated the seals’ dietary needs bytaking what captive seals eat and adding 20percent. A seal eats an average of about 15pounds of fish a day, depending on size, she said.

Then, looking only at fin fish that live inwaters shallower than 30 meters, and assuminga MHI monk seal population of 200 (eventhough only 130-140 were counted last year),Sprague found that apex predatory fish con-sumed more than 50 times what monk seals do.Also, commercial fisheries take 25 times morefish than the seals do, she said.

Environment Hawai‘i($ Kapi‘olani StreetHilo, Hawai‘i )*($#

Patricia Tummons, EditorTeresa Dawson, Staff Writer

Environment Hawai‘i is published monthly by EnvironmentHawai‘i, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation.Subscriptions are $65 individual; $100 non-profits, libraries;$130 corporate. Send subscription inquiries, address changes,and all other correspondence to Environment Hawai‘i,72 Kapi‘olani Street, Hilo, Hawai‘i 96720.Telephone: 808 934-0115. Toll-free: 877-934-0130.E-mail:ptummons@gmail.comWeb page: http://www.environment-hawaii.orgTwitter: Envhawaii

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NEW AND NOTEWORTHY

A publication ofEnvironment Hawai‘i, Inc.

Monk Seals Are Not Pigs: Hawaiian monkseals are critically endangered, with only about1,100 remaining in the wild, 140 of which live inthe main Hawaiian islands. While federal re-source managers are trying to grow those num-bers, fishermen have begun complaining thatthe seals compete with them and steal theircatch.

Stories of seals snagging bait, messing withgear or harassing spear fishers aren’t uncom-mon, but new research by the National Oce-anic and Atmospheric Administration suggeststhe animals aren’t gobbling up all the fish in themain Hawaiian islands. Not even close.

The seals do eat a lot, but they’re scatteredacross hundreds of miles of ocean and they’renot the only consumers out there, NOAA’sRachel Sprague said at recent presentations onher research.

OfficersPatricia Tummons

President andTreasurerRon Terry

Vice PresidentTeresa Dawson

Secretary

DirectorsKathy BaldwinDeborah ChangMary EvansonMina Morita

Volume 24, No. 3 September 2013

Sprague calculated that monk seals eat lessthan one percent of the fish biomass within 30meters. To put it another way, the seals con-sume 1 pound of fish per square mile, she said.

What’s more, the seals only eat some of thespecies targeted by fishermen, namelysurgeonfish, wrasses, and crustaceans, she said.

Petition Seeks to Remove Leithead-Todd:Bobby Jean Leithead-Todd, the former plan-ning director for Hawai‘i County, was ap-pointed to head the county’s Department ofEnvironmental Management in June. She hadheld the position once before, but in 2010,voters approved an amendment to the countycharter that requires the DEM to be headed bysomeone with a degree in engineering or arelated field.

When Leithead-Toddwas up for confirmationby the County Council inJuly, six of the nine coun-cil members accepted theargument of Mayor BillyKenoi that Leithead-Todd’s law degree fulfilledthe new charter requirement.

Councilmember Brenda Ford did not. In-stead, on August 8, she petitioned the 3rdCircuit Court to order Leithead-Todd to ex-plain “the authority under which [she] purportsto hold the office” and to enter a judgment thatLeithead-Todd “is not qualified to hold theoffice of Director of the Department of Envi-ronmental Management” and that she “be re-strained from performing the duties of thatoffice.”

In support of the petition, Ford’s attorney,Mike Matsukawa, quoted from the discussionsthat the county charter commission held inconsidering the charter amendment in 2010.One of the members specifically asked formerEnvironmental Management director LonoTyson what “a related field” might be.

A “related field could be anything rangingfrom environmental science to even geology toa certain extent, but a technical backgroundthat supports a lot of the very difficult decisionsthat the director has to make,” Lono replied.

“There are people out therewatching to make sure we staff

and the board look out forthe interest of the public,

especially in the shoreline area.”— Russell Tsuji, DLNR

Hawaiian monk seal.

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There are no plenary sessions, registra-tion fees, special badges or fancy lun-

cheons. No logo-imprinted coffee mugs –not even a logo, for that matter. But for thelast 25 years, the summer meetings orga-nized by Stanford University professor Pe-ter Vitousek have attracted scientists andgraduate students from all over the world tothe Big Island, where they discuss the workthey’re doing in the field of Hawaiian con-servation biology and ecology.

This year was no exception. With eachpresenter given five to ten minutes (andwith Vitousek himself enforcing the timelimits), the two-day gathering this year atthe University of Hawai‘i-Hilo featurednearly 90 talks covering a wide range oftopics – everything from the localized effectsof global climate change to the geneticanalysis of microscopic mycorrhizal fungi.

We present a write-up of just a few ofthese that seemed to have special bearing onrecent events or which challenged receivedwisdom.

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After Broomsedge Is Gone,Things Can Get Worse

Carla D’Antonio, a professor in theDepartment of Environmental Studies

at the University of California, SantaBarbara, has been studying the invasion ofHawai‘i Volcanoes National Park byperennial grasses. Do the invaders “representan alternative stable state?” Or are they“part of a series of changes over time?” Or,as yet a third option, “do they precipitate aseries of changes leading to meltdown” ofthe entire ecosystem?

In the park, broomsedge grass(Andropogon virginicus) has been found toslow the growth of native trees and shrubsand has been blamed for preventing theirregrowth in disturbed areas.

So, after a fire took out the broomsedge,natural resource managers and others werehopeful that the natives would have a betterchance of returning.

Instead, D’Antonio reported, althoughthe dominant grass declined from 73 percentcover to 10 percent, two other invasives –possibly even nastier than broomsedge –moved in: molasses grass and faya tree.

Overall, said D’Antonio, there was a 50

percent decline in the ‘ohi‘a canopy and a 25percent decline in pukiawe. “It would havebeen even greater,” she said, “except thatpukiawe loves being next to faya.”

Driving all this are long-term changes inthe climate, she said. Starting in the 1980s,the incidence of wet years has declined.“Break it down by season, and you see thedry season is really getting much drier. Since1997, we have had a lot of very, very drysummers – we’re hardly seeing any summerprecipitation at all. We also are seeing along-term increase in temperatures, so plantssee less moisture as well as highertemperatures in the growing season.”

! ! !

A Hailstorm ofCaterpillar Poop

In early January, staff from the Hilo officeof the Natural Area Reserves System, part

of the Department of Land and NaturalResources, noticed that koa trees along theHamakua coast were losing their leaves(more properly, the phyllodes that replacetrue leaves as the trees mature).

What they saw, and which was laterconfirmed by overflights, was “a spectacularoutbreak of koa looper moth, larger thanever before reported,” said Robert Peck, anentomologist with the University ofHawai‘i-Hilo. In areas where the infestationwas high, the outbreak “may have long-term impacts,” he added.

The moth (Scotorythra paludicola) isnative to Hawai‘i and found on Kaua‘i,O‘ahu, Maui, and the Big Island. Just 12outbreaks have been recorded in the last 120years, with the severity of outbreaks (andtree mortality) seeming to be a function oftree health. Mortality can range from 0 to 35percent, Peck said – with the higher numberbeing recorded after an outbreak atMakawao, Maui, in 1985.

