THE PARADOX OF PROTECTED NATURAL AREA LANDSCAPES:

AN INTERPRETATION OF KA'ENA POINT NATURAL AREA

RESERVE, O'AHU, HAWAI'I AS A GARDENED SPACE

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DNISION OF THEUNNERSITY OF HAWAI'I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS

IN

GEOGRAPHY

DECEMBER 2002

By

AdamO. Rose

Thesis Committee:Brian Murton, Chairperson

Everett WingertLeslie Sponsel

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the following for their time and assistance during my research;

Betsy Gagne (DLNR, NARS); Bruce Liesmyre (DLNR, NARS); David Hopper (FFWS);

and Ida Degener.

I particularly want to thank Brian Murton for exposing me to such a wide range of

knowledge and literature, and guiding me during my intellectual and academic pursuits.

Thanks also to Les Sponsel for our discussions about environmentalism and helping to

refine some of the ideas expressed in this thesis. And Also Jesse Markham for his great

help in 'pushing the papers and doing footwork' and being there on my distant behalfl

I would like to state that this thesis is not meant to be an 'attack' against

conservation biology or biologists. Rather, it should be read as a critique and

constructive questioning ofsome of the ideas and approaches that motivate and

direct conservation biology in theory and practice.

iii

ABSTRACT

This thesis critical1y evaluates protected natural areas in terms of the

production of space and the cultural representation and definition ofnature

within them. Idealized representations of nature in protected areas are

mediated through Western cultural discourses; space is seen as being wild,

natural and conceptually autonomous from the human realm. By using the

garden analogy as a metaphoric device, I deconstruct some common

representations of nature to reveal how various Western rhetorics and

discourses dominate ideas about natural space in protected areas. I

interpret the landscape of Ka'ena Point Natural Area Reserve and

illustrate that it can be seen as a socially produced space in which nature is

controlled, restored, and modified. Paradoxically, protected natural areas

are created as wilderness spaces, but their nature is partly constructed

(physically and conceptually) and wholly defined through cultural

discourse and representation.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iiiABSTRACT ivLIST OF FIGURES viiCHAPTER I NATURE AND PROTECTED AREAS I

I. I Introduction I1.2 Views ofNature 2

1.2.1 Biology and Conservation 21.1.2 The Social Construction ofNature 6

1.3 Wilderness and Garden 91.3.1 Wilderness as a Vision ofNature 91.3.2 Gardens as Visions ofNature 12

1.4 Nature Reserves in Hawai'i and State Conservation Ideals 141.5 Site of Study 161.6 Ka'ena Point: Wild, Remote, Empty, Picturesque and Uncivilized 17

1.6.1 Ka'ena as Wilderness 181.6.2 Ka'ena as Remote and Empty 201.6.3 Ka'ena as Picturesque Paradise 221.6.4 Ka'ena as the Uncivilized Other 231.6.5 Conclusions 25

1.7 Objectives and Research Questions 271.8 Approach 29

CHAPTER 2 GARDEN AS A METAPHOR 302.1 Introduction 302.2 The English Landscape Garden 312.3 The Garden of Eden 362.4 Colonial Gardens, Contact Zones 412.5 The Public Park 502.6 The Botanical Garden 542.7 Conclusions 58

CHAPTER 3 KA'ENA POINT NATURAL AREA RESERVE AS GARDEN 603.1 Introduction 603.2 Ka'ena as Eden 613.3 Ka'ena as Landscape Garden 643.4 Ka'ena as Colonial Garden and Contact Zone 693.5 Ka'ena as Public Park 793.6 Ka'ena as Botanical Garden 843.7 Conclusion 89

v

CHAPTER 4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 914.1 Summary 914.2 Response to Research Questions and Implications 954.3 The Garden as Model a for Landscape Management 101

REFERENCES 107

vi

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure

1. Site of Study Location Map: Ka'ena Point.. 17

2.Evidence ofPredator Control Trapping, or 'Pest Control '? 66

3. Evidence of Predator Control Poisoning, or 'Pest Control'? 66

4. Evidence of Alien Plant Removal, or 'Weeding'? 66

5. Evidence of Out-Plantings, or 'Planting-Scheme'? 67

6. State Sign Indicating Spiritual Significance of Site With Bullet Holes 77

7. Path System. A 'Park-Like' Landscape? 82

vii

CHAPTER 1

NATURE AND PROTECTED AREAS

1.1 Introduction

In this thesis I analyze protected areas and relate some oftheir

spatial qualities and management practices with those of selected types of

Westem garden. I aim to show that protected natural areas can be read as

symbolic landscapes. Interpreting the 'text' of these landscapes helps to

reveal ideas and attitudes about nature that pervade the major institutions

involved in conservation. This landscape interpretation will also attempt

to illustrate that protected areas are socially produced spaces in which

nature is both represented and culturally defined. Protected areas are

culturally determined idealized landscapes that share spatial and historical

qualities with certain forms ofgarden. Many analyses of conservation and

the development of nature protection practices focus on biology, life

sciences and the social history of scientific institutions and research

(Pyenson & Pyenson, 1999).

This thesis is an attempt to critically evaluate protected areas in the

light of cultural geographic studies that highlight the relationship between

the production of space, representation, the construction ofknowledge and

structures of domination. It is a conceptual analysis that is influenced by a

range of anthropological and colonial studies, poststructuralist studies,

1

contextual and critical studies related to the history of geographic ideas

and a wide range of thought related to environmental philosophy, ecology

and environmental history.

1.2 Views of Nature

1.2.1 Biology and Conservation

When discussing issues relating to conservation policy and

approaches to biological diversity protection, it is important to critically

examine the historical and philosophical roots ofWestern scientific

knowledge, epistemology and research as they relate to concepts ofnature

and its evaluation. For the purposes of this analysis, I will examine some

historical, philosophical and conceptual elements that relate to the

biological sciences, as well as examining the dominant approaches

adopted by conservation biologists towards the conservation of

biodiversity, the creation of protected areas, and the practice of restoration

ecology.

Most modem Western cultures conceive of nature as being "an

autonomous domain, essentially "other" to human culture" (Petersen,

1999; 342), an ahistorical, concrete, and essentially objective reality which

is thought of as being dichotomous to society (Petersen, 1999). Such a

nature is representative of ontological dualism in Western thought and is

considered the realm, subject and epistemological backdrop for rational,

2

mechanistic science, in particular biology (Sheldrake, 1990). Nature in

this respect is defined, studied and promoted by biologists with their

specialized forms of knowledge, language and structures ofpower.

Scientific positivism is assumed to give them privileged access to the

reality of nature as well as the right to research, represent, and delineate

'true' nature (Smith, L. 1999; Smith, M. 1999; Guha, 1997). Biologists

are also prominent in regards to nature conservation in both theory and

practice (Higgs, 1994; Guha, 1997). Although many biological disciplines

are now involved in nature conservation at some level, conservation

biology and restoration ecology are particularly relevant fields in regards

to nature conservation policy and practice in the contemporary global

arena with widespread concerns over biodiversity and habitat loss.

Conservation biology is a young sub-discipline ofbiology that

developed in the late 1970s in America. It is described in a contemporary

textbook on the subject as the "applied science ofmaintaining the earth's

biological diversity" and "as the crisis discipline focused upon saving life

on earth" (Hunter, 1996; 14). Restoration ecology is a field of ecology

(with theoretical and applied aspects) that has developed rapidly over the

last twenty years and is focused on actively trying to return ecosystems to

their original, natural state (Hunter, 1996). The notion ofa natural habitat

and concepts ofbiological integrity are integral to the field and to

normative concepts in conservation generally. These ideas are clearly

3

problematic notions and are acknowledged as such by many in the field

(see; Callicott, 1998; Higgs, 1994 & 1997).

Most biological conservation theory and practice is intellectually

and epistemologically rooted in scientific rationalism and philosophical

positivism. Nature is viewed and conceived of as an ontologically fixed

material entity composed ofphysical phenomena: an extemal reality that

can be objectively experienced and known through empirical methods,

and defined and studied through the scientific method. Humans are

typically seen as being separate and distinct from nature (although not in

terms ofbiological evolution), and anthropocentric impacts are seen as

being deleterious to natural phenomena and biodiversity. Biodiversity is a

concept that Hunter (1996:30) defines as being 'the diversity oflife in all

its forms (plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, and other microorganisms) and

at all levels of organization (genes, species, and ecosystems)'.

Humans are basically believed to impact nature (specifically

biodiversity) negatively by carrying out behaviors that either fragment,

modify or destroying habitats; over- exploit natural resources; pollute the

environment; and introduce alien, invasive species (Hunter, 1996).

Conservation policy generally works at three levels in biodiversity

conservation; to protect individual species, to create protected areas, and

attempts to manage entire ecosystem assemblies (Orlove & Glove, 1996).

4

The term, 'protected areas' was established by the International

Union for the Conservation of Nature in 1978. Protected areas is a blanket

term that includes nature reserves, national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and

other general terms and designations for set-aside natural lands (Oriove &

Glove, 1996). The criteria for the selection ofprotected areas are often

complex, but generally areas are chosen for their scientific value and as a

function of their biodiversity, species rarity, or other ecological criteria or

combinations of criteria (such as 'hot spots': concentrated centers of high

biodiversity) (Hunter, 1996). Some other factors that could influence the

selection ofprotected areas may include political and economic factors at

local and international levels, inter-reserve connectivity, wildlife

migration routes, and natural disturbances, (Hunter, 1996) as well as a

range other criteria.

Such an approach relates to a 'nature' which is objectively real and

epistemologically concrete. In Western thought, nature is presumed to be a

universal quality that is unaffected by culture, place and time (Coates,

1998). It is seen as being a polar opposite of society and in elemental

juxtaposition to culture (Coates, 1998). Nature is a term with a vast range

ofmeanings, associations and linguistic implications. It is perhaps

amongst the most complex words in the English language (Williams,

1976). There is a complex and convoluted cultural history ofnature that

5

contradicts notions of its purely ahistorical reality. It is an abstract idea as

much a fundamental physical space (Coates, 1998, Gold, 1984).

Never the less, nature can be bounded, defined and subjugated by

scientific'experts' and natural resource managers, for the purposes of

study and conservation. This study attempts to understand and reveal the

construction of a specific geographic space that occurs when 'nature' is

enclosed in a protected area for the purposes of biological conservation.

1.1.2 The Social Construction of Nature

Social constructivism is a form ofpostmodern analysis that stresses

the importance and "influence of different histories, traditions, and social

practices, power relations ... on the conceptual models we produce and

utilize" (Smith, 1999; 361). According to this view, nature itself is a

product ofhuman naming and practice, "a creation dependent on

historical, linguistic, and social contexts and conventions" (Petersen,

1999; 340). This kind of approach towards nature highlights how

uuderstandings and epistemologies of the natural world may vary

according to cultural, social and historical context. This is an important

step in realizing that 'nature' is not the same for everyone and that ideas of

nature and its reality are variable (Coates, 1998). Such a line ofreasoning

leads us to ask some important questions in regards to the politics, ethics,

ideals, practices and global agendas of contemporary biological

6

conservation organizations. What version of nature is being conserved?

Who defines it, and perhaps most importantly, who is empowered to speak

on its behalf?

Noel Castree (2001 :3) writes that an increasing number of critical

human geography researchers in the last few years have started to argue

for 'broader and deeper' approaches towards the study of the 'society­

nature interface' that has traditionally been the focus ofmany

geographers. Castree (2001 :3) comments that a cohort of geographers

now see nature as 'inescapably social', and that it 'is defined, delimited,

and even physically reconstituted by different societies, often in order to

serve specific, and usually dominant social interests. In other words, the

social and the natural are seen to intertwine in ways that make their

separation - in either thought or practice - impossible'. This

'socialization' of nature has important implications and ramifications

theoretically, practically and politically (Castree, 2001).

Postrnodem critiques of this ethnocentric position towards ideas of

nature illustrate that 'nature' itself can be seen as a social construction and

that nature maybe as much 'in our own heads' as 'out there' to be

protected and studied (Demeritt, 1994). This is an important

philosophical premise with potentially widespread implications because

'knowledges of nature (even scientific ones) frequently express social

7

power relations' and 'have material effects, insofar as people may believe

and act according to them' (Castree, 2001:13).

In this light, it is clear that cultural values and social paradigms are

an implicit part of the nature we construct and that we strive to define,

bound and then protect (Gold, 1984). It is on these grounds that scientific

conservation can be implicated as a modern imperialist mission (Shiva,

1998) and conservation planning and the creation ofprotected areas often

leads to conflicts with local (often indigenous) people (Guha, 1994).

Many of these conflicts result from differing views ofnature's reality,

ways ofknowing and defining nature, and disputes over who owns and

has the right to intellectually and spatially define, control, manage, and

exploit 'natural' landscapes and resources (Park, 1995; McKibben, 1999;

Brosius, 1999).