A century ago, the naturalist R.C.L.Perkins wrote of one such outbreak, “Nativebirds, attracted in thousands by theabundance of this, one of their favoritefoods, were gorged to repletion, and thestarving caterpillars formed writhing masseson the ground… [T]he dropping ofexcrement from the trees on the dead leavesbeneath made a rattling noise as of ahailstorm.”

By mid-May, the outbreak had spread –south from Hamakua to Ka‘u and theHawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, then upthe Kona side of the Big Island: KonaHema, Kona Mauka, and north as far asPu‘uwa‘awa‘a.

Whatever prompted the outbreak, thetrees seem to bounce back fairly quickly.According to Peck, at Laupahoehoe, on theHamakua coast, refoliation began about sixweeks after defoliation.

Stephanie Yelenik, a researcher with theU.S. Geological Survey’s research station inVolcano, has been looking at the effects ofthe outbreak on soil nutrients and the forestunderstory.

“Each phyllode got pumped through acaterpillar gut and came out the other end,”she said. “It was a hailstorm of frass. Youcould watch it collect on your lunch pail.”

The pulse of nitrogen from the frass (thepolite word for caterpillar excrement) couldfacilitate the decomposition of the thicklayers of dead phyllodes on the forest floor,she speculated. To verify this, she and acolleague are continuing to study nitrogenin the soil under the affected trees. Also,they are looking at light levels: “When thephyllodes go away, light inputs increase.”

Overall, while the pulse of nitrogen andadded light could help native plants, “itmight also foster more grass,” Yelenik said.

According to J.B. Friday, the extensionforester with the University of Hawai‘i,almost every koa tree in the Hamakua areawas defoliated by the koa looper. Theoutbreak is the largest ever recorded,exceeding 30,000 acres, he said.

! ! !

Rethinking PricklesOn Native Poppy

Kasey Barton, a botany professor at theUniversity of Hawai‘i at Manoa, is

challenging the notion that a benign,predator-free ecosystem resulted in nativeHawaiian plants letting down their defenses.

“We expect island plants to have lowerlevels of defenses than their continentalrelatives,” she said. Because Hawai‘i has no“herbivorous mammals, mollusks, orreptiles, it leads people to believe defensetraits are not needed.”

But this is based on the assumption thatthe pressure from herbivores is the onlyreason for the traits, “and generally,” shesaid, “this is too simple.”

For one thing, she noted, “we do havesome native herbivores on the islands,”including gall-forming psyllids and moths,

Conservation Scientists Gather in HiloFor 25th Annual Vitousek Meeting

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among other arthropods, and also now-extinct flightless birds..

Barton compared the native Hawaiianpoppy, pua kala (Argemone glauca), to its“continental sister species,” the Mexicanpoppy. Both have prickles and latex, “butthe island plant is better defended than thecontinental plant for both prickles and latex– the complete opposite of what you wouldpredict.”

“My two main hypotheses for why puakala appears to be better defended than theMexican poppy are that, first, herbivorepressure has been historically strong inHawai‘i on the poppy,” Barton said in afollow-up email to Environment Hawai‘i.“It may have had high levels of damage bynative insects (especially beetles) and theextinct geese. And two, the prickles may alsoserve the function of photoprotection andwater balance via light reflection and anincrease in the boundary layer. I’m research-ing that aspect this summer to examine thephysiological benefits of prickles.” The firsthypothesis “is, of course, impossible to testdirectly.”

Shoots vs. Roots.One under-appreciated defense that Bartonis studying is that of tolerance, the ability ofplants to survive despite damage. “Seedlingsof weedy plants are extremely plastic,” she

said. “They can minimize root growth tomaximize their above-ground growth fol-lowing damage, which allows them to re-cover quickly and have similar growth toundamaged plants.” By “weedy,” Bartonlater explained, “I do not necessarily meaninvasive – just plants with weedy pheno-types (fast growth rates, usually annuals,often found in disturbed habitats).”

Barton’s current research involves study-ing in her labs the tolerance to herbivory ofthousands of seedlings of many native Ha-waiian species (including ‘ohi‘a, mamaki,akolea, and haha). She expects their toler-ance of herbivore pressure to be low, “sinceHawai‘i lacks the classic seedling herbivores(mammals, reptiles, herbivorous mol-lusks).”

Hawai‘i Is Becoming a Different Place‘Very Quickly,’ Threatening Conservation Work

Jeff Burgett is the science coordinator ofthe Pacific Islands Climate Change

Cooperative. At the Hilo meeting organizedby Peter Vitousek of Stanford University todiscuss research into Hawai‘i ecosystems,Burgett spoke direly of changes to come.

“Conservation is founded on twoconcepts,” Burgett said: “protection ofcurrent habitat and restoration of lostspecies, processes, and cultural traditionswhenever possible.”

“But,” he went on to add, “this assumesa stationary climate. And that’s no longertenable.”

Climate change is coming, and manyspecies may not be able to survive in the newcircumstances. The changes include highertemperatures, especially at night and athigher elevations. Leeward and high-elevation areas will be drier, while windwardslopes may be drier in parts and wetter in

others. Contrasts in rainfall andtemperatures will be accentuated, he said.

Shorelines will change as well. The lowestislands, in the northwestern part of thearchipelago, “are going to be overwashed bystorms long before they’re submerged” byrising seas, he said. Meanwhile, coastalwetlands will become saline or disappear.

Reef-building corals “will be in serioustrouble quite soon,” he said. “Sea surfacetemperature increases will cause bleachingto be more frequent, and there’s the addedstress of ocean acidification.”

Science and management need to belinked more strongly than ever to confrontthe changes, Burgett said. To encouragethis, his agency is developing four new“products,” he said.

First is an analysis of the vulnerability ofplant and bird species to the changing cli-mate, he said. “The plant version looks at

the climate vulnerability of the entire na-tive flora … and includes species distribu-tion models for more than 1,000 species.”That analysis, he added, should be availablefor use as early as this fall.

A similar analysis for all native forestbirds is expected to be released in early2014, Burgett said.

A tool to look at coral reef stresses,including bleaching and aragonitesaturation projections, is to be released thisfall, he said.

Finally, PICCC will look at coastalwetland transformations on three high-priority wetlands on O‘ahu and Maui,including Maui’s Kealia Pond.

“There’s going to be a transformation of alot of critical conservation properties andassociated resources,” Burgett said. He notedthat among the several future climatescenarios, “we are currently on track with thehigh warming scenario. By the mid-century,there will be a decrease in winter rainfall ofsubstantial magnitude – 50-plus percent.”

“Hawai‘i is becoming a different placethan it’s ever been — very quickly,” he said.

— P.T.

In connection with the herbivore pres-sure, Barton is also studying the effects ofdrought. “Seedling tolerance to herbivoryinvolves a reduction in root growth in orderto maximize shoot growth,” she said, “whiledrought tolerance involves the oppositepattern – an increase in root growth. Thus,drought may make Hawaiian plants espe-cially intolerant of seedling herbivory.” Inother words, by investing in root growth inresponse to drought pressure, plants areconstrained in their ability to reallocategrowth aboveground to replace leaf tissuelost to herbivores.

“But these are just predictions at thispoint,” Barton said. “I’m just starting trialsright now with about 2,000 seedlings inpots and another 1,000 to 3,000 to go overthe next couple of months.”

“I do hope that this will inform us aboutrestoration by highlighting the effect ofclimate change on seedling-herbivore in-teractions and the need to manage formultiple factors simultaneously because oftheir interactive effects,” she said.

At the same time that she is studyingnative seedling tolerance, she will be con-ducting similar experiments on invasiveplants to determine whether they are moretolerant of seedling damage and droughtthan native Hawaiian plants.

— Patricia Tummons

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Hot! Hot! Hot!Wind, temperature, and humidity all af-fect fire behavior. Using data collected atthe Honolulu International Airport – oneof the few locations in Hawai‘i with reli-able records going back several decades –Pierce noted all of the average daily andmonthly high temperatures from 1950-1959 and compared them to records from2000-2009. He also followed changes inrelative humidity and wind speed.

“The 2000s look quite a bit different”from the 1950s, he said. He found that theaverage temperature in the 2000s washigher than the extreme high tempera-tures of the 1950s.

Humidity levels also varied. In the2000s, the driest months were signifi-cantly drier than they were in the 1950s,but the average months are similar towhat they were in the 1950s, he said. Windspeeds were higher in the 2000s, but onlymarginally so.

Pierce made what was perhaps his mostdramatic finding when he compared thenumber of days where temperatures reached88 degrees F or higher. In the 1950s, therewere only 61 days where the daily hightemperature was 88 degrees. In the 2000s,there were 752 days, an increase of morethan 1,000 percent. When he included dayswhere high temperatures exceeded 88 de-grees, the difference was even greater: 69days in the 1950s compared to 1,104 days inthe 2000s.

Pierce, who has recently moved to Wash-ington, D.C., said he wasn’t surprised by thedifferences in temperature and humiditybecause “what I found is essentially thesame as what [other researchers] found.”But, he added, “I was surprised by howthose seemingly small changes in weathervariables produced large changes in fuelmoisture levels and the exponentially largerchanges in potential fire behavior.”

FlammabilityThe drier and hotter weather has translatedinto drier landscapes, where “fuels ignitemore quickly and release heat faster,” Piercesaid.

Without any data from actual fires in the1950s and 2000s, Pierce used the Honoluluairport weather data and a fire behaviormodel to calculate potential fire character-istics from those periods for fires burning inthe 10 percent most extreme conditions.Model results showed that fires in the 1950swould have spread at a rate of 0.1 meters/

Fire Dangers continued from page 1second, while those in the 2000s spread at a rateof 1.1 meters/second. Fireline intensity, an in-dex of the severity of a fire, went from 274 kW/meter to 8,674 kW/meter, and flame lengthincreased fivefold between the two periods, hesaid.

Those results do not bode well for Hawai‘i’swild landscapes, native or not.

“The general idea is that air temperatureswill be higher with climate change,” Pierce said.And if fires become more frequent and intenseas a result, forest restoration will also becomemore difficult, according to experts. At the 2012

Area Reserve, including 149 acres of criticalhabitat for federally listed species.

“Not only was this one of the largest fireseasons on Kaua‘i since the 1960s, but the fireseverity was characterized as severe for muchof the burned area. These high-fire severitiesacross numerous watersheds and steep gulchesabove pristine near-shore coral reefs havecreated a significant management challengefor [DOFAW],” Mann stated in her confer-ence abstract.

The intense flames burned just about ev-erything in their path, leaving vast areas ofexposed earth. Although DOFAW startedremediating the forested areas last year, Gov.Neil Abercrombie issued in February an emer-gency executive order allowing the DLNR toimmediately expand remediation activities toinclude ground cover planting and dead treeremoval, among other things.

“Immediate action is needed to stabilizeand quickly revegetate denuded slopes andminimize the long-term ecological impacts tothe mauka forests and marine ecosystemsfrom heavy rains, downed woody debris andrunoff,” according to a press release describ-ing the order.

Mann agrees with Pierce’s assessment thatfires today can be far more intense than theyused to be.

“I would say that the fire intensity is muchhigher, as well as the fire frequency. In thatarea there hadn’t been a fire in 60 years,” shetold Environment Hawai‘i. “There’s no doubtit’s connected to climate change,” she contin-ued, adding that species composition alsoaffects fire intensity.

“A lot of the invasives are a lot moreflammable,” she said.

Initially, the DLNR estimated it wouldcost $8 million to restore and remediate theburned timber management areas alone.Those areas consisted mainly of eucalyptusand pine, with some scattered native species,Mann said.

“We were asked to cut that in half,” Mannsaid, so it “will be in the neighborhood of $4million to do what needs to be done. So far,we’ve received less than $1 million. We’vebeen promised a million.”

Even so, her agency was able to removehazardous trees, plant some ground cover,and create fire breaks early on.

“We got lucky because the big rains camereally late so we were able to get some vegeta-tion on the ground. The erosion potential wasextremely high,” she said.

Future WorkAt the time Pierce gave his presentation,Giardina said that they had hoped to be ableto show the results of similar modeling, using

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The Kaua‘i fires left acres of bare earth.

conservation conference, Pierce reported onearlier research showing that repeated fire candrive out a lot of native species — shrubs, inparticular. What’s more, he found that drylandareas on Hawai‘i island where ungulates hadbeen fenced out to protect native species hadhigher fuel loads than unfenced areas. Researchpresented at this year’s conference by the Uni-versity of Maryland’s Kealoha Kinney alsosuggests that recurrent fire may reduce theamount of soil phosphorus that is available toplants in dryland systems and thus could alterthe pathway of primary succession.

A presentation by state Department of Landand Natural Resources’ Division of Forestryand Wildlife (DLNR-DOFAW) forester SheriMann provided a glimpse of what fires intoday’s climate can do.

In the summer of 2012, three large-scale firesravaged 3,000 acres on Kaua‘i’s west side. TheDLNR spent nearly a million dollars control-ling them, and even so, they burned more thana thousand acres in the Na Pali-Kona and Pu‘uKa Pele forest reserves and the Kuia Natural

Page * Environment Hawai‘i September $#'&

agr icu l ture ,r e s i d en t i a l ,lodging, parks,schools, andother). He didnot assess thep o t e n t i a lthreats to na-tive species orthe costs asso-

ciated with pets blinded by ant stings.Eradication, he found, wasn’t really

worth the cost. His model showed that itwould cost about a billion dollars to eradi-cate the ants from Hawai‘i island, wherethey have steadily spread since a state ento-mologist discovered them there in 1999.

And even if you spent all that money,says Hawai‘i Ant Lab manager CasperVanderwoude, “you may or may not suc-ceed.”

The ants, as tiny as crumbs, are notori-ously persistent. Eradication is “probably

Annual Damages from Little Fire AntCould Be $170 Million on Big Island Alone

If efforts to control the little fire ant (LFA)on Hawai‘i stay as they are, the island

could see damages of nearly $170 million ayear, as well as 33 million sting incidents ayear. That’s according to University ofHawai‘i planning student Mike Motoki, apresenter at the 21st annual Hawai‘i Conser-vation Conference held recently in Waikiki.

The bright orangey-red ants —Wasmannia auropunctata — are native toCentral and South America and form largecolonies on the ground and in trees. Inaddition to Hawai‘i, they have also invadedTahiti, the Galapagos Islands, and otherparts of the Pacific. Their burning stings cansend you running to the drugstore for a packof Benadryl.