In summary, conservation approaches are based on scientific

rationalist world-view and rooted in a Westem cosmology and ontology,

as well as being situated in a historical and cultural context.

Contemporary conservation thinking and policy relating to the creation

and management of protected areas rarely acknowledges this cultural bias,

and therefore tends to design and manage nature reserves with little regard

to other cultural perspectives, indigenous knowledge, or 'others'

traditional relationship to the land in question (Guha, 1997 (b).)

8

This insensitivity is usually justified by the 'fact' that conservation

biology is a crisis discipline and that drastic action is needed in order to

conserve the world's rapidly disappearing biodiversity (Hunter, 1996).

Scientific principles of ecology and biology form the basis for decisions

relating to reserves' creation, design, and management (Hunter, 1997).

Little attention is usually paid to other approaches to nature and non­

Western cultural value systems (Guha, 1997 (b).), alternative

environmental ethics and philosophies, and issues relating to social equity

(Higgs, 1997).

1.3 Wilderness and Garden

1.3.1 Wilderness as a Vision of Nature

In Western notions of nature, there is a conception that some areas

are pristine wildernesses (Callicott, 1998). Such landscapes are perceived

as having been unaffected by anthropogenic activities and are therefore

more 'natural' and untrammeled (Kemp, 1999). The term wilderness has

many implications and meanings (Oe1schlaeger, 1992), and is itself

arguably a social construction reflecting hegemonic Euro-American ideas

and values relating to nature (Cronon, 1990).

In American nature conservation designated wilderness areas often

fall within the parameters ofNational Parks, Federal Wilderness areas or

other forms of designated protected areas (Hunter, 1996). These areas

9

often contain good quality habitat and high biological diversity (Hunter,

1996). This is why so-called wilderness areas are often seen as areas

worthy ofprotection and are made into biological reserves.

Research in environmental history, paeleobotany and biogeography

has shown that many areas that were previously believed to be 'naturai'

wilderness landscapes, actually have their present appearance and

ecological characteristics partly as a result oflong-term anthropogenic

modification and management (often through the use of fire, grazing, and

selective timber and plant resource utilization, and various forms of

shifting agriculture) (Nabhan, 1997). Case studies along these lines have

been researched in a wide range of global regions including, Australian

and African Savannah, American forests and prairies, and Amazonian

rainforest (Brosius, 1999). Indeed, it is now hard to relate to the idea of

pristine and natural wilderness that has not been influenced by humans

almost anywhere on the face of the planet (Oelschlaeger, 1991). In other

words, many environments that have been conceived of as wildernesses

and purely natural by the Western Academy, have been perceived ofand

interacted with as forms ofgarden to other cultural groups with

alternative mind-sets in regards to what nature is and how it relates to

society (Park, 1995). Gardening is a cultural activity, and is expressed in

different ways according to a complex set of social and ecological

10

parameters. What is a garden to one person, may appear as a wilderness

to another (Nabhan, 1997).

Although there are many examples in the anthropological literature

that illustrate how areas ofnatural wilderness are sometimes actually

gardens managed in non-Western ways by indigenous people (for

example of anthropogenic equatorial forests see extensive work ofRobert

Bailey, and also William Balee for similar studies on Ka'apor forest

historical ecology (1994», few studies have examined conservation

management of 'natural' areas by Western resource managers in terms of

these practices also being forms ofgardening.

Conservation management practices are often focused on natural

areas that are defined by the confines of a reserve, park or other type of

biologically oriented protected area. The goal of such regimes is usually

to promote, protect and restore those ecological characteristics that are

construed as being natural and indigenous to the area in question (Hunter,

1996). Natural resource managers and biologists responsible for such

tasks would see their role as being stewards and protectors ofnature. But

when such conservation practices are examined from an alternative

perspective, it is apparent that other interpretations can have validity.

For instance, conservation habitat management methods such as

pest control, weed control and out-planting would be familiar practices to

a gardener. In fact, there are many similar methods and practical actions

11

carried-out in common by both habitat managers and gardeners. But the

gardener would see the practices in a very different light to the

conservation biologist. To the gardener, such horticultural techniques

would be viewed as ways ofcontrolling and shaping nature. As means to

create and maintain the kind of landscape they envision according to their

practical and aesthetic ideals. It is clear to a gardener that what they do is

a cultural practice and that the nature they work with (or against) in their

garden is a socially constructed space.

1.3.2 Gardens as Visions of Nature

What is a garden? The following definitions of the word are taken

from two contemporary English language dictionaries. A garden is;

'a piece ofground usedfor growingflowers, fruit, vegetables and

as a place ofrecreation' (Oxford Pocket Dictionary, 2000);

'an area ofland usedfor the cultivation ofornamentalplants;

herbs, fruit, vegetables. trees etc.' (Collins English Dictionary,

1998).

Gardens have historically had many forms and functions and were

as diverse as the cultures that constructed them. They have always been

arranged spaces that are culturally defined and still tend to serve much

more than a utilitarian role in society. Their design elements often

symbolically portray representations of a culture's cosmology,

12

mythology, as well as social structures, societal values and ideals (Ogrin,

1993). Gardens are valuable physical representations of social

idealizations of nature and are often indicators of what kind of

relationship a society has with the natural world. Gardens have often been

modeled on ideas of nature and design features have tried to imitate

natural landscapes. In contrast, they have also been designed to

demonstrate human dominance and control of nature utilizing regimented,

inorganic designs that illustrate the power humans have in transforming

and subduing nature (Ogrin, 1993).

Gardens serve as social spaces that and model nature and establish

symbolic themes that represent aspects ofhuman relationship with nature.

For instance, the garden wall or hedge may represent the boundary

between tamed, cultivated space and the wild nature that is outside the

garden and removed from the human realm. Gardens in this way 'not

only embody but also affect our relation with nature', 'they are at once

the sign and the thing signified, and the two roles are often at odds'

(Eisenburg, 1998; 240).

Contemporary Western ideas ofnature have been affected by a

range of garden forms and traditions. The Persian pleasure gardens and

the Roman sacred groves are notable examples in this respect (Thacker,

1979). Western ideas of nature and its valuation are often manifested and

expressed in contemporary society through ideologies such as

13

environmentalism and practices like nature conservation and the creation

ofprotected areas (Coates, 1998).

1.4 Nature Reserves in Hawai'i and State Conservation Ideals

Nature reserves or protected areas are attempts to isolate and protect

nature from anthropogenic damage and intrusion (Hunter, 1996). There is

little doubt that they serve an important role in this regard, but in reality

they often become sites ofvarious forms of conflict, territorial dispute and

contested ideologies of nature itself. Such problems make many protected

areas into contentious areas and possibly reduce their effectiveness and

social acceptance as means ofbiological conservation.

In Hawai'i, there are a range of protected areas that have been

created and are managed by both private organizations such as; The

Nature Conservancy, The Hawai'i Audubon Society, The National

Tropical Botanical Garden, and Federal and State governmental

organizations, Such as; the Federal National Park Service and the Fish &

Wildlife Service, and the State Department of Land & Natural Resources

(Culliney,1988).

Since Hawai'i became a U.S. State in 1959, the State government

became responsible for all public lands and the Department of Land and

Natural Resources (DLNR) 'was commissioned to oversee management of

14

lease lands, forestry and wildlife, game management, and parks and

recreation' (Josayma, 1996:9). In an attempt to conserve Hawai'i's

threatened native ecology, the State legislature passed Act 139 in 1970,

which mandated the creation of the Natural Area Reserve System. The

selection ofreserves was based on their uniqueness, biological

significance, diversity, and amount of threat posed to a range ofHawaiian

ecosystems and associated flora and fauna (Josayma, 1996). The Act

States that 'unique natural Assets should be protected and preserved... ' , so

that examples ofHawai'i's unique terrestrial and aquatic natural resources

should be 'preserved in perpetuity...as relatively unmodified as possible'

(NARS Act 139, from Josayma, 1996). The NARS now includes 19

reserves on five islands encompassing 109,165 acres of the State's most

'unique ecosystems' (State of Hawai'i, DLNR, DOFAW, 1995). The

NARS have been estimated to include 43% ofHawai'i's 180 natural

ecosystem types (Josayma, 1996).

The stated primary objectives the NARS were to control human and

biological negative impacts and disturbances (Josayma, 1996). The

reserves are actively managed 'in order to maintain the characteristics that

make them a unique part of the natural heritage ofHawai'i' (State of

Hawai'i, DLNR, DOFAW, 1995), 'so that future generations can enjoy,

study and experience the natural heritage that belongs only to our State'

15

(State of Hawai'i, DLNR, DOFAW, 1995). 'Enjoyment' in this context

was defined by the NARS Commission to mean cultural or scientific

enrichment and satisfaction, rather than recreational pleasures (Josayma,

1996).

1.5 Site ofStudy

I selected the Ka'ena Point Natural Area Reserve as a case study for

my analysis (see Fig. I, from brochure map: State of Hawai'i, DLNR;

DOFAW, 1993). Ka'ena Point is the westernmost point on Oahu and the

northwestern end of the Wai'anae volcano (Arrigoni, 1978). It is a thin

peninsula that is made up ofbasalt talus slopes, lava-rock shoreline, and

sand dunes (State ofHawai'i, DLNR; DOFAW, 1993). The sand dune and

boulder slope ecosystems are respectively characterized by two native

plant communities: Naupaka mixed coastal dry shrub, and 'ilima coastal

dry mixed shrub and grassland (State ofHawai'i, DLNR; NARS, 1998).

The Ka'ena Point Natural Area Reserve was established in 1983 to protect

these ecosystems and their native Hawaiian flora and fauna (State of

Hawai'i, DLNR; DOFAW, 1993). With an area of 12 acres, it is the

smallest reserve in the State's Natural Area Reserve System (State of

Hawai'i, DLNR, DOFAW, 1995).

16

Figure 1

1.6 Ka 'ena Point: Wild, Remote, Empty, Picturesque and Uncivilized

Ka 'ena is commonly represented as a natural environment. A place

that has been formed by, and is imbued with nature and natural

phenomena. In this vision ofKa 'ena there is a strong focus in the area's

wildlife, ecology and natural history. The landscape's origin and

appearance are seen as resulting from volcanic forces and geological

processes, and the region's native species and wildlife are seen to be the

result ofevolutionary processes and biological mechanisms. In short, the

landscape is a manifestation of 'the laws ofnature' as seen through a

scientific world view. This 'scientific nature' is apparent in most textual

17

representations of Ka'ena and its associated flora and fauna (there is also a

parallel emphasis on 'picturesque nature as we shall see).

Past textual representations of Ka'ena constructed a landscape that

contained all of the qualities that were worthy ofpreserving and restoring.

It is represented in these narratives as being wild, empty, remote,

picturesque, and uncivilized, perhaps a landscape from the past, ancient,

primitive and primeval. It becomes a domain ofnature that is separated

from the human world, the antithesis to the cultural landscape, inhabited

only by flora and fauna and 'spirits of the Hawaiian dead' (Grant, 92:98).

The following five sections will focus on this type ofrepresentation of

Ka'ena's landscape. Many of the texts are drawn from tourism and travel

literature, and others are from a range ofpublications focused on the

area's natural history.

1.6.1 Ka'ena as Wilderness

The wilderness trope is repeatedly used to describe Ka'ena Point in

a range of writings. This term has an array ofmeanings and conceptual

implications (See section 1.3.1), but is commonly accepted as a

description applied to an area which is perceived to be in a natural state

and to have been insignificantly disturbed by humans (Kemp, 1999). This

seems to be the implication of the term used in tourism related travel

18

descriptions of Ka'ena. For instance, The Frommer's 2000, Hawai' i

travel guide refers to Ka'ena as 'a remote, wild coastline ofjagged sea

cliffs' (Foster, 1999;155), and an article in the Pacific Connection calls it

'Oahu's last wilderness', and 'a wilderness untamed' (Seiden, 1997;31).

Naturalist travel writings and prose also stress that Ka'ena is a

wilderness. In a 1977 article for 'Elepaio (a prominent Hawai'i

environmentalist publication with a biological emphasis) which

documents one of four public meetings held by the Division of State Parks

for input to the then proposed development of a State park at Ka'ena

Point, the Hawai'i Audubon Society Conservation Chairman is quoted as

saying that Ka'ena is 'a relatively wild sand dune area... a rich example of

a unique Hawaiian ecosystem' (Howarth, 1977; 53). In 'A Nature Walk to

Ka 'ena Point' (Arrigoni, 1978), the author describes the 'semi-wilderness'

(Arrigoni, 1978; 2) found at Ka'ena as an attraction for those intrepid

hikers who are 'in search ofnatural values from which modern man has

lost contact' (Arrigoni, 1978; 2).

Ka'ena is also seen as having a wild quality. An untamed, lawless

'wild west', which has a reputation ofbeing used as a 'shooting range, a

late-night party spot and a dump for dead bodies', as well as being 'one of

Oahu's last wild playgrounds' (Emerson, 1996;5). Wild in this sense

19

describes an area that is untamed and removed from societal restrictions

and surveillance. Ka'ena's landscape is given an ominous and threatening

quality, almost as if the place itselfpromotes wild behavior and

encourages illicit activities.

Ka'ena commonly portrayed as being a wild (quality ofplace)

wilderness (spatially speaking). Both these rhetorics rely to varying

degrees on Ka'ena being constructed as spatially remote, empty, and

temporally distant natural landscape. It becomes a domain of nature that is

legitimately visited by naturalists and others who appreciate wilderness

and illicitly by criminals and social deviants.

1.6.2 Ka'ena as Remote and Empty

Geographically speaking, Ka'ena is the most westerly point of

Oahu. In travel writings it is constructed as being remote, empty and

beyond the reaches of 'civilization'. A place beyond the road system that

is 'barren' and 'remote' (Foster, 1999; 155). In 1921, T.P. Cadle, the then

president of the Hui Alo Pali mountaineering club, wrote an article for the

Paradise ofthe Pacific Magazine in which he documented his adventure

at Ka'ena Point. He and his fellow mountaineers, who he describes as

'mountaineers of the hard boiled sort', 'those who can tackle the rough

and win through' (Cadle,1921 ;58), ascended to the peak of Mount Ka'ala

20

from Ka'ena Point. Cadle describes his lure to the area to experience and

explore its 'unknown' quality and 'mysteries' (Cadle, 1921; 58). Ka'ena is

thus portrayed as an empty, mysterious and unexplored landscape.

This type ofimage often persists in contemporary travel writing

about the area. For example consider the following quote from a coffee­

table style book of aerial photographs illustrating Oahu's picturesque

scenery: 'Towards Ka'ena Point, Oahu reverts to the past. Signs of

civilization vanish. Houses thin out. Valleys and beaches are deserted.

Finally, even the road ends. Only the hiker can enter this region of

untamed beauty, said to belong to the spirits of the Hawaiian dead' (Grant,

1992; 98).

This passage illustrates how Ka'ena is spatially, temporarily and

culturally distanced and Othered from hegemonic and civilized society

and the contemporary world. Ka'ena is made into anachronistic space,

backwards and behind the modem social/spatial arena. The scene is

portrayed as being only available to the intrepid hiker who dares to enter

the region that belongs to the Hawaiian dead.

In a passage by Arrigoni (1978) Ka'ena is constructed as a

landscape that is not only empty now, but was also sparsely inhabited by

Hawaiians historically, as 'this coastal area had few resources for anything

but marginal living' and 'poor conditions for inshore fishing' (Arrigoni,

21

1978;27). Perhaps there is some truth in this notion of a resource poor

region, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Ka'ena was remote and

empty to Hawaiians in terms of their perceptual geography, cosmology

and spatial understanding of the place.

1.6.3 Ka'ena as Picturesque Paradise

Ka'ena is also frequently constructed as a picturesque, romantic

paradise that is 'the perfect place to watch the sunset' from, and look out

to sea to watch 'cumulus clouds commute home after a long day of

watering the gardens ofparadise' (Barth, 1995; 120). Seiden also

resonates with this idea of Ka'ena representing an earthly paradise when

he writes that 'at Ka'ena you can also forget the idea that perfection is

only an abstraction' while you look out over the distant 'long stretches of

white sand beach and a sea of gemstone blues' (Seiden, 1997;31).

Tourism promotional literature tends to focus on the picturesque, natural

landscape at Ka'ena. There is an emphasis on the 'excellent views'

(Barth, 1995; 116) as 'the land and the sea sweep away in panoramic

embrace' (Seiden, 1997; 31) and the opportunities to see dolphins, whales

and 'sea birds circle overhead' (Foster, 1999; 155).

Ka'ena is also constructed as a natural paradise that is the last

refuge for threatened plants, animals and rare native ecosystems. Degener

22

& Degener (1963) describe Ka'ena as being 'outstanding botanically' and

'the last stronghold' for the rare endemic coastal plant Sesbania sp. The

area is a Natural Area Reserve under the State and harbors eight federally

endangered plants and rare animals such as the Laysan albatross and

Hawaiian monk seal (Emerson, 1996). The area is enclosed, monitored

and actively being managed by State biologists in an attempt to preserve

what is left of the 'Endangered ecosystem' which has been severely

degraded by off-road vehicles since the early 1960s (TenBruggencate,

1989:D4). The State is also trying to restore the native ecosystem 'back'

to its former 'natural' condition. The ideal ofrestoring a picturesque

natural paradise reflects the strong 'naturizing' trope that portrays the

area's landscape as being created by spontaneous and biological

processes, a primordial Garden of Eden. This biological aspect of

Ka'ena's picturesque landscape is reflected in most contemporary texts

about the area.

1.6.4 Ka'ena as the Uncivilized Other

This type ofrhetoric for Ka'ena includes such themes as the area's

archaeology, and its historical significance in Hawaiian myths, legends

and cultural practices. The temporal arena is firmly set in the past where

the landscape is represented as being uncivilized and visited (not

23

inhabited) by superstitious and primitive Hawaiians. The frequent

reference to Hawaiian cultural themes and interpretations of Hawaiian

epistemologies by non-Hawaiians in travel texts can be seen as an

example of cultural representation and at times, appropriation. Texts

emphasize how 'Ka'ena is steeped in numerous legends' (Foster,

1999;155), almost as if the landscape itself is infused with ancient stories,

somehow independent and removed from their cultural milieu and social

context. The only Hawaiian people mentioned are the spirits of the dead.

I could find no references to Hawaiian practices, or any recorded cultural

significance ofKa'ena to contemporary indigenous people in travel

literature.

Most travel texts refer to the legend ofMaui's activities at Ka'ena

and to the site being the departure point for the souls ofdead Hawaiians in

the past. Otto Degener, a famous botanist originally from Germany, made

many visits to Ka'ena to do field research and make botanical collections.

Although 1can find no direct references of his about Hawaiians at Ka'ena,

some ofhis comments in this regard in other travel writings are of interest.

For instance, in his 1970 article on native plants he states that over the last

100 years 'botanists from all civilized countries have come to our islands

to collect native plants or had resident botanists send them samples for

serious study' (Degener, 1970;46). He also refers to Hawai'i in this article

24

as 'a god given paradise' (Degener, 1970; 46). These comments reflect

his creation of the Other (uncivilized, those who do not conduct serious

study), and his intellectual displacement, and disempowerment of

Hawaiians from their land. In an earlier text he refers to Hawaiians as

'Kindly native people' who 'lived in the stone age [but who] developed a

culture, in many cases recalling Homeric Greece... ' (Degener, 1945; 312).

These tropes illustrate the powerful anti-conquest (Pratt, 1992) and

Othering that permeates much early travel and natural history writing and

continues to pervade ideas ofKa'ena's landscape.

1.6.5 Conclusions

Through using examples from texts about Ka'ena Point I have

shown that there is a tendency to represent Ka'ena as an empty

wilderness; a terra nullis, a place that is divorced from the cultural

landscape. It is constructed as a place that is inhabited by spirits of the

'Hawaiian dead' and visited by tourists, naturalists and criminals. The

rhetorics used in these travel writings emphasize Western idealizations of

nature and scientific descriptive tropes that characterize the landscape as a

kind picturesque wilderness. Through naturizing and naming ('the

wilderness') practices, these writings effectively dispossess indigenous

people from the land. The texts tend to be constructed by the 'seeing-

25

man', whose 'imperial eyes passively look out and posses' the landscape,

and can be seen as a strategy through which Western subjects 'assert their

innocence in the same moment as they assert... hegemony' (Pratt, 1992;

7). These travel and natural history writings can be seen as a form of

'anti-conquest', through which a hegemonic ownership, control and

management over land is initiated thereby excluding the uncivilized-other'

elements of society who would 'naturally' be attracted to such a 'wild'

place. Such dialogues displace native voices from discussions about

Ka'ena and promote the voices and epistemologies ofNatural resource

managers, travel writers and tourist promoters, travel guides, outdoor

adventure guides, hiking guides, botanists and academic researchers.

Ka'ena is constructed through these writings as being a natural wilderness

that needs protection, preservation and restoration. Such writings

emphasize and legitimize Western biological approaches towards

landscape management and conservation and situate Ka'ena as a site of

exclusion and conflict with the 'Other'.

Ka'ena is a place of great importance to Hawaiians historically

(Arrigoni, 1978). But the contemporary 'Hawaiian' voice is silent

(silenced?) and in no way apparent in popular twentieth century narratives

and texts about Ka'ena. Ka'ena Point can be seen in this light as an

example ofa place that has been constructed, represented and effectively

26

appropriated through colonial discourse and travel writing which tends to

emphasize binary opposites categories such as wild/tame;

inhabited/empty; then/now; naturallhurnan; and us/ the Other.

1.7 Objectives and Research Questions

I intend to interpret nature reserves as cultural landscapes, using the

analogy ofa garden as a metaphoric device to help reveal some ofthe

philosophical ambiguities, myths and ideals about nature that permeate

many conservation organizations and motivate their approaches, attitudes

and policies in regards to protected area management.

The garden trope shows that protected areas can be interpreted as

cultural landscapes. In this light, protected areas are no longer simply

natural spaces, but social ones, that have been constructed according to

Western cosmologies of nature and designed in the context ofWesteru

ideas about utilizing and valuing space. As such, protected area

landscapes need to be seen in the context of a range of social, historical

and cultural forces as well as purely natural ones.

The garden trope will also serve to highlight how contemporary

ecological management in many protected areas tends exclude indigenous

people and their cosmologies of nature, and thus constructs a nature that is

ethnocentric and firmly rooted in Western epistemology and history. It

will become apparent that the garden is a useful analogy and form of

27

analytical tool for this purpose as it exposes the various tropes and

ideologies of nature as they are culturally constructed, and helps identitY

and isolate some elements of contemporary Western environmental

philosophy as they relate to nature conservation and ecological restoration.

The Garden model will also serve to illustrate some ofthe ideological

underpinnings and historical contexts that help shape the conceptual basis,

production and management of biological nature reserves and other

protected areas.

The following broad questions guide the research:

1. Is Ka'ena Point Natural Area Reserve's landscape a natural space

or an artifice?

2. Is the ecology of the area today an expression of natural or

anthropogenic forces?

3. Has nature in the reserve been created or recreated as an imitation

of an idealized original native ecology that is, to a certain image of

nature?

28

4. Is the garden an appropriate metaphor for such reserves?

1.8 Approach

The remainder of the thesis will interpret the signifiers that are

elements of the Ka'ena Natural Area Reserve.

The next chapter uses evidence about gardens from studies of their

design, natural history and cultural significance to identify five forms of

Western garden that share spatial and conceptual aspects with protected

areas, such as that ofKa'ena Point. In other words, I will use the garden as

a lens through which to view the role and image ofnature conservation as

a social project with historical and cultural roots that are firmly embedded

in Western ideas, cosmologies, and a predominantly dualistic view of

nature.

The third chapter uses scientific and govermnent reports, popular

press accounts, natural resource management plans and strategic studies

dealing with the Ka'ena Natural Area Reserve to interpret the

representational language ofthe protected area landscape in terms of the

five selected forms of Western Garden.

29

CHAPTER 2

GARDEN AS A METAPHOR

2.1 Introduction

In this chapter I identify five garden types as a means of identifying

some historic, conceptual and spatial similarities between protected areas

and gardened landscapes. I have chosen these garden forms as they help

to identify and culturally contextualize key conceptual themes underlying

Western ideas about human and natural space. I compare certain garden

characteristics with those ofprotected natural areas as a way of exposing

and unpacking some of the rhetoric that underlies a dominant,

Westernized view of nature and conservation.

I will use these selected forms of garden analogy as metaphoric

devices to explore a range ofWestern cultural themes and ideas that are

common to, and often embodied in the conceptualization and physical

manifestation ofgardened and protected natural area landscapes. In this

way I hope to demonstrate that protected area landscapes are in some

ways as much cultural spaces as natural ones. They are not composed of

'empty nature', but are socially created spaces that embody a multiplicity

of cultural, political, philosophical and mythological discourses.

Interpreting protected area landscapes as types of garden helps to reveal a

30

set of social ideals, values and culturally relative abstract ideas of nature

that inform and influence reserve conceptualization and its practical

management.

The five forms of garden that I wish to focus on are the English

landscape garden, the colonial garden, the botanical garden, the public park,

and the Garden of Eden.