Using a model developed by scientists atUH, Motoki has been able to estimate thepotential economic harm and number ofsting incidents that are likely to occur withvarying levels of ant management. He lookedonly at impacts to six sectors (nurseries,

not an economic thing to do” given thecost, Vanderwoude told EnvironmentHawai‘i. Motoki recommended somethingin between the status quo and total eradica-tion. Spending about $70 million on miti-gation and the prevention of an expandedant range over the next ten years couldresult in a significant decrease in damagesand ant sting incidents, he found.

Currently, the Hawai‘i Ant Lab, based inHilo and funded by the U.S. Forest Service,the Department of Land and Natural Re-sources, and the Department of Agricul-ture, has an annual budget of only $200,000to $250,000, Vanderwoude says, and withthat he and his staff are supposed to addressall invasive ant problems throughout thestate. His staff — just 3.6 people —conducts research on better ways to controlthe LFA and coordinates with the Hawai‘iDepartment of Agriculture and island inva-sive species committees to control incipientinfestations and educate the public.

A couple of recent community work-shops on the LFA were “frighteningly well-attended,” he says, adding, “The demandfor residential workshops has been really,really high.”

The ants have already spread to an esti-

PICCC’s climate change projections, for theArmy’s 80,000 hectare Pohakuloa TrainingArea (PTA) on Hawai‘i island, which has ahistory of burning. With an estimate of whatthe climate at PTA will be like during thedecade 2050-2060, they planned to “illus-trate how incremental increases in basic me-teorological variables can have non-lineareffects on the frequency of hot and dry days,as well as potential intensity of and size ofwildfires,” Pierce’s abstract states. It notesthat PTA, where the U.S. military conductslive-fire training, is also “where 15 nativethreatened and endangered species stand tobe severely and negatively impacted by warm-ing and drying trends and resulting firesforecasted for the region.”

However, Giardina says his team is justnow receiving the data needed for the PTAwork.

“We originally wanted to do current vs.future, but it turned out to be really interest-ing to go back and see how fire behavior mayhave already changed dramatically,” he saysof Pierce’s research, which was funded by theU.S. Army Garrison-Hawai‘i and the ForestService’s Pacific Southwest Research Station.

According to University of Hawai‘i clima-tologist Thomas Giambelluca, who alsospoke at the conference, the leeward side of

the island of Hawai‘i may feel climate changeimpacts sooner than some of the northernislands, such as Kaua‘i and O‘ahu.

“I’ve noticed it’s been very dry in thesouthern islands. That means that our win-tertime systems are not migrating as far southas they were in the past,” and, in fact, theyappear to be moving north, he said. “Whetherthat is connected with climate change, I’mnot sure, but it makes sense that it is.”

Because the windward sides of the islandsdon’t rely as heavily on those winter stormsystems for moisture, they aren’t likely tosuffer as much as the leeward sides,Giambelluca said. PTA is located in the saddleof Hawai‘i island, between Mauna Loa andMauna Kea.

Management ToolsWhile reversing the current climate trendsappears to be near impossible, governmentagencies, scientific institutions, and non-profit organizations have been working to-gether to provide Hawai‘i island, at least, withtools to help identify – in real time – areasmost vulnerable to burning and to collate firehistory data collected by various agencies.

In his 2012 presentation, Pierce saidthere’s usually a two-week lag between a hotspell and vegetation die-off. Dead vegeta-

tion is “correlated with [low] fuel moisture,which is key to the start and spread of fires,”he said.

Several years ago, Greg Asner of theCarnegie Institution for Science developeda web tool that allows visitors to view satel-lite images showing areas of live vegetation,dead vegetation, and bare ground.

In addition, the Hawai‘i Wildfire Man-agement Organization (HWMO), a non-profit organization, has helped develop a mapidentifying the fuel loads across the island. Ithas also spearheaded the creation of a wildfirehistory map. Among other things, the map,which is the first of its kind in Hawai‘i, willhelp agencies secure resources for mitigationand post-fire restoration, according toHWMO executive director Elizabeth Pickett,a conference presenter.

According to Mann, HWMO is workingtoward developing a statewide map.

Coupled with climate change informationexpected from the PICCC, the map will be auseful tool for fire pre-emption, manage-ment, and post-fire remediation, Mann said.

Having data on historic fires, as well ascurrent day information on changes in pre-cipitation, should give managers the ability topredict fire hazards and do pre-fire planning,she said. — Teresa Dawson

Little fire ants(Wasmannia auropunctata)

September $#'& Environment Hawai‘i Page (

mated 6,000 sites from lower Puna toLaupahoehoe on the east side, and to theKona airport and Ka‘u on the west. Some4,000 homes, 186 farms, six parks, a school, ahotel, and 568 other sites on the island havebeen infested, Motoki said. Fellow presenterLissa Strohecker, an outreach specialist withthe Maui Invasive Species Committee, addedthat the Hawai‘i island office of the stateDepartment of Agriculture now gets 25 to 30calls a week from people seeking advice onhow to get rid of the pests.

And the ants aren’t just biting people,they’re hampering inter-island trade and tour-ism.

Motoki reports that the model predicts 23percent of plant nurseries on Hawai‘i island areinfested with the ant. As a result, a number oflandscapers on Maui have stopped importingplants from Hawai‘i and have started sourcinglocally, according to biologist and environ-mental consultant Forest Starr.

Visitors to a few badly infested beach parksand the Panaewa Zoo are “constantly beingstung by ants falling from trees,” according tothe ant lab’s website.

Despite the ant’s obvious impacts,Strohecker said, there still seems to be a lackof awareness on Hawai‘i of how bad the pestcan be once it’s established.

“[E]ven though properties have ants, resi-dents are often not treating, or treating tooinconsistently to be effective, citing treat-ment cost and neighboring lot access as limi-tations,” her abstract states.

Government agencies have been encour-aging the landscape industry to treat plants,working with farmers markets to encouragetesting, and trying to spread the word atcommunity events with the Big Island Inva-sive Species Committee, among other things,Strohecker said.

Should resource managers ever get an in-flux of funds to control the ant, Motoki’smodel suggests that focusing on suppressionin the agricultural, nursery, and lodging sec-tors would likely yield more economic ben-efits than focusing on residential, school, andpark sectors. However, that strategy wouldprotect far fewer people from getting stung.

Incipient InfestationsSo far, the ants haven’t been detected onO‘ahu. On a farm in west Maui, a smallinfestation found in 2009 was thought to benearly eradicated a couple of years ago, butscientists discovered a nest on the property

this year. On a 12-acre site on the NorthShore of Kaua‘i, after repeated treatmentwith pesticides, resource managers arenow close to stamping out a decade-oldinfestation there.

To prevent plants shipped fromHawai‘i island from causing further infes-tations, the HDOA requires all pottedplants from there to be inspected. If anyants are found, the plants must be treatedwith pesticide before being shipped. Nurs-eries inspected twice a year by the HDOAand certified to be ant-free, however, mayship plants freely.

Some scientists and resource managershave recommended tightening the state’sregulations to prevent the transport of anyplants from known high-risk areas, but sofar, no rule amendments have been pro-posed.

Presenter Gary Morton of the Depart-ment of Agriculture, Fisheries and For-

estry in Queensland, Australia, describedthe protocols and methods his agency hasimplemented to prevent the spread of theLFA, which was first detected there in2006.

In Queensland, where eradication isstill possible, 50-meter buffers are im-posed around infested areas and landown-ers are prohibited from moving materialsor ants out of the quarantine area withoutthe approval of an inspector, Morton said.

With two trained ant-sniffing dogs(plus their handler), a field staff of five,and strict protocols on moving vegeta-tion, Morton has managed to inspect andtreat some 260 hectares.

When inspecting green waste, “that’swhere the dogs come in really handy,”Morton said. “They can check some soiland run across some plants very quickly,in a five or ten minute period.”

Morton also advocates for proactivelysearching for the ants.

“Catching that cycle early, that’s howwe’re going to eradicate. There’s less plantsthat are being moved. Hopefully [we’re]reducing the chance of spreading. ... We’reon target for eradication,” he said.

Although penalties for violating thequarantine are high, “we’ve issued warn-ings but never prosecuted anybody,” hecontinued, adding that it’s difficult toprove a person knowingly moved infestedmaterials.

Once an infestation is treated with

pesticide, his team resurveys the area ninemonths later with the dogs, then again ninemonths after that.

“If we find nothing, we declare free-dom,” he said.

So how important are the dogs?For Morton, it means doing only two

follow-up surveys rather than three.“They’re also an enormous engagementtool. We’ll do demonstrations at events.They’re such a visible part of our program,”he said.

They are, however, very expensive. Hisdogs are trained to detect little fire ants – oras they call them in Queensland, “electricants” – as well as red imported fire ants. Thecost of that training: $60,000.

Vanderwoude, who mediated the con-ference panel on LFA, says the dogs arereally handy when eradication is the goaland “where you have to find every last ant.”And they’re also good in a quarantine con-text. “If you had a trailer load of pottedplants ... if there was one fire ant in there,they would find it,” he says.

But because they’re so expensive to trainand maintain, dogs are not ideal for con-trolling ants on Hawai‘i island, “where wehave ants everywhere. ... You’re not lookingto find an ant,” he says. “There is a use fordetector dogs, but it’s important to do themath first.”

More information on this problem as wellas how to manage little fire ants can be foundon the Hawai‘i Ant Lab websitewww.littlefireants.com.

! ! !

Can the MongooseBe Eradicated from Kaua‘i?

Thank you, Theresa. That was very de-pressing,” said Advancing Biodiversity

session moderator Josh Atwood of TheresaMenard’s presentation on how difficult itwill likely be to eradicate mongoose fromKaua‘i, especially with only a year’s worthof funding in place for a single dedicatedtechnician.

If they can’t be eradicated, the “eggs andhatchlings of ground nesting birds like ourstate bird, the nene, and endangered seaturtles like the hawksbill sea turtle are espe-cially at risk,” states the website for theKaua‘i Invasive Species Committee (KISC).

No one knows whether mongooses haveestablished a breeding population on theisland or if there’s only an incipient one.One mongoose was found in 1968. An-other, a lactating female, in 1976, Menard

“If we find nothing, we declare freedom.” — Gary Morton

Page + Environment Hawai‘i September $#'&

said. They had been sighted sporadicallythroughout the decades, then in 2012, theyseemed to be everywhere. A male was cap-tured near the airport, then a female nearNawiliwili harbor. And there were dozensof sightings.

Menard, a map maker and data analystfor The Nature Conservancy of Hawai‘i,KISC’s Keren Gundersen, and JohnChapman of the National Tropical Botani-cal Garden ran various scenarios on a popu-lation model to determine what, if any-thing, could be done to rid the island of thepest that has already established itself onO‘ahu, Moloka‘i, Maui, and Hawai‘i is-land.

Based on the number of credible, non-overlapping sightings in 2012, the teamestimated that there are about 54 mon-gooses on Kaua‘i. Because of the model’slimitations, they set a carrying capacity of5,000 animals, but the actual capacity couldbe much higher, Menard said.

Simply put, without consistently highlevels of harvest, there’s no chance of eradi-cation. Menard reported that if no moremongooses make their way to the island,and if managers are able to cull 29 of thema year, there is a 50 percent chance thatKaua‘i would be mongoose-free after 15years.

Under a scenario in which only half ofthe adult females breed, a harvest of 29 ayear would eliminate the population inthree years. If only eight a year were caught,it’s likely they could be eradicated after 27years, the model showed.

However, if only two mongooses a yearsomehow make it to Kaua‘i and no morethan 29 a year are caught, eradication be-

can easily grow to be several feet in length,shade out native understory.

With seeds like grains of sand packedinto tiny berries, a single tree can producemillions of seeds a year. Because the seedsare widely dispersed by birds and stay viablein the soil for up to eight years, detectingand eradicating incipient populations islabor intensive and costly.

On all of the large main Hawaiian is-lands — Kaua‘i, O‘ahu, Maui, and Hawai‘i—island invasive species committees havebeen fighting for years to limit the plants’spread. Some islands have fared better thanothers. O‘ahu, for example, has all buteradicated the plant. On Hawai‘i island,however, the plants have established astronghold in the Hilo area and are creepingtheir way along the Hamakua coast. Acouple of isolated populations have alsobeen found on the island’s west side.

With limited funds and staff to controlthe plants, many see biocontrol as the bestlong-term management option.

At a lab in Costa Rica, Puliafico has beenfeeding a variety of plants to two insectsknown to hamper miconia’s reproductivityand ability to shade out other plants. Hewants to see what they will eat, what theylike the best, and what they’d rather diethan eat.

First, there’s the seed-feeding weevil,Anthonomus monostigma, collected fromfour different miconia species. Adult wee-vils feed on the fruit; the larvae eat the seeds,he said.

His tests so far suggest that the weevilshave very strong preferences for their hostplants. However, Puliafico said, he is stillworking on a list of native Hawaiian plantsto test the weevil on.

“The good news is that the Miconianervosa, invasive in Australia and poten-tially coming here, has a weevil that loves itshost plant. We’ve got an ace in the hole,” hesaid.

The second insect he’s testing is Euselasiachrysippe, a defoliating caterpillar, which hesaid have “fun, little larvae that eat alltogether,” forming great chains along theedges of leaves.

The caterpillars are found only onmiconia species and were identified a de-cade ago as a potential biocontrol agent.Puliafico said he had tested them on 34species of plants in petri dishes. Fortu-nately, he said, none of them damaged anynative Hawaiian species.

He said he plans to test the caterpillars oneven more local plants “to make sure ournative species are well protected, and im-portant crop trees.” — T.D.Miconia calvescens

PHOT

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chickens, cats, and toads, but no mon-gooses. No mongooses have been caught sofar this year.

! ! !

Two Candidates forMiconia Biocontrol

Enemies of one of the worst invasiveplants in the Pacific are a step closer to

being deployed in Hawai‘i. At the conserva-tion conference, U.S. Forest Service ento-mologist Kenneth Puliafico reported on hisprogress with determining if two insectsfrom the home range of Miconia calvescenswill leave important Hawai‘i flora alone.

So far, the news is good.“In Costa Rica, miconia is a happy little

plant,” Puliafico said as he showed a pictureof a shoulder-high, lone miconia plantgrowing alongside a stream there. Outsideof its range — in Tahiti, in particular — theplant bosses nearly every other plant out ofthe forest. In infested areas in Hawai‘i,miconia is often the tallest tree around andforms dense stands. Its massive leaves, which

PHOT

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Kaua‘i Invasive Species Committee employee Pat Gmelin with a livemongoose captured on Kaua‘i, in May of 2012.

comes impossible, the modelshowed.