2.2 The English Landscape Garden

A tradition of gardening and landscape taste developed in England

during the 18th century that incorporated and expressed a range of

romantic ideals of nature as being picturesque and bucolic (Lowenthal &

Prince, 1965). Landscape architects such as Lancelot Brown refashioned

many estate gardens and created others in the image of what they

perceived of as 'nature' (Ogrin, 1993). In such designs there was a

tendency to reject former garden design ideals such as formality,

symmetry, and linear patterns, and to try to create landscapes that were

more irregular, organic and picturesque. Vistas were molded from the

terrain to induce an emotional and moral response from the viewer

(Lowenthal & Prince, 1965). Trees were planted and lakes were dug and

rolling hills were engineered in an effort to create natural and awe­

inspiring landscapes.

31

The idea that nature and natural forms were preferable to artificial

ones in both moral and aesthetic terms became widely accepted at this

time (Ogrin, 1993). The landscape garden that imitated or reproduced

nature, rather than 'enslaving' her, became a symbol for humanitarian

free thinking and political liberty that became popular social ideals during

this period in England (Ogrin, 1993).

The idea ofthe sublime and wilderness in design trends was another

development of interest in late 18th century England. The thrilling aspects

ofnatural wilderness such as cliffs and waterfalls were actively

incorporated into some garden designs (e.g. Hawkstone Park, Shropshire)

as a means of arousing strong feelings and ideals of wilderness to enhance

the viewers experience oflandscape contemplation (Taylor, 1995). This

idea of the sublime in natural landscapes became particularly important in

America with the development of American Transcendentalism, the idea

ofwilderness and wilderness reserves (Eisenberg, 1998), and the eventual

creation ofNational Parks in the later nineteenth century (Guha, 2000).

The landscape gardening tradition influenced social ideals and

perceptions ofnature and landscape taste in Europe (Ogrin, 1993). The

landscape tradition also affected the way that European colonists viewed

and perceived natural environments of new domains in settler colonies.

Aesthetics of the picturesque, beautiful and sublime were exported

directly from the l8'h. Century European landscape tradition to North

32

America (Coates, 1998) and other colonies including New Zealand (Park,

1995), where they helped to shape and direct ideas oflandscape

preservation and reserve creation. This is apparent in the creation of

scenic reserves in mid 19th century New Zealand (Park, 1995) and in the

conceptualization and creation of early national parks such as

Yellowstone in the United States later in the same century (Guha, 2000).

Park (1995: 142) states that 'By the mid 19'" century, the picturesque had

spread beyond England to the newly possessed edges of its empire'.

The English taste in garden design and landscaping imitations of

nature obviously had a large influence on the New World (Ogrin, 1993).

Thomas Jefferson introduced the landscape garden to America (a

landscape style garden was laid out at his house in Monticello) and the

style became popular in New England amongst the middle classes.

Leading American designers were very attracted and influenced by the

English 'natural' garden design style that was actively pioneered by A.J.

Downing who believed human control of nature should be "a means to re­

create nature, in its 'purest forms ofbeauty..." (Price, 1994; 96).

The landscape garden tradition was therefore a major influence in

the development of conservation policies that set aside large tracts ofland

as pristine wilderness areas, and created parks, reserves and other forms

of protected areas (Park, 1995; Guha, 2000; Coates, 1998).

33

Landscape gardens were developed as private amenity landscapes

ofcountry retreats. They were strictly private spaces that excluded (and

displaced) those who didn't have legal rights to access the garden. As

such, they embody the values of private property regimes and ideals of

exclusive land ownership and control. In a similar way, natural protected

areas are landscapes that are defined, bounded and owned (or managed)

as forms of private property. The land and Resources within reserves

become the 'property' and private domain ofthose who are empowered

(by professional position, expertise or some other such 'right') to

appropriate, control and manipulate the space as they see fit. Others tend

to be excluded from free access to the reserve space, as well as from

decision-making processes relating to land use and resource definition

and valuation.

The aesthetics associated with the landscape gardening tradition

have had a profound effect on Western perceptions ofnature and

landscape (Coates, 1998). 18th century ideas of the sublime and

picturesque found their expression in the creation of gardens which

imitated nature and attempted to create natural landscapes within the

parameters ofthe garden. The contemporary practice ofrestoration

ecology seems to share many of the landscaping traditions objectives in

this respect, as it attempts to create (or recreate) natural ecosystems and

imitate natural landscapes within the confines of a protected area.

34

Hunter describes the type of ecosystem improvement that is "most

in concert with the goals of conservation biology is restoration, which

means actively trying to return the ecosystem to its original state"

(Hunter, 1996:285). In this growing field of conservation various

techniques are used to actively 'restore' ecosystems to a state or condition

that is believed to be more 'natural', and more 'native'. This often

implies trying to restore a plant community, or an entire ecosystem or

some habitat type back to its 'original' state (according to what temporal

scale and to what stage of succession or evolution?). This usually

involves removing the species that are not desired (i.e. non-native,

invasive alien species) and then creating the right conditions to foster

those that are desired (usually native, and often rare species). In many

cases desired species of plants are propagated ex-situ, and then out­

planted back in 'nature'. Then the area in question is actively managed to

help the ecosystem 'back to a state ofhealth' and ecological integrity.

This could involve practices such as fencing, weed control, pest and

disease control, species introductions as well as other management

measures to encourage those species and ecosystem parameters that are

desired and designated as being 'good', 'natural', valuable and worthy.

Such an approach to biological conservation has many parallels with

garden creation and gardening. The major difference would appear to be

35

that conservation tends to practice in what is defined as the natural

landscape.

Although most restoration ecologists would probably reject the

thesis that their work is a culturally biased form of gardening, we can find

evidence to this effect in the language and rhetoric of restoration ecology

texts. Here are a few examples from an early, key text on restoration

ecology that was edited by William Jordan and published in 1987.

Frederick Turner writing an article in this text, states that restoration

ecology gets some ofits ideas and aesthetics from the landscape

gardening tradition of Engiand and states that restoration ecologists could

become the 'True gardeners of the planet...' (Turner, 1987:49). J. L.

Harper in a later article relates examples of ecological management

techniques employed in agriculture and agroforestry and relates these

practices to restoration ecology and the 'design' and 'creation' of

ecological communities (Harper, 1987:46). Although he doesn't

specifically mention gardening, the language he uses could easily be

applied to gardening.

2.3 The Garden of Eden

Although an Edenic garden is not strictly a form ofhistoric garden

design, the mythological Garden of Eden is an important and recurrent

theme in Western conceptions and cultural ideals ofNature (Coates,

36

1998). The biblical Garden of Eden has played a large role in the creation

ofmyths and the development of ideas about pure and pristine

manifestations of nature. The mythology of Eden has also helped form

concepts ofhumans place within, or outside nature, and ethics of

stewardship and protection of nature (Eisenberg, 1998).

The Garden of Eden is seen by Western civilization as a natura!

paradise, God's garden where He created nature with its plants and

animals. Humans were then created and placed in the Garden to 'work

and protect it' (Genesis 2:15, in Eisenberg, 1998:289), and to name and

have knowledge of 'every beast of the field, and every fowl ofthe air'

(Genesis 1:19, in Almond, 1999:114). Humans were then banished from

Eden; evicted from paradise and separated from nature.

This divorce from nature and fall from paradise are key themes in

Western thought, art and literature (Eisenberg, 1998), and are possibly the

origin of the dualistic idea that humans are separate from nature (White,

1967). Most Western environmental philosophy has 'a firm if amorphous

idea about Eden' at its heart (Eisenberg, 1998:xv) and evocations of Eden

and Edenic narratives (Slater, 1995) are often integral elements in the

idealized form of nature and 'natura!' landscapes that conservation

biologists long for, and work towards.

Candace Slater argues that there is a tendency to view Amazonian

nature as a kind of Eden in his 1995 paper 'Amazonia as Edenic

37

Narrative'. A place where 'spectacular topography and immense

biological variety' (Slater, 1995:115) tend to generate an Edenic

narrative, in which there are 'presentations of a natural or seemingly

natural landscape in terms that consciously-or, more often,

unconsciously-evoke a biblical account of Eden' (Slater, 1995:115). He

argues that this vision tends to foster a static and skewed idealization of

reality that 'obscures the people and places that actually exist there'

(Slater, 1995:114).

Ideas of natural wilderness areas are often closely associated with

Edenic rhetorics. Idealized landscapes of 'untouched wilderness' are

commonly portrayed as being fonns of Eden. As such they are

represented as being empty of people (after humans' fall from paradise

and banishment from Eden) and as being anachronistic spaces that are

ancient, primal, and essentially innocent and pure.

Such portrayals can be seen in many fonns, especially in media

representations of wild places and natural history. For example,

television productions often represent natural landscapes as being Edenic

wildernesses. Programs with titles like 'The Living Edens: Etosha

Africa's Untamed Wilderness' (Public Broadcasting Service feature,

1997); or 'The Garden of Eden' (by The Nature Conservancy, (1983)

about protected areas in Florida) are typical in this regard. Such language

and rhetoric in popular representations ofnature reflects commonly held

38

images, ideas and beliefs about our conceptualization and valuation of

wild areas.

Books and popular literature that could be found shelved under the

'ecology and nature' section in a contemporary bookshop also often have

titles featuring the word Eden. For instance, 'Reinventing Eden: the Past,

the Present and the Future of Our Fragile Planet' (Griggs, 2001), or;

'Forgotten Edens: Exploring the World's Wild Places' (National

Geographic Society, 1991) are both titles that illustrate this tendency to

portray wild nature as Eden explicitly.

Representations ofwilderness as Eden are not limited to popular

culture. Scientific conservation projects often use images of Eden and

Edenic rhetorics when describing areas of high biological value, or

naming biodiversity protection oriented programs. For Instance, 'Project

Eden' is a project developed by Western Australia's Department of

Conservation and Land Management (CALM), that aims to restore the

native ecology of Peron Peninsula in Western Australia by fencing it off

and eliminating non-native species (Parfit, 2000). This idea of wild

nature being Eden and paradise is often promoted by parties who wish to

protect, or 'imagine and preserve nature-the more virginal, the more

virtuous .. .' (Park, 1995:283).

This tendency to see natural areas as Edenic wilderness, primal and

pristine, is a common theme in the values of contemporary conservation

39

biology. It is a rhetoric that is particularly common in representations of

nature and wilderness that originate from settler colonies. Early

American puritanical visions of the continental natural landscape being an

Edenic paradise were typical (Eisenberg, 1998), as were similar

representations ofNew Zealand and Australia as being a paradises (Park,

1995).

This idea of large tracts ofland being empty, natural paradises in

some sort ofstate imagined innocence led to the emergence in the 19th

century ofpreservationism movement and the eventual creation of

National Parks and scenic reserves (Guha, 2000; Park, 1995). Natural

landscapes were seen as Edens that needed to be bounded, named and

protected. The creation of early protected areas was a way to have nature

and its perceived primeval grandeur preserved from the environmental

destruction carried out by pioneers and settlers (Guha, 2000). The Edenic

idealization of wilderness is apparent in John Muir's thinking, writing

and ideology. He was the son of evangelical preacher and was steeped in

Christian doctrine from an early age (Guha, 2000), so perhaps it is not

surprising to read his words that 'the smallest forest reserve, and the first

I heard of, was in the Garden of Eden; and its boundaries were drawn by

the lord' (Muir,1896; quoted in Guha, 2000:54).

The idea ofprotecting and enclosing wilderness areas as forms of

God-given Edens has continued from the preservationist movement in the

40

19th century through to the creation ofcontempormy biological reserves

and protected areas. The wilderness vision ofnature that is being

promoted as Edenic in this context is arguably a construct of Western

cultural ideals ofnature. When tracts ofland have been defined in these

Edenic tenns there is a tendency to fonn protected areas and expel people

from the area. This results from a tendency to view Edenic, natural,

wilderness as inherently incompatible and antagonistic to human society

(Slater, 1995). This approach towards nature seems to have shaped

conservation policies (in regards to the creation ofprotected areas) on a

worldwide basis (Guha, 2000). Seen in this light, the creation ofprotected

areas can be seen as a fonn of colonial project in both historic and

contempormy contexts. Are protected areas a means ofcreating or

protecting Edens? Whose vision of nature is being promoted and what

cosmologies of nature are being excluded when a protected area is

defined?

2.4 Colonial Gardens, Contact Zones

Although the colonial garden is not an established fonn in terms of

typical garden classification systems, it is a type oflandscape that can be

found in settler colonies, or other areas (often tropical regions) that have

been subject to colonization. I use the tenn colonial garden to refer to

ways that imperial powers have historically appropriated land to create

41

gardens and impose their management regimes on the wider natural

landscape, while displacing indigenous people and their cosmologies of

nature. Such practices have been part of the means by which imperial

powers maintained and extended their authority in terms ofterritory and

cultural hegemony over other places and peoples. I argue that modem

forms ofprotected area that are created by Western institutions and

imposed on non-Western landscapes are contemporary forms of colonial

gardening and green imperialism. Protected areas can become arenas in

which the epistemological reality ofnature and its cultural, spiritual and

traditional values are under dispute (Durie, 1998). In this light, protected

areas can be seen as contemporary forms of 'contact zone'; 'the space in

which peoples of geographically and historically separated come into

contact with each other and establish ongoing relations, usually involving

conditions of coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict' (Pratt,

1992:6).

The institutional and administrative apparatus used to obtain land

for protected area creation, or to extend power and control over natural

environments (natural resource management) are usually in place as a

consequence of a landscape's history of imperialism, cultural hegemony

and various forms of colonial discourse. Conservation through protected

area creation can perhaps be seen as a form ofneocolonialist practice.

Such neocolonial practices tend to 'persist in 'postcolonial'

42

societies...surfacing time and again in everyday practices of

representation, producing and legitimizing new forms of colonial

domination' (Willems-Braun, 1997:25).

Protected areas in many tropical regions and settler colonies are

often landscapes that are permeated with evidence ofa colonial past. If

one critically examines the definition of nature itself, the demarcation of

reserve boundaries, or the administrative infrastructure and management

regime that oversee a designated area, it becomes clear that protected

areas are often landscape types that have been imposed, or overlaid on

places that previously existed as part of an alternative culture's space.

This can apply to indigenous concepts ofland ownership, access rights,

resource harvesting regimes, and an array of other management and

spiritual practices that related the indigenous society to the landscape and

its features. Protected area creation tends to disregard all non-Western

ideas, beliefs and values that relate to a site. Whether the indigenous

culture is present or absent, its relationship with the land, including place

names, mythologies and traditional knowledge tend to be effectively

erased, or at best (or worst) utilized as sources of information in a site's

interpretive schemes for visitors. The site becomes a form of colonial

'nature' garden.

Protected areas are frequently the sites of conflicts between

indigenous people and state (or other) authorities that manage them.

43

Protected areas, in this context are often contested areas as they become

flash points, or microcosms ofa larger argument about issues related to

land dispossession, natural resource control and valuation of nature.

Durie comments about the contemporary political situation in New

Zealand in this regard: 'Ifland and its alienation were the main points of

contention between Maori and the state in the late nineteenth century,

then the management and ownership of the environment and its natural

resources has the potential for similar misunderstandings a hundred years

later' (Durie, 1998:6)

In this context, it becomes clear that the idea of viewing protected

areas as being forms of colonial garden is pertinent to discussions about

contemporary nature conservation in settler colonies and other post­

colonial settings. Historically, some ofthe earliest forms ofcolonial

garden resulted from the migration of cultural idealized landscapes and

garden elements from Europe to other ethnic regions and geographic

zones. This can be seen as a form oftransported landscape and is

historically apparent in settler colonies and colonized tropical regions.

Europeans in the tropics often attempted to reproduce landscapes from

their places of origin as means of symbolically repelling the riotous

jungle, conjuring up nostalgic memories of home and imposing control

and power over other people and places (Warren, 1991). This process of

transported landscape occurred with architectural styles as it also did with

44

garden designs and plantings (Warren, 1991). The landscape was

fashioned according to Western aesthetics and cultural ideals. Western

idealizations, spatial representations, interpretations and designations of

nature were often imposed on alternative mythologies and cosmologies of

what nature is and how human society relates to it. In early settler

colonies, the garden became a metaphor for colonial expansion and settler

colonies' attitudes towards subordinating and utilizing indigenous, natural

landscapes and converting them to productive, tamed land (Park, 1995).

As the natural landscape was destroyed, some settler colonists mourned

its loss and began trying to preserve and protect what was left.

The creation of protected areas as a means ofconservation is

arguably a technique that evolved in a colonial historic context (Guha,

2000, Guha, 1997). Although the practice ofnature conservation has

ancient and culturally diverse roots (i.e. sacred-groves protection in Asia),

modem nature conservation's traditions (including the growth of the

wilderness idea and establishment of national parks) can be traced

primarily to the United States and European colonies during the later half

of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century (Guha, 2000).

During this period, scientific approaches to conservation and the creation

ofprotected areas became established as the dominant approach towards

managing natural resources in America and the European colonies (Guha,

2000). This was a response to the decimation ofwildlife and natural

45

habitat in both settler and non-settler colonies as industrial and urban

development, hunting and economic changes took their toll on the natural

world (Guha, 2000).

Throughout the European colonies wildlife conservation and the

establishment ofprotected areas became another form of colonial control

over lands and peoples. This was particularly apparent in parts of

colonial Africa during the early twentieth century, where local people

were barred from hunting and forcibly dispossessed of their land ifit fell

within a designated sanctuary. African people were seen as antagonistic

to and incompatible with natural wilderness protection. Guha, (2000; 47)

comments that conservation in this context was viewed as "part of the

white man's necessary burden to save the nations national heritage from

African despoilation".

Kruger National Park in South Africa is an example ofa

contemporary African protected area that helps to illustrate how such

designated areas can appear to be continuing the practices of a colonial

heritage characterized by social inequity, and authoritarian land control.

Its 250 mile long, straight fence follows 'an arbitrary colonial border,

dividing an ecosystem and blocking ancient game trails' (Godwin,

2001 :6), as well as excluding local people who tend to not use the park or

receive any significant benefit from it. The fences are patrolled by armed

guards. The park generates large sums from its million or so visitors a

46

year, little ofwhich reaches the local community. 'It has 600 miles of

paved road, more than some entire African countries' (Godwin, 2001 :21).

Raymond Bonner exposes some of the imperialist behaviors and

racist attitudes that are characteristic of biologists and park managers in

the African continent. In his book 'At The Hand of Man' (1993), he

comments that Africans have been 'ignored, overwhelmed, manipulated

and outmaneuvered- by a conservation crusade led, orchestrated and

dominated by white Westerners' (Bonner, 1993:35): 'As many Africans

see it, white people are making rules to protect animals that white people

want to see in parks that white people want to visit' (Bonner, 1993:221).

In 19th century America, a pattern ofprotected areas was developed

in the form of the national park system. It had many similar

characteristics to the African model (Guha, 2000). 'Primitive' and 'wild'

nature was enshrined in certain designated areas. Native people were

often expelled from within national park boundaries in America as in

Africa. For instance the Shoshone were rounded-up and expelled from

the region when Yellowstone, the world's first national park was created

in 1872, And a similar process took place with the establishment of

Yosemite National Park in 1890 (Runte, 1994). (For more on national

parks see section 2.5 'the Public Park)

Ecological management and the creation ofprotected areas as

means of nature conservation have developed with a specific Euro-

47

American cultural heritage. Protected areas tend to be established

designed and managed by institutions that have historical and

epistemological grounding in Western culture and a colonial heritage.

The practice of conservation is generally carried out by biologists and

resource managers with a Western scientific view of nature, who feel

authorized to represent, and speak on its behalf. There is a globalization

ofbiological conservation practices and agendas as various treaties,

agencies, corporations, and governments foster a common global

conservation ethic (Hunter, 1996).

International conservation organizations like the International

Union for Conservation and Nature (IUCN), and the Worldwide Fund for

Nature (WWF) have evolved into powerful globalized institutions (Ouha,

2000). As well as pushing their globalized ideas for biological

conservation, they are key players in an array ofareas related to politics,

economics and development strategies. These organizations tend to view

humans as enemies ofnature and the environment. Their views and

beliefs about nature and biodiversity conservation have been spread

widely and have informed numerous projects and park creation schemes

globally (Ouha, 1997). Bonner (1993), has describes this as a form of

secular missionary activity in Africa, where conservation has become the

forth C promoted in addition to the 19th century three Cs of christiantiy,

commerce and civilization (Bonner, 1993).

48

A 1999 'coffee-table' type book of wildlife photographs entitled

"Living Planet Preserving Edens of the Earth" (Grove, 1999) is focused

on the World Wildlife Fund's 'game plan for the next century'. This type

ofrhetoric has uncomfortable imperial overtones in its assertion ofpower

and control over remote territories and people. Brosius describes the

emergence of 'various forms of global governance' as being 'a rich site of

cultural production... ', and that 'a whole new discursive regime is

emerging and giving shape to the relationships between and among

natures, nations, movements, individuals, and institutions' (Brosius,

1999:277).

There are bound to be some situations where biologists have

respected local people and indigenous cultures in their efforts to conserve

biodiversity. There is perhaps, a growing movement of consensus within

the conservation biology establishment, that in order for protected areas

to function as effective conservation tools, they need to be established

and managed with culturally sensitivity and collaboratively with local

people (Berkes, 1999; Hunter, 1996; Park, 1995). But there is also a

sense in which modem forms of globalized conservation can appear as

new forms of colonialism and protected areas can be seen as kinds of

colonial garden.

49

2.5 The Public Park

The Mini Oxford Encyclopaedia Dictionary defines a park as being

both a 'large tract ofland kept in natural state for public benefit', and as

'an enclosure in town ornamentally laid out for public recreation. '

(1986:1257). The first definition is presumably referring to a national

park type land designation and the second to a municipal, urban park. We

would perhaps expect the first park to be composed of natural landscape

features (excluding national parks created to protect cultural features),

and the second to have characteristics of a designed and anthropogenic

landscape. In this section I propose that protected natural areas are

becoming similar to municipal parks in terms of their demarcation,

design, management, ideological purpose and public use.

The planned urban park developed in the early 1800s in England as

public spaces that were designed to enable the metropolitan populace to

experience the picturesque and arcadian pleasures of idealized nature.

The urban park was one manifestation of the 'arcadian thread that runs

through the landscape history of the modem western metropolis' (Bunce,

1994:141) and also resulted in the development of garden suburbs and the

garden city movement (Bunce, 1994). The development ofpublic

pastoral parks for metropolitan populations perhaps reached its full

potential in the North American city in the second half of the 1800s

(Bunce, 1994). Frederick Law Olmsted argued for the creation ofrural

50

municipal public space as a means to let the moral power of nature

improve city life and to improve the corrupt existence of its citizens

(Ogrin, 1993). It was believed that bringing some 'country into the city'

(Bunce, 1994) would help improve social conditions and provide health

benefits to the urban population.

During this period parks like Central Park in New York and Hyde

Park in London were developed as designed pastoral spaces for the

masses. The form and major design characteristics ofmunicipal parks

were based on the landscaped gardens of English country estates (Bunce,

1994). Designs imitated natural features and emphasized naturalistic

landscapes as they were aesthetically appraised.

Municipal parks were designed for recreation and public access.

Networks of footpaths, grassed areas, water features and plantings were

often included in the designs ofurban parks. The philosophy ofparks

emphasized the romantic libertarian ideals that were seen as manifested in

nature and natural landscapes. Although people were welcome to

appreciate the romance and beauty of the contrived nature available in

parks, they were subject to sets of rules and conditions when within a

park's bounds. Parks were spaces in which certain actions and behaviors

were defined as being appropriate. Indeed, they were spaces that were

designed for people of a certain class and social status. It was all right to

perambulate and 'take in the view and the fresh air' and, perhaps make

51

polite conversation with other park users. Many parks became social

spaces to see and be seen in. But other activities were excluded to outside

ofthe park gates. Economic activities and trade were not allowed, and

raucous behavior and overt sexuality were clearly unacceptable practices.

Parks were landscapes that emphasiZed formality, rules and social

control. This was especially true of formal civic parks with their

horticultural decoration, immaculately kept laws and pretty vistas.

Many public parks still emphasize this formal aspect to civic space.

People are invited into parks to behave and act in socially acceptable

ways. Local authorities define the correct modes and codes ofbehavior.

Public traffic can access the park during opening times and are steered

along footpaths to focal points (such as the bandstand, or the rose garden)

and recreational features (playground, or bowling green). Parks are

landscapes that are policed by park-keepers that enforce the rules

determined by the controlling municipal authority. Signs are part of the

gardenesque landscape ofparks. 'Keep off the Grass'; 'No Dogs'; 'No

Ball-Games' are common examples.

Protected areas and particularly national Parks often appear to share

design features and social characteristics with municipal parks. Like

parks, protected areas tend to be bounded properties with controlled

access and rules. They are usually overseen, managed, policed and often

owned by a govermnental authority, private body, or some such

52

institution. Protected areas are nominally natural areas or wildernesses,

but they often have the appearance of tame, ordered and managed

landscapes. Like municipal parks, protected areas also have their paths

and trail systems, signs to guide and interpret for visitors, as well as rules

and rangers to control their behavior. There are prohibitions on who can

do what when and exclusions made on the basis of those who do not have

administrative authority and property access rights. As Turner puts it, the

very idea of wild nature in protected areas has become increasingly

'evaluated, managed regulated, and controlled. That is tamed' (Turner,

1996:86).

The protected area has also become like a theme park. Visitors are

encouraged to use the space for specific recreational purposes and to have

fun. Natural resources in protected areas have become commodities for

the tourist industry. Many protected areas have a 'Disneyesque' quality as

they are increasingly being 'designed, administered, managed and

controlled to be wild' (Turner, 1996:100). Visitors are routed around the

landscape so as to maximize their exposure to significant natural features

and interesting scenery. The landscape is interpreted 'expertly' by

administrators and scientists who put nature 'on display' like an exhibit at

a museum.