To prevent newcomersfrom supplementing the cur-rent mongoose populationon the island, Menard rec-ommended signage and in-spections.

Trapping the animals hasproven difficult. After twowere captured in the summerof 2012, staff with KISC, theDepartment of Land andNatural Resources’ Divisionof Forestry and Wildlife, theU.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser-vice, and Young Brothersspent more than 2,500 hoursover the rest of the year set-ting and checking more than300 traps. By the end of theyear, they had caught mice,

September $#'& Environment Hawai‘i Page )

I’m a New Yorker, born and raised in a citywhere trees are planted in five-by-three foot

squares every few blocks and gardens aresqueezed onto rooftops, cajoled out of post-age-stamp yards, and nurtured on terraces.Green is hard to come by in New York, butgrowing up as the daughter of a professionalgardener, I interacted with nature more thanmost of my peers. That’s not to say that I wasan expert on the subject or enjoyed the back-breaking, sweat-inducing labor involved ingardening. When I was around twelve mymom hired me to help at one of her jobs (acharming garden with a patio in Park Slope).I might have pulled up two or three weedsbefore she handed me a twenty (my day’ssalary), told me to stop whining, and sent meoff to buy myself the slice of pizza that Iseemed so desperately to want.

It’s been four years since I was twelve(thank god) and in the meantime my appre-ciation of hard work and the environment hasincreased tenfold. Having always had an in-terest in journalism and a secret (thoughoverly romanticized) yearning to save theworld through environmental activism, I cameto Hilo to intern for a month at EnvironmentHawai‘i. I had no idea what to expect. Theimages I conjured up before landing in Hilowere spotty and slightly resembled a desktopscreensaver: swaying palm trees, a postcardmarked “Aloha From Hawai‘i,” scantily cladhula dancers, and waves crashing on whitesand beaches. As I’ve come to realize since,such images reflect little of what the islandshave to offer.

In my short time here I’ve had the goodfortune to explore a range of Hawai‘i’s ecosys-tems: from the lush rainforest in Hawai‘iVolcanoes National Park to the dry alpinedesert on Mauna Kea. Volunteering at twoforest restoration projects, one in a dry forestand another in a lowland rainforest, I was ableto get up close and personal with two of theBig Island’s ecosystems and help, albeit in asmall way, in the effort to protect them.What’s more, I wound up doing exactly whatmy mom had paid me not to do four years agoand found myself enjoying it.

Pu‘uwa‘awa‘aWithin three days of my arrival I was headedto Pu‘uwa‘awa‘a, an area that’s been chewednearly to death by cattle, sheep, and goats forthe better part of two centuries. Since 2001,stewardship of the area has been given over to

How I Learned to Love to Weed:My Month on the Big Island

the Department of Land and Natural Re-sources’ Division of Forestry and Wildlife,which is now working to restore the land andits natural inhabitants. We — Pu‘uwa‘awa‘amanager Elliott Parsons, Environment Hawai‘ieditor Pat Tummons, two students and my-self — were the first group to outplant threat-ened and endangered trees in Waihou, a 204-acre fenced conservation unit high in theahupua‘a. Armed with planting tools, water-ing buckets, and healthy aiea, halapepe, andkauila seedlings, we bounded over weeds andweathered lava in one of the roughest truckrides I’ve ever been on. I clutched my seat asthe pickup bounced mercilessly onward, keep-ing my eyes focused on what was outside thewindow. I’m not exactly an expert, but evenso, what I saw didn’t seem to represent “…therichest floral section in the whole territory,”which is how famed botanist Joseph Rockdescribed the area he saw in a visit in 1913. Thelandscape that was once dense with “luxuriousvegetation” is now mostly covered in a carpetof invasive kikuyu grass, with the occasional‘ohi‘a or mamane tree peeking out tentativelyalongside the scraggly remains of their prede-cessors. Along the way, a few herds of wildgoats or sheep would quickly leap across ourpath, and at one point we were chasing adirectionally likeminded turkey as he scuttleddown the road ahead of us. Parsons would stopthe truck at times to point out recent accom-plishments — school-kid projects and suc-cesses in other management units — beforenavigating us, safe yet shaken, to Waihou.

Well before our arrival, other work crewshad cleared plots in our worksite using pesti-cides. The grey circles of the dead kikuyupolka-dotted the landscape, with colorful flagspopping up to show where previous groups

had planted koa and other natives. Our smallcrew added just 24 more trees and spent therest of the day weeding. This foe from long agowas soon to become a friend, however, as Ipulled at these weeds with a ferocity and thesame feeling of triumph Superman must feelas he lifts cars and rescues small children.

“The personal fulfillment one gets out ofdoing projects here is enormous,” Parsonswrote in an email to me, and I can understand.

Uprooting weeds and digging through the‘a‘a lava, you can easily become consumedwith the small details: the ache in your lowerback, the blisters on your hands, the stone youwant to wrench out of the ground that turnsout to be a boulder. It’s easy to forget howmuch larger the project is and how muchwork you have left to do.

Liko Na Pilina“There were various times when I definitelyfelt overwhelmed. But then we hired an amaz-ing team of people, and having them onboard, and all the teamwork involved gave mea lot of confidence that we could do this,” saysRebecca Ostertag, one of the main researchersat Liko Na Pilina (otherwise known as theHybrid Ecosystems Project). This project islocated alongside the Hilo airport at theKilauea Military Reservation (KMR), whereOstertag and her team are experimentingusing a blend of native and introduced, non-invasive trees to restore the lowland wet forest.

As at Pu‘uwa‘awa, Ostertag’s team neededto set up and clear plots to carry out theirresearch. Unlike Pu‘uwa‘awa‘a, however,where the largest weed I encountered was atwo-foot-high thistle, the crews at Liko naPilina faced 30-foot-tall trees that had inter-twined with one another over time. All thetrees that were not native or part of the hybridcollection were cut down. Think of it asextreme weeding. As I viewed the controlareas, I couldn’t imagine trying to cross themon foot, let alone march through them with achainsaw. I feared I would trip when I’dwalked just a few feet out of the plot to use thefacilities supplied by the overgrowth. Coveredcompletely by the rows and rows of tangledforest, the alterations Ostertag and her teamare making in the plots are invisible unlessone, for some inexplicable reason, were toleave the road and plow through the denseweeds for a good five minutes.

I spent my days at Liko Na Pilina weeding,yet again. While doing so I found myselfenjoying not only what had become my newfavorite hobby but also the communalatmosphere brought by the members of theteam. The physical wear and tear of the day’swork was balanced by cheerful gossip, the easybanter and conversation making the day seem

Ava Prince weeding at Liko Na Pilina.

Page '# Environment Hawai‘i September $#'&

“Is that plant native or invasive?” is aquestion I’ve learned to ask of every plant Isee. Sadly, the answer is almost always “in-vasive,” with strawberry guava, albizia, ban-yan, and miconia consuming acre uponacre of the island’s landscape. It is this newknowledge I’ve gained in my short timehere that has changed my perception ofHawai‘i, sticking with me so much morethan a row of palm trees and crashing oceanwaves.

Ava Rose Prince will enter her senior year atFiorella H. LaGuardia High School of Music& Art and Performing Arts in Manhattan.She lives in Brooklyn.