Protected areas can therefore be viewed as forms ofpark. Their

designation, design, and management reflect cultural values and political

53

ideals. Are they really protected natural landscapes, or creations of

human artifice?

2.6 The Botanical Garden

The contemporary form ofbotanical garden developed in 17th

century Europe. These institutions developed the idea places where

plants could be collected, grown, studied, and classified. One of the early

promoters ofthe botanical garden concept was Francis Bacon, who

argued for the collection of plants as a means to gain knowledge of nature

and have 'in small compass a model of the universal nature made private'

(Bacon quoted in Pyenson, 1999:151). Botanical gardens became types

of encyclopedia ofbotanical knowledge, where plants from diverse

geographic regions were arranged within the gardens' layout according to

their taxonomic status (Pyenson, 1999). Linnaeus, the originator of the

scientific binomial classification system, saw botanical gardens as

outdoor botanical museums, in which plants could be systematically

catalogued and named.

Botanical gardens, along with geographic societies, became

amongst the leading European institutions promoting scientific inquiry

(Pyenson, 1999) and imperial exploration (Smith & Godlewska, 1994).

In the early 18th century, Botanical gardens led the way in natural history

research (Pyenson, 1999), and were amongst the major European

54

institutions promoting the need to categorize, classifY and obtain

knowledge ofthe natural world outside of Europe (Pyenson, 1999). The

Botanical garden functioned as a requisite of empirical knowledge for

imperial powers in a similar way to museums (Pyenson, 1999). They

became institutions that embodied rationalistic science's mission to know

the world, and map a logical order onto a supposedly 'natural order'

(Gregory, 1994).

This urge to classifY, name, spatialize, abstract, and represent the

world was in some ways personified in Joseph Banks (Gregory, 1994),

who became the director ofKew Gardens in 1772 after he returned form

the South Seas on the 'Endeavour' with Captain Cook. He remained the

director for the next forty-eight years and organized plant collectors to

obtain exotic plants for Kew from South Africa, China, Australia, and

South America (Pyenson, 1999). Through his imperial eyes Banks saw,

named, and claimed new plant species for the Empire and housed them at

Kew. In this way, botanical gardens have served as repositories for

imperial knowledge that embody and institutionalize scientific ways of

knowing, specialized forms oflanguage and structures of power.

Protected areas share some of these characteristics with botanical

gardens. They also function as landscapes with their own specialized

forms oflanguage, and power structures that legitimize scientific ways of

knowing. They are spaces where biologists and resource managers use

55

scientific knowledge and specialized language as rhetorical devices to

authorize their apparently impartial voices to speak on nature's behalf

(Willems-Braun, 1997). Like botanical gardens, protected areas are also

places where plants are scientifically studied and systematically

catalogued.

Protected areas are spaces in which positivistic science provides the

epistemological grounding, worldview and basis for conceptualizing,

valuing, representing and interacting with nature. They have become

arenas in which nature is spatialized and objectified. Scientific

methodologies and rationalism have determined the philosophical

foundation upon which environmental values and ethics have been

constructed. Other cultural voices and cosmologies have been effectively

excluded from the process of defining and representing nature in

protected areas. Nature in these spaces has been carefully tended,

organized mapped and catalogued by an elite of scientists and managers.

As a result, protected areas can be read as being forms of scientifically

managed botanical garden.

Sometimes, applied restoration practices make protected areas

effectively become sites for the establishment and development of plant

collections. In this kind of situation, native plants are added to a

protected area to restore its biodiversity (Hunter, 1996). A successful

restored natural landscape in a protected area would ideally have a 'full-

56

complement' of plant species characteristic ofthe ecosystem's 'intact'

botanical community. If some species are absent they could be restored,

or 'collected', so as to 'complete' the reserve's 'natural inventory'.

Reserve managers have a particular interest in, and concern for rare

and endangered species in protected areas. This is understandable, as

such organisms are often the ones that require the most protection

(Hunter, 1996) and are understandably therefore the subjects of

managerial concern. However, I also believe there is another reason that

managers like to focus on rare species. It is the same urge that motivates

plant-collectors the world over; the collector's urge to posses the exotic

and the rare, the fantastic and the valuable.

Botanical garden institutions are becoming increasingly involved in

biodiversity conservation. This mission is most apparent in ex-situ type

practices, where rare plants are collected and propagated in the confines

ofa botanical garden (Hunter, 1996). Many botanical gardens are also

actively involved in in-situ conservation and are involved in the

management ofwild populations of rare plants in their natural habitat.

These projects are often focused on ecosystems in protected natural areas.

The Missouri Botanical Gardens and the National Tropical Botanical

Gardens (NTBG) are two such institutions that focus some of their

resources and botanical expertise towards such in-situ conservation

57

projects. The NTBG has three nature preserves in addition to its five

botanical gardens (Klein, 1996, in: Grierson & Green, 1996).

2.7 Conclusions

In this chapter I have identifYing five kinds of garden and described

some of their historic, conceptual and spatial characteristics. I then

compared some elements of these garden forms to protected area

landscapes as a means ofhelping to identifY and culturally contextualize

some key conceptual themes and ideas that both share in regards to their

constructions of space and nature. By relating garden characteristics with

those ofprotected natural areas, I have revealed some ofthe rhetoric that

underlies a dominant, Westernized view of nature and conservation. I

have explored a range ofWestern cultural themes and ideas that are

common to, and often embodied in the conceptualization and physical

manifestation ofgardened and protected natural area landscapes.

In the next chapter, I will utilize these five garden forms as

metaphoric devices to interpret the Ka'ena Point Natural Area Reserve

and demonstrate that its landscape is in some ways as much a cultural

spaces as a natural one. By analyzing this Natural Area Reserve as a

socially created gardened space, I will demonstrate that its apparently

natural landscape is composed of social ideals, values and culturally

relative abstract ideas, and that these cultural elements are influential in

58

the reserve's conceptualization and practical management. In this way I

will show that K.a' ena Point Natural Area Reserve landscape is composed

ofan array ofcultural elements that are ambiguously in juxtaposition to

its apparently 'natural' ones.

59

CHAPTER 3

KA'ENA POINT NATURAL AREA RESERVE AS GARDEN

3.1 Introduction

In this chapter I will interpret the landscape ofKa'ena Point Natural

Area Reserve as a socially constructed space. By utilizing the five garden

types I have previously described as metaphoric interpretative devices, I will

illustrate that Ka'ena's landscape is both conceptually and physically a space

that is acted upon and influenced by a multiplicity of forces that are

inherently socio-cultural. I will compare the Reserve landscape with those of

the five garden fonus to demonstrate that they are similar spatially and

ideologically in terms of their cultural discourses and dominant

epistemologies of, and approaches towards nature. This critical analysis will

reveal a complex and ambiguous landscape that is subjected to a range of

influences that are essentially anthropogenic. By interpreting the Ka'ena

Point landscape as being gardened, it becomes philosophically problematic to

continue to view and represent the Natural Area Reserve and its associated

ecology as being simply 'natural' and inherently wild.

60

3.2 Ka'ena as Eden

Hawai'i has a long history ofbeing culturally constructed as a

paradise (Merry, 2000). From its earliest Western representations resulting

from Cook's voyages and later missionary accounts (some of whom,

writes Culliney (1988:334) 'thought of Hawai'i literally as an Eden'), to

its contemporary description by the tourism industry, Hawai'i's land,

nature and people are commonly described in terms ofparadise, harmony

and Edenic perfection.

The idea ofuntouched natural wilderness is, as I've previously

explained, closely associated with idealized Edenic rhetorics. Hawai'i's

natural landscape and native ecology is often described as being a wild,

picturesque paradise. Naturalists, scientists and travel writers are prone to

describe and conceive ofHawai'i in these terms. In 1875, Isabella Bird

describes the Hawaiian Islands as being 'Summer isles ofEden' in her

travel narrative 'six months in the Sandwich Islands' (Bird, 1875, in Kom,

1964: ix). Otto Degener, one of the most well known 20th century

botanists to have worked in Hawai'i describes it as a 'God-given paradise'

(Degener, 1970:46). Dr. William Klein, who was the Executive Director

of the National Tropical Botanical Garden describes the botanist's 'divine

mandate to name as the first act in our stewardship ofparadise' when he

wrote about Hawaiian botany (Klein, 1996:vi; in introduction to

61

'Hawaiian Florilegium', Grierson & Green, 1996). In this way, Hawai'i's

nature is commonly constructed as being wild, pristine and Edenic.

As the following quotes from a range of sources show, Ka'ena Point

is similarly represented as being an Edenic, wild natural landscape.

Ka'ena is described as being 'Oahu's last wilderness'; 'a wilderness

untamed' (Seiden, 1973:31); a 'semi-wilderness' (Arrigoni, 1978:2); 'the

last wild stretch of coastline on Oahu' (DLNR; NARS, 1988); 'aremote,

wild coastline' (Foster, 1999:155). The wilderness trope is repeatedly

used to describe Ka'ena, and although it sometimes refers to a place that is

untamed and lawless; Oahu's 'Wild West' (Emerson, 1996:5), it more

commonly signifies a landscape that is remote and empty. That is

spatially, temporarily and culturally distanced and othered from

hegemonic society and the contemporary world. The wilderness trope is

repeatedly referred to in Ka'ena texts. It describes an idealized Edenic

landscape that is natural, pure, and empty of people.

Ka'ena is made into anachronistic space, backwards and behind, a

romantic, picturesque and unsullied natural paradise that is a last refuge

for threatened plants and rare ecosystems. A forgotten remnant ofpristine

Eden, a primordial paradise preserved with its ancient flora and fauna.

Ka'ena's landscape is constructed as anachronistic space when it is

referred to in the Ka'ena Point Reserve Brochure as 'intact coast'; the 'last

glimpses of the ancient past ofHawai'i' (State ofHawai'i, DLNR,

62

DOFAW, 1993). By creating a protected area, there is an implicit desire

to try to preserve an ideal vision of a primeval, natural landscape, that

embodies mythological qualities of paradise before the Fall.

The State refers to the threatened sand dune ecosystem of Ka'ena

point reserve that has rare native plants communities, and is a 'potential

refuge and breeding area for Laysan Albatross, green sea turtles, and

Hawaiian monk seal' (State of Hawai'i, DLNR, NARS, 1988:1).

The Ka'ena Point Natural Area Reserve can be viewed as a kind of

Edenic garden in which Ka'ena's native nature is portrayed as a form of

Edenic narrative. This account depicts a landscape that is permeated with

notions ofparadise and images ofan original, idealized and pristine

wilderness. This Edenic garden is a space with moral and aesthetic

components. In this vision of the landscape, native species and ecosystems

are sublime, valuable, and in-place, whilst alien species are evil,

'unnatural' and threatening to the garden's God-given harmony and

perfection. Viewed in this light, the Natural Reserve becomes a spatial

manifestation of a vision of nature that has inherently Judeo-Christian

cultural roots, and embodies specific Western ideas, mythologies and

values relating to the construction and representation of space.

63

3.3 Ka'ena as Landscape Garden

Many ofthe elements found in the Ka'ena Natural Area Reserve are

similar in many ways to the ideals of sublime and wild nature found in the

late 18th century English garden design. In other words, the reserve's

nature has been molded to conform to a certain image of nature just as

were the landscape gardens of England two centuries ago.

Since the creation of the Ka'ena reserve in 1988, there have been

various deliberate attempts to alter, adjust and recreate nature at Ka'ena.

Human time and energy has been expended in weeding, pest and disease

control, as well as the planting and cultivation ofplants. In the language

of natural resource managers and biologists, these kinds of activities

would be referred to as 'habitat management' and 'ecological restoration'.

From the perspective of this thesis, such activities would be described as

gardening or landscaping cultural practices.

Professional State workers carry-out up to 40 hours of work a month

in weeding and pest control, and between 10-20 volunteers work an

additional 40 hours monthly weeding-out invasive species (Leismyre, B.

2000, Personal communication). These gardening activities are

techniques used in the practical ecological management of the reserve.

They are efforts to conserve, promote and recreate those aspects of nature

that are valued and desired, whilst attempting to eliminate and destroy

64

other manifestations ofnature that are conceived ofas being non-native,

threatening and undesirable. This is specified in the State's Management

Plan for the Reserve where it is written that 'select non-native plants

should be controlled to ensure the recovery of native vegetation' and that

'predator trapping, may be necessary for successful seabird nesting' (State

ofHawai'i, DLNR, NARS, 1988:9).

Predator control has been extensively practiced at the reserve (See Figure

2 & 3). Traps and poison have been set for mice, rats, mongoose and feral

cats (US. Dept. OfAgriculture, 1992), that are seen as being threats to the

native Laysan Albatross (Diomedea immutabilis) and Wedge-tailed

Shearwaters (Puffinus pacificus chlororhynchus), both being ground­

nesting birds (Leismyre, B. 2000, Personal communication). Invasive

alien plant species have been removed (weeded-out) as they threaten to

out-compete native plants (See Figure 4). Particular efforts have been

made to reduce numbers ofKoa haole (Leucaena leucocephala) and

Guinea grass (Panicum maximum) which are particularly invasive

(Leismyre, B. 2000, Personal communication). These management

measures to control invasive alien species are similar in both practical and

conceptual terms to the gardening practices ofkilling pests and pulling­

out weeds.

65

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

66

Attempts to restore the area's native ~logy and create a more

'beautiful' and worthy nature have also involved planting schemes. For

example, vario~ out-plantings ofex-situ propagated Sesbania tomentosa

plants have been carried out in the Ka'eoo Reserve (See Figure 5).

Figure 5

These plants are very rare, (listed as Federally Endangered Species)

endemic shrubs that are almost extinct on Oahu, apart from a small

population at Ka'ena Point (CUlliney, 1988). Their numbers in the 'wild'

have been decimated over the last decades by the destructive action ofoff­

road recreational vehicles at Ka'eoo and various other causes related to the

effects ofalien species (Culliney, 1988; & Leismyre, B. 2000, Personal

communication).

The first out-planting took place in Deceptber 1993, and was

conducted by staffofThe State DLNR, NARS (Hopper, D. 2000,

67

Personal communication). They out-planted about 200 plants into the

Reserve and an adjacent Talus-slope area near to the remaining natural

population of plants. The plants that were out-planted had been

propagated from seeds collected from Ka'ena and raised in a nursery

situation ex-situ. Later that same year, another 150-200 plants were out­

planted in the reserve (Hopper, D. 2000, Personal communication).

Various other out-plantings of Sesbania took place over the following

three years, and a limited degree ofhorticultural care was executed in

order to maintain these out-plantings. Dave Hopper estimated that since

1993, The DLNR, NARS has out-planted between 400-600 plants at

Ka'ena Point, and that within the Natural Area Reserve, about two-thirds

of the plants (of the total Sesbania population) are planted, and about one

third are 'naturally' occurring (Hopper, D. 2000, Personal

communication). At present it is unclear which plants are 'naturally

occurring', and which plants have been out-planted (Hopper, D. 2000,

Personal communication). This is because there was inadequate

documentation about the specific locations of the various out-plantings

and there has apparently been minimal coordinated subsequent monitoring

of the Sesbania out-plantings (in relation to the total population) by those

organizations involved with managing and assessing Ka'ena's ecology.

This example of ecological restoration raises a number of theoretical

questions. Is the population of Sesbania plants in the Ka'ena Reserve

68

natural, partly natural, or an artifice? Are the plant communities in the

reserve wild and natural parts of the area's native ecology, or are they

contrived, constructed imitations ofnature?

This an example ofwhere an applied ecological restoration

technique can be seen as a form of gardening, in that desired plants were

raised, planted and maintained by human agency. In a garden situation

this process would occur within the confines of a cultivated space, and the

plants would be part ofa planned planting-scheme. At Ka'ena, the

Sesbania plants were planted into an apparently spontaneous, and natural

space as part of the idealized process ofecological restoration, in order to

'improve', or recreate a vision of a 'native nature'. Seen in this light, it is

apparent that Ka'ena Point NAR can be viewed as a kind of English

landscape garden, where nature is designed and created to conform to

predetermined notions ofnature and value laden ideals ofecological

management.

3.4 Ka'ena as Colonial Garden and Contact Zone

Hawai'i was historically annexed and colonized by America (Merry,

2000). This process of colonization included racial and cultural

subjugation as well as the physical possession ofland and the imposition

of foreign, political, legal and social practices and institutions onto

Hawai'i's landscape (Merry, 2000). Although it could be argued that

69

Hawai'i is now in a postcolonial phase, there are still some patterns and

practices of colonialism that continue to persist in Hawai 'i's present era of

postcolonialism (Merry, 2000).

Willems-Braun states that 'Neocolonial practices persist in

'postcolonial' societies... surfacing time and again in everyday practices

of representation, producing and legitimizing new forms ofcolonial

domination' (Willems-Braun, 1997:25). Some aspects ofprotected area

protection in Hawai'i today involve the representation and construction of

nature and natural landscapes. Some ofthe rhetorical practices,

discourses and strategic strategies employed to produce space and

represent nature for the purpose ofnatural resource management can be

viewed as forms of colonial domination. What counts as nature in

Hawai'i today is often seen as a discrete, ahistorical realm, separate from

people and the political arena. But this space called nature, is actually

'constituted within, and informed by, the legacies of colonialism'

(Willems-Braun, 1997:5) and has become a contested contact zone (Pratt,

1992), where 'disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other,

often in highly asymmetrical relations ofdomination and subordination... '

(Pratt, 1992:4).

Hawai'i's colonial history has seen native Hawaiians' dispossessed

of the land and natural resources as a result ofWestern systems ofland

tenure and concepts ofprivate property (Panarella, 1998). Hawaiian

70

descendants have experienced 'a long tenu slide into political

powerlessness, economic fragmentation, and cultural dispossession. The

story ofnative Hawaiians (Kanaka Maoli) is still one of colonialism and

loss.' (Merry, 2000:23)

Part of the process of indigenous Hawaiian cultural dispossession

has arguably involved the imposition of a foreign epistemology and

cosmology of nature. These are commonly portrayed as being superior to

indigenous ways ofknowing and producing nature. The imposition of

new fonus ofWestern knowledge regarding the construction ofnature and

its spatial means of representation have largely displaced traditional

indigenous ones. The assumed positional superiority of Western cultural

ways ofknowing and representing nature continues to influence

approaches towards natural resource management in Hawai'i to this day,

and can therefore be implicated as a kind ofcolonization of indigenous

space and cosmological landscape.

Although statehood teclmically ended Hawai'i's colonial status,

there is a vibrant political movement (ofpredominantly Hawaiian

ancestry) who feel that the State continues to hold a fonu ofcolonial

power over the land in Hawai'i (Merry, 2000). Over the last few decades

in Hawai'i there has been a Reassertion of native Hawaiian gathering

rights and questions raised regarding indigenous rights towards the

ownership, access and control ofland and natural resources in both legal

71

and moral terms (Panarella, 1998). Some people in this regard question

the State's approach towards the control, designation and stewardship of

nature and natural resources in Hawai'i.

Part ofthe process of establishing a Protected area was to define and

designate an exclusionary reserve boundary and control public access to

the reserve. This involved blocking the last half-mile of road that allowed

vehicular access to the Mokule'ia end of Ka'ena Point. In the late 1980s,

DOFAW staff constructed a bamer using boulders and a metal gate to

block the road (Thorndike, 1991). This was created to prevent Ka'ena

being a 'dumping ground for trash and abandoned vehicles... ' and to

prevent 'off-road vehicles.... causing a great deal of damage to the

Reserve's dune ecosystem and its surrounding terrain and vegetation'

(State of Hawai'i, DLNR, NARS: 1988:1). The erection of the bamer

served as a practical means to try preventing damage to the reserve, but it

also conveyed a more geopolitical message about who controls Ka'ena's

space and oversees its nature. The bamer acted to define and protect the

reserve's nature. It also physically and symbolically excluded and

separated ordinary people from Ka'ena's nature while imposing a

demarcation of elitist territorial control.

The creation of this barrier sparked-off an ongoing conflict between

the State conservation authorities and some members of the public and

other local community users of the area (Emerson, 1996). This conflict

72

partially resulted in the creation ofan advisory group (made up ofuser

groups and community members who live near Ka'ena) in 1995 to

cooperate with State land managers to try and reduce the tensions about

the reserve barrier (Emerson, 1996). Although the conflict at Ka'ena

involves people with a diverse range of ethnic backgrounds and interests,

it in some ways represents a larger dispute that is being played-out in

Hawai'i. The establishment ofreserve boundaries and fences in the

interest ofnature conservation in Hawai'i (by the State and other

organizations such as The Nature Conservancy) has ignited a conflict

regarding the rights of a range of conservation organizations authority to

administer, control, and designate areas ofland as being natural and of

protected statns. This conflict has been particularly acute and well

publicized regarding the establishment of reserves and the enforcement of

associated exclusionary policies in the Kohala area of the Big Island

(Josayma, 1996), where local hunters and cultural groups felt that the

creation ofreserves was 'just another State land grab' (Clark, 1999) that

reduced their acreage and rights to hunt and gather freely (Clark, 1999).

At Ka'ena the conflict is perhaps less visible and less polarized, but

is never the less apparent in the kind oflanguage and rhetoric used by the

State to describe the sitnation at the Reserve. In an 1996 article for

Honolulu Weekly, Mike Wilson, the head of the DLNR, said that although

the State faces resistance and sometimes outright antagonism at Ka'ena,

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he is still committed to conservation at the Reserve (Emerson, 1996). A

State Wildlife biologist describes the conflict over the barrier at Ka'ena as

a 'kind ofpush and pull', and says he doesn't want 'a full-scale war' with

those who want to illegally enter the Reserve, but just to 'wear them

down'. He continues by saying 'this is a protected Natural Area Reserve

now', and that offenders 'were lucky to have been able to drive out here

all these years - not anymore' (Smith quoted in Thorndike, 1991 :8). He

goes on to say that 'walkers, hikers, mountain bikers and fishennen are

still welcome to enjoy the natural wilderness' (Smith quoted in Thorndike,

1991). In this way the landscape of Ka'ena is enclosed, and constructed as

an empty, natural wilderness. It becomes a kind of 'terra nullis' that is

policed and controlled by the State. Ka'ena is thus turned into a kind

wilderness space, that is in some ways similar to the kind of notional

wildernesses that many early European settlers described when they saw

the apparently virginal natural landscapes ofrecently 'discovered' lands

(Park, 1995).

Ka'ena and its nature are effectively claimed and colonized through

a range of textual and rhetorical devices that serve to reinforce cultural

hegemony and political power relations and appropriate land and space. A

range oflanguage and rhetorical devices can be found in texts about

Ka'ena. Through the employment of such devices, the landscape of

Ka'ena is often effectively emptied of alternative voices and varying

74

cultural perspectives relating to the place, and is represented within the

dimension of the hegemonic colonialist culture as being an empty and

natural space.

Ka'ena is often portrayed in texts, especially travel and natural

history texts, as being a kind of 'Uncivilized Other'. This type of rhetoric

for Ka'ena includes such themes as the area's archaeology, and its

historical significance in Hawaiian myths, legends and cultural practices.

The temporal arena is firmly set in the past where the landscape is

represented as being uncivilized and visited by superstitious and primitive

Hawaiians. The frequent reference to Hawaiian cultural themes and

interpretations of Hawaiian epistemologies by non-Hawaiians in travel

texts can be seen as an example ofcultural representation and at times,

appropriation. Texts tend to emphasize how 'Ka'ena is steeped in

numerous legends' (Foster, 1999;155), almost as ifthe landscape itselfis

infused with ancient stories, somehow independent and removed from

their cultural milieu and social context. The only Hawaiian people

mentioned are the spirits of the dead. I could find very few references to

Hawaiian practices, or any recorded cultural significance of Ka'ena to

contemporary indigenous people in travel literature, State texts or other

natural history sources.

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Some travel writing and natural history publications contain

examples of colonial type textual representations of the Other regarding

Hawaiians in the context of texts about Hawaiian natural history.

Otto Degener was a famous botanist who made many botanical

visits to Ka'ena between the 1930s and the 1970s to do field research and

make floral collections (Degener, 1. 1999. Pers. Communication). His

writings are primarily focused on Hawaiian botany, but his texts also

include references to Hawaiian people that give some insight into his

attitudes and ideas about them. The following few quotes reveal a set of

attitudes, value systems and notions of the Other that typifY a colonial

world view as seen through 'imperial eyes' (Pratt, 1992).

In one text Degener writes that 'Hawaiians as a pure race are

practically extinct' (Degener, 1978:147). In an earlier text he refers to

Hawaiians as 'Kindly native people' who 'lived in the stone age [but who]

developed a culture, in many cases recalling Homeric Greece... ' (Degener,

1945:312). Some ofhis comments about Hawaiians in other travel

writings are also of interest. For instance, in his 1970 article on native

plants he states that over the last 100 years 'botanists from all civilized

countries have come to our islands to collect native plants or had resident

botanists send them samples for serious study' (Degener, 1970:46). He

also refers to Hawai'i in this article as 'a god given paradise' (Degener,

1970:46).

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These comments reflect his creation ofthe 'Other', and his

intellectual displacement, and disempowennent ofHawaiians from their

land and traditional knowledge. These colonialist type oftropes illustrate

the powerful anti-conquest (Pratt, 1992) and Othering that permeates his

tIl\vel and natural history writing about Hawaiians and Ka'ena (See also

section 'Ka'ena as botanical Garden' for more Degener quotes).