After years of lax enforcement, the stateDepartment of Land and Natural Re-

sources’ Land Division has begun crackingdown on commercial tour companies onMaui that use state land to stage gear andorient guests.

“The Maui District Land Office has re-ceived numerous complaints from the publicregarding the overcrowding of shoreline areasdue to vendors laying out kayaks or surf-boards along the beach while awaiting thearrival of clients or during lessons and safetybriefings being conducted prior to movingout into the water for tour or surf lessons,”states a June 28 DLNR Land Division report.It adds that the public is “now being forced

out of these locations because of the impactsbrought by the presence of unauthorizedcommercial operators.”

This summer, the division brought threeviolation cases to the Board of Land andNatural Resources. All three companies werefound to have broken department rules pro-hibiting commercial use on state land withouta permit. But in two of the cases, the boardeliminated the recommended fines. Two ofthose companies requested and recently re-ceived approval for a contested case hearing..

At the board’s June 28 meeting, Land

Land Board Finds Three Kayak VendorsGuilty of Illegal Use of Maui Beaches

B O A R D T A L K

Division administrator Russell Tsuji askedthe board to assess a $1,000 fine and $420 inadministrative costs against Island AdventureTours LLC (doing business as Keli‘i’s KayakTours), which he said had been illegallyoperating at Olowalu State Beach Reserve.

Company owner Brian Yesland readilyadmitted that he been using the beach for thepast 20 years, but denied that he was conduct-ing any commercial activity.

“We use the area strictly for ingress andegress to the ocean,” he told the board.

Yesland has a permit to conduct his toursat the county’s park at nearby Ukumehame.But the park, popular with surfers, is toocrowded, he said.

“Years ago, we started to move to Olowalubecause it’s sparsely used. We are not runningfinancial transactions there. We give a safetybriefing and launch the boats. It’s no differentfrom what we do at the beach park. We’re stillcrossing unencumbered [state] land. I don’tknow why you want to create user conflict bymoving us back [to the park],” he said.

He added that DLNR enforcement offic-ers have only told him to keep his gear off thebeach.

To then-Maui board member Jerry Edlao,it didn’t matter that Olowalu is less crowded.

“Over the years, maybe nobody really saidanything, but it’s getting to the point DLNRis catching up to the issues going on. Nowthey’re looking at you. ... I would suggest yougo back to the county park, utilize yourpermit, and that way everybody is happy,” hesaid.

Rob Pacheco and John Morgan, theHawai‘i and O‘ahu representatives on theboard, seemed concerned that the case wasonly now coming to the board, five years afterthe initial incident. (Pacheco runs Hawai‘iForest and Trail; Morgan, Kualoa Ranch,both of which operate commercial tours.)

Pacheco also lamented the fact that thedepartment’s rules allow for commercial ac-tivity with a permit, but there is no processthat would allow a tour company to get acommercial permit, for unencumbered lands.The DLNR quickly established a permittingsystem for beach weddings, he pointed out.

Tsuji countered that for commercial tourpermits, his staff would have to evaluate thelocation and may have to conduct an envi-ronmental review. He also clarified that it isfine for tour groups to traverse the beach, butconducting operations there is not.

After discussing legal issues in executivesession, Edlao moved to find that the com-pany committed a violation, but forgo thefine and administrative costs. He added thathe wanted the Land Division and the Divi-sion of Conservation and Resources Enforce-ment “to continue vigilance of commercialuse of unencumbered lands.”

Edlao’s motion passed, but board mem-bers Pacheco and Morgan voted against it.

Pacheco said bringing a violation case fiveyears late wasn’t reasonable. “This doesn’twork for me,” he said.

Morgan added that he hoped the depart-ment continued to try to find a solution. Thecommercial tour companies are providing a

shorter and the workload lighter. Again, as atPu‘uwa‘awa‘a, the visible results have beenslow, but mostly positive. The mortality rateof the trees planted has been much lower thanOstertag said she had expected (with only 10out of 1,700 trees having died) and now thatthe canopy’s been opened, tiny ‘ohi‘a andmamaki seedlings have been popping out allover the place on their own. In prior projectsit took about a year to see seedlings, but thesenew natives have been spotted within a couplemonths of clearing.

Volunteering at these restoration projectshas shown me the importance of persever-ance. Instead of giving up and becomingoverwhelmed by the size of a project, these

teams tackle it step by step, grab one weed ata time and work their way up to solving thelarger issues. At the end of my days at Liko NaPilina, we would sip on our water and lookover our work space, now mostly free ofweeds, with our little seedlings soaking upsunlight as we soaked in the fruits of our labor.I didn’t get a twenty or a slice of pizza, but myreward was so much greater.

My month at Environment Hawai‘i was anall-inclusive backstage pass to the world offorest restoration, and came with a compli-mentary pair of “ecologist glasses.” This newprescription shaped every aspect of what Iencountered on the Big Island, showing me atruth behind what most tourists see.

“[G]o back to the county park, utilize yourpermit, and that way everybody is happy.” — Jerry Edlao, Land Board

September $#'& Environment Hawai‘i Page ''

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service, he said, “and it’s a worthwhile service.... I think it’s worthwhile to try to minimizeconflict.”

Yesland requested a contested case hear-ing, which the Land Board granted at itsAugust 9 meeting.

Olowalu Offender IIIn 2011, DOCARE officials photographedSouth Pacific Kayaks & Outfitters and TikiTeam Adventures doing much the same thingas Keli‘i’s Kayak Tours — setting kayaksalong the sand and briefing customers. At theboard’s June 28 meeting, Land Division staffrecommended the same penalties: $1,000fine, $420 in administrative costs.

Roger Simonot, owner of parent companyKRS Investments, LLC, did not attend themeeting, but in a letter requested a contestedcase hearing.

Continuing the discussion from the previ-ous case, Tsuji told the board that the DLNR’stop priority is preserving natural resources,and by law, it must also protect traditionaland customary practices.

The shoreline and everything seaward “isheld in trust by the state,” he said. “The LandDivision is not out looking to commercializethe shorelines at all. Uses get scrutinized verycarefully before being brought to board.”

He pointed out that the board had re-cently caused a stir when earlier this year itvoted to allow the Four Seasons resort onMaui to preset chairs on the beach. Outragedcommunity members quickly filed a lawsuitnoting, among other things, that no environ-mental review of this use of state land hadbeen done. The resort has since chosen not touse the easement provided by the board.

“There are people out there watching tomake sure we staff and the board look out forthe interest of the public, especially in theshoreline area,” he said.

Should the board ever entertain the matteragain, Tsuji said an environmental assess-ment would need to be done and, at least, adetermination as to whether a ConservationDistrict Use Permit would be required.

Looking at Olowalu beach, “it doesn’tlook like there’s a lot of room for a commer-cial operation,” he said.

Maui land agent and former DOCAREofficer Larry Pacheco added that several ven-dors with county permits to operate atUkumehame use Olowalu instead becauseit’s not only less crowded, but is less windyand has more reef.

“Residents across the street complain tour-ists are there at 7 a.m.,” he said. “The generalpublic goes there. If [tour operators] have 10kayaks lined up, there’s no place for familiesto go.”

And the tour companies know they’re notsupposed to be there, he said. His officepartnered with the county to conduct a presen-tation for operators explaining the shorelineboundaries of county land, private property,and unencumbered lands.

“In class, we tell them, if they do everythingon private property, but traverse the shoreline,that’s okay. Once they use the shore for theircommercial operation, that’s a problem,” hesaid.

Board member Rob Pacheco asked whetherthe guests were showing up in their own cars.

“Their own cars and even buses are showingup. It varies. It depends on the company. Someof them have tour vans,” Larry Pacheco said.

Again, the time lag between the violationand the recommendation to the Land Boardbothered the Hawai‘i board member. “Whynow is this coming to us?” he asked.

The Maui land agent blamed a lack ofstaffing, noting that there are only two landagents for all of Maui County. He added thatDOCARE held back on enforcing because thereis no process in place to get a commercial tourpermit for the beach.

Rob Pacheco asked whether it would bebeneficial to try to work with the county on ajoint permit for these operators.

Board chair William Aila said that optionalready exists. “We could issue a permit, but wechoose not to,” he said.

Jimmy Gomes, who has since replaced Edlaoon the board, testified that Olowalu may not bethe best place to direct tours.

“From road to ocean, I don’t think you have60 yards. When it’s high tide, [even less],” hesaid.

According to Tsuji, controlling illegalkayak vendors is difficult with so little staff.

In the end, the board voted to approvestaff’s recommendation. At a subsequentmeeting, the board granted the company acontested case hearing.

Third Time’s a CharmerAt its July 26 meeting, the Land Divisionbrought its third illegal kayak vendor case tothe board. But this time, because the ownerwas contrite and promised to stop operatingon Wailea beach, Tsuji recommended for-going the proposed $1,000 fine, but not theadministrative costs of $420. Should thecompany, Maui Ocean Activities, commitanother violation, however, Tsuji recom-mended that the fine be reinstated.

The company had been operating adja-cent to the area where the Land Board hadagreed to allow the Four Seasons to presetchairs. Apparently, company manager DanCardoza said he wasn’t aware he could notstage his kayaks on the beach.

“We just didn’t know,” said Cardoza. “Wewere under the the impression it was businessas usual.”

“Are you okay with administrative costs?”asked at-large member David Goode.

“What are you gonna do? ... It’s the cost ofignorance,” Cardoza replied.

The board then approved a motion find-ing that the company had committed aviolation. The board waived the $1,000 finewith the understanding that should thecompany commit another violation, therecommended fine would be higher.

— T.D.

Page '$ Environment Hawai‘i September $#'& Non-ProfitOrganizationU.S. PostagePAID

Permit No. 208Honolulu, HIAddress Service Requested

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The Hawai‘i Invasive Species Councilrecently announced that it would be

awarding $2.5 million in grants to addressproblems associated with plants and animalsthat pose serious threats to the state’s eco-nomic and environmental health. That is a farcry from the more generous sums the Legisla-ture appropriated in previous years, eventhough with every month that passes, thethreats only increase.

On the other hand, the Garden IslandRacing Association, which operates a dragstrip on state land in west Kaua‘i, has beenblessed with legislative appropriations equalto what HISC has to work with this year. Since2011, a total of $2.5 million has been allocatedin capital improvement funds so that GIRAmembers can race their dragsters and bikes ona smooth track in Kekaha, Kaua‘i — and alsomake other, as-yet-unspecified improve-ments. What’s more, all the work associatedwith making the improvements — finding acontractor, overseeing the work, keeping theproject moving forward — falls not to GIRA,but to the Department of Land and NaturalResources, to whom GIRA pays $1 a year rentfor use of the site.

The first funds to aid GIRA were appropri-ated in 2011, when the Legislature approvedspending $500,000 in FY 2012 on “plans,design and construction to upgrade and resur-face Mana drag racing strip, ground and siteimprovements; equipment and appurte-nances.” In 2012, the Legislature increased theamount by an additional $1 million. Earlierthis year, the DLNR’s Engineering Divisionawarded a contract to Jennings Pacific in theamount of $846,550 to repave a quarter-mileof the track. With the bid having come inlower than anticipated, in July, the DLNRsought to encumber an additional $260,000to allow Jennings Pacific to repave another

Kaua‘i Drag Strip, Invasive Species CouncilAre Matched in Legislative Appropriations

quarter-mile section; the state’s chief pro-curement officer gave his approval to thecontract amendment early last month.

This year, the Legislature inserted CIPfunds of $500,000 for FY 2014 and $500,000for FY 2015 as well. The purpose of theappropriation was described in wording iden-tical to that in previous budget bills. No oneat the DLNR is clear on what this appropria-tion is for. Dickey Lee of the EngineeringDivision told Environment Hawai‘i, “We areworking with GIRA to determine other im-provement projects to the race track to utilizethe new funding.”

The appropriation was inserted into theFY 2014-2015 budget after it had crossed overfrom the House to the Senate. In the reportfrom the Ways and Means Committee, sena-tors noted that they had increased thegovernor’s capital improvement project (CIP)budget to add “hundreds of other projects forthe Department of Education the Universityof Hawai‘i, Department of Land and NaturalResources, and the Department of Account-ing and General Services.”

Senate vice president Ron Kouchi, a mem-ber of the Ways and Means Committeewhose district includes West Kaua‘i andNi‘ihau, defended the project. In a phoneinterview with Environment Hawai‘i, Kouchisaid that GIRA had submitted a request forfunds, noting “the track was in disrepair andunsafe.”

When asked if a sport that involves thelavish consumption of fossil fuels is one thatthe state should be encouraging, Kouchipointed to his record of support for legislationthat encourages use of renewable fuels andother environmental bills, including one thatwould have tacked on a plastic-bag fee to helpfund watershed protection.

Kouchi also defended the drag strip as an

important economic driver for west Kaua‘i.On holiday weekends — Memorial Day,Fourth of July, Labor Day — “four to fivethousand people participate in racing events,”he said.

Kouchi is not alone in his enthusiasticsupport for the track. When ground wasbroken on the track resurfacing project inJune, Lieutenant Governor Shan Tsutsui reada statement from Governor Neil Abercrombiethat praised GIRA for promoting “safemotorsports” and for encouraging “safe driv-ing on public roads.” State Rep. DeeMorikawa said the drag strip was “a greateconomic driver for the west side,” accordingto a report in the Garden Island newspaper.

William Aila, DLNR director, was reportedas saying the project provided “a place togather to share stories of the past, make storiesfor the present, and to teach children abouthow they will create stories for the future.”

Tony Ricci, president of GIRA, then toldthe crowd that safety in motor sports is one ofthe highest priority items in the group’s mis-sion, the paper reported.

Ricci, by the way, is the plaintiff in alawsuit against Kaua‘i County and the state,alleging that either one of them, or both, wereat fault when he sustained serious and perma-nent injuries in a motorcycle accident onKoke‘e Road last January. According to thecomplaint filed in 5th Circuit Court, “thecondition of Koke‘e Road constituted anunreasonable risk of harm and was unreason-ably dangerous to motorists… The danger-ous condition of the roadway caused plaintiffto lose control of his vehicle and collide andcrash with a guardrail.” As a consequence ofthe accident, Ricci claims, he “has suffered,and will continue to suffer, severe and perma-nent physical injury and suffering, mentaldistress, loss of wage and/or impairment ofearning capacity, diminution of enjoymentof life’s activities, expenses incurred for treat-ment of his injuries, together with otherdamages as shall be proved at time of trial.”

— P.T.