Most texts refer to the legend ofMaui's activities at Ka'ena and to

the site being the departure point for the souls ofdead Hawaiians in the

prehistoric past. Although the State has a sign at Ka'ena stating that 'the

area is ofconsidex:able spiritual significance to the Hawaiian people' (see

Figure 6), the State, until it re-word the signs in both English and Hawaiian

(See Gonser, 2000), seemed to have made little effort to integrate or

accommodate this aspect ofKa'ena's landscape and cultural importance

into the NAR management plan or into its general approach towards the

site.

Figure 6

77

The stated management goal for the reserve 'is to preserve and

maintain the Reserve's native character' (State of Hawai'i, DLNR, NARS,

1988:9). This 'native character' does not apparently include aspects

relating to Ka'ena's contemporary cultural or spiritual landscape, but only

relates to the site's biological characteristics. In the State brochure on

Ka'ena's reserve, it says that 'since ancient times' the place was a site

where 'spirits of the 'recently dead could be reunited with their ancestors',

but that 'today, you can walk there among the living; Hawaiian plants and

animals that have made the shoreline their home for thousands ofyears'

(State ofHawai'i, DLNR, DOFAW, 1993). This text seems to actively try

and displace Ka'ena's spiritual and cultural significance from the

landscape, and rhetorically replaces an 'extinct' Hawaiian people with

living indigenous plants and animals.

This biological bias is perhaps to be expected in the creation ofa

biological reserve, but can also be seen as an form ofinsensitivity when

one considers the sacredness that Ka'ena's landscape embodies in

Hawaiian culture, cosmology, and religion (Hawai'i Design Associates et

ai, 1986).

It appears as if no cultural experts or Hawaiian elders were

consulted during the planning of, or the review process for the reserve's

original plan. The planning was carried out by a range ofbiologists,

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natural resource managers, planners, engineers and landscape architects

(State ofHawai'i, DLNR, NARS:1988). The review process for the plan

was conducted by 'qualified managers, planners, and biologists familiar

with the area and its problems' (State ofHawai'i, DLNR, NARS: 1988:3).

This approach towards biological reserve planning and design seems to

omit traditional knowledge and cosmology from its methodology, and

makes no attempt to solicit input from Hawaiian cultural experts, or the

indigenous community at large. In this respect, the production of space

and the representation ofnature involved in the reserve's planning process

and creation can be described as ethnocentric and culturally elitist. The

landscape of Ka'ena's Reserve can perhaps be interpreted in these terms

as an articulation of colonialist representations and practices both

rhetorically and materially and therefore as a form of 'colonial garden'.

3.5 Ka'ena as Public Park

Ka'ena Point Natural Area Reserve does not exclude public access.

In fact, certain kinds of visitor are encouraged to enter the space.

Provided they generally follow the rules, and move 'quietly and slowly

through the reserve, respecting its Hawaiian plants and animals' (State of

Hawai'i, DLNR, DOFAW, 1993: brochure), visitors are welcome.

Tourists, cyclists, fishermen and those public engaged in acceptable

recreational behavior can enter the reserve and then 'leave the reserve

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natural and pristine for the future' (State ofHawai 'i, DLNR, DOFAW,

1993: Brochure).

Ka'ena, in this sense is a kind ofpublic park. Although the space is

primarily designed and managed to protect nature, it also serves as social

space. A system oftrails and signs and interpretative texts encourage

visitors to 'experience' Ka'ena's nature and 'identifY some of the native

plants and animals that can be found in the reserve' (State ofHawai'i,

DLNR, DOFAW, 1993: Brochure).

A municipal park has rules and codes ofbehavior that visitors are

expected to conform to. Signs saying 'keep offthe grass', or 'no ball

games' are integral elements of the municipal park landscape. Ka'ena

natural reserve also has rules and codes of acceptable behavior that are

elements ofits physical and conceptual landscape. For instance, the

reserve Brochure (State of Hawai'i, DLNR, DOFAW, 1993: Brochure)

lists the following rules for visitors to abide by:

• Proceed only on foot or bicycle.

• Stay on marked trails.

• Leave your pets at home.

• Prevent fires.

• Carry out any litter you find.

• Leave all living things as you find them.

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A sign at the reserve's entrance informs reserve visitors of activities

that are prohibited within the protected area: 'No motorized vehicles,

open fires or overnight camping. Injuring, removing or damaging any

native plant or animal is prohibited. (State ofHawai'i, DLNR, DOFAW:

SIgn. See Figure 6).

It is of interest to note that many ofthe Reserve signs are riddled

with bullet holes (See figure 6 & Gonser, 2000). Perhaps this signifies

more than the signs' simple utility for target practice, but can be read as a

symbolic manifestation of an underlying social sense of anger,

dispossession and rebelliousness against the State and its control ofthe

Reserve land.

The posting of these regulations serve the dual function ofboth

informing the public of the area's rules, and reminding visitors that the

reserve's space is managed and overseen by a controlling body. This is

similar to the way that signs in a public park alert visitors that they are in a

socially controlled environment with predetermined rules, and that their

behavior could potentially be being monitored and policed. In a public

park environment, it is park-keepers, municipal police, or even park police

who conduct surveillance and enforce rules. Most ofHawai'i's Natural

Area Reserves Systems are policed by the enforcement branch of the State

Division of Forestry and Wildlife. Offenders who 'break the rules' could

potentially have to face armed State enforcement officers. At Ka'ena, the

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reserve is policed by an 'Ambassador', who serves as a full-time park

keeper equivalent, and maintains a State presence at Ka'ena Point

(Emerson, 1996). In the 'Ka'ena Point Natural Area Reserve Management

Plan' it states that 'effective management ofthe Ka'ena Reserve will

depend on visible enforcement', and that 'NARS staffwill work closely

with DLNR Enforcement personnel in this regard' (State ofHawai'i,

DLNR, NARS, 1988:9).

Path systems are an integral element ofa public park landscape.

Ka'ena Point NAR also has a set ofmarked trails and path systems.

Visitors are expected to keep to these designated routes when they are

within the bounds ofthe reserve. The reserve's main paths are bounded

with stones. These mark the paths and remind visitors to keep to them.

The way the paths intersect through the reserve's vegetation and dunes

helps to create the image ofa quasi 'park-like' landscape (See Figure 7).

Figure 7

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This image is reinforced by the sight of visitors walking along the

reserve's trail systems, admiring the 'nature' and picturesque views. They

are in some ways perhaps reminiscent ofpeople 'perambulating' through a

municipal park landscape.

The park like elements of the Ka'ena reserve landscape are also

apparent in the way that it is promoted as a recreational space for visitors

and tourists to take 'an adventurous hike along a unique, spectacular

coast' (Arrigoni, 1978:1). Most contemporary tourist guides and hiking

guides of Oahu mention Ka'ena Point and the reserve as destinations for

recreational hikers and those with an interest in natural history (all of

those cited in the references of this thesis).

Although the two-mile trip to the Point is perhaps more of a 'rugged

hike' than a 'stroll in the park', both park and reserve spaces have similar

land use and functional designations in regards to public access and use.

The reserve, like a park, is designated for certain public uses

(primarily recreational activities like hiking, cycling and fishing), but

prohibits others. Homeless people are generally not welcome to camp-out

in municipal parks. In the same way, we could predict that homeless

people would be prevented from setting-up living shelters in the Ka'ena

Point Reserve.

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The reserve is a controlled and administered space with a set ofrules

and regulations relating to public use and designated activities. Is it not

perhaps more of a socially controlled park-like landscape than a wild, free

and natural landscape?

3.6 Ka'ena as Botanical Garden

Hawai'i's natural environment has been the focus of intense

scientific study and interest since its initial 'discovery' by Europeans over

200 years ago (Culliney, 1988). Its unique flora has been systematically

studied, classified and named by a plethora ofbotanists. Hawai'i has

become internationally famous for its botanical riches. Many botanists in

Hawai'i feel that it is their duty and 'essential work', or even 'divine

mandate, to protect this flora and to have 'stewardship ofparadise' (Klein,

1996:VI, in: Grierson & Green, 1996).

From this perspective, Hawai'i's nature becomes a domain of

science. The production of knowledge about nature is informed and

motivated by positivism, and empiricism. Hawai'i's nature becomes a

spatial arena where scientists' classify, name and collect. Protected areas

are established as places where rare indigenous organisms and ecosystems

can be to isolated and kept away from harmful anthropogenic influences.

Humans are separated from nature physically and philosophically. Value

tends to be accrued by those organisms that are endemic, rare, or unusual.

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A Pacific Manager of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service talking

about wildlife in a protected area in the North Kohala area ofthe Big

Island said in an interview that; 'native plants unique to the region have to

have priority, even over the island's human inhabitants. In his view both

humans and game animals are, technically speaking, introduced species'

(Clark, I999:B4). This kind of 'authoritarian biologist' (Guha, 1986)

rhetoric is perhaps representative of the view held by the majority of

conservation biologists in Hawai'i. There is a sense in which protected

areas are constructed as forms ofbotanical garden, where Western ideas of

nature are catalogued, mapped, studied and enclosed. From this

perspective, Hawaiian nature reserves can be viewed as forms ofbotanical

garden, where botanists and other scientists study and describe native

species, especially those that are rare or endangered. Specialized forms of

language and structures of power serve to institutionalize scientific ways

ofknowing and describing nature, whist legitimizing and authorizing

exclusively scientific approaches to nature conservation.

Ka'ena Point Reserve's nature has been both defined and

characterized by science. Ka'ena is commonly represented as a natural

environment. A place that has been formed by, and is imbued with nature

and natural phenomena. In this Western vision of Ka'ena there is a strong

focus on the area's wildlife, ecology and natural history. The landscape's

origin and appearance are seen as resulting from volcanic forces and

85

geological processes, and the region's native species and wildlife are seen

to be the results of evolutionary processes and biological mechanisms.

This form of narrative describes Ka'ena Point as being the westermnost

point of the island of Oahu and the northwestern end of the Wai'anae

volcano (Arrigoni, 1978), a thin peninsula that is made up ofbasalt talus

slopes, lava-rock shoreline, and sand dunes (State ofHawai 'i, DLNR;

DOFAW, 1993). The sand dune and boulder slope ecosystems are

respectively characterized by two native plant communities; Naupaka

mixed coastal dry shrub, and 'ilima coastal dry mixed shrub and grassland

(State of Hawai'i, DLNR; NARS, 1988).

In short, the landscape is a manifestation of 'the laws of nature' as

seen through a scientific worldview. This 'scientific nature' is apparent in

most textual representations of Ka'ena and its associated flora and fauna.

Such texts tend to claim Ka'ena's nature as the exclusive domain of

scientific experts and scientifically trained natural resource managers.

The State position is that 'sound scientific research should be the basis for

management programs and activities' in Hawai'i's Natural Area Reserves

System (State of Hawai'i, DLNR, DOFAW, 1995).

The botanist Otto Degener made many botanical visits to Ka'ena

between the 1930s and the 1970s to do field research and make floral

collections (Degener, I. 1999. Pers. Communication). His attitudes and

ideas about traditional knowledge and the superiority of Western scientific

86

knowledge production are perhaps representative of those generally held

by the majority of scientists and natural historians who work within the

established institutions oflearning and research in Hawai'i. I have

selected a few ofhis textual representations in this regard as evidence of

the type of rhetorical devices and language that are frequently used in

travel and natural history writing about Hawai'i and Ka'ena to establish

the idea of the positional superiority of Westem knowledge systems and

cultural ideas regarding nature.

In an introduction to an article about the Sesbania genus at Ka'ena,

he initially states that most Hawaiians and Asian immigrants to Hawai'i

see native plants as valueless unless they can 'be used for fuel, medicine

or food for man or beast', and are therefore 'expendable unless they can be

made into wood chips for selling to the paper industry in the Orient or can

be transplanted via vegetarian food.. .' to become 'herbivores available for

hunters' (Degener, 1978:149). He then adds that 'fortunately an

increasing number ofbiologists more recently schooled on the Mainland

and more biologically akamai (clever, smart) sons and daughters of these

old-timers are determined with almost missionary zeal to teach the

grandchildren to appreciate scientific and historical information of the

Northwest end of Oahu' (Degener, 1978:149). By the 'Northwest of

Oahu', he is referring to Ka'ena and its botanical characteristics.

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II

Degener refers to Ka'ena's 'rare or interesting native and even

endemic plants... '(Degener, 1963:77) in a 1963 article. This botanical

preoccupation with 'rare and interesting' plants in nature reserves is

similar to the way that many botanical garden institutions tend to focus on

collecting and studying 'unusual and exotic' plants. Managers working at

Ka'ena tend to be most interested in the site's rare ecosystems and

endangered species. Although this behavior is rational (as rare species

tend to be the most vulnerable and in need ofprotection), the

concentration on the rare may also be a manifestation ofthe urge to

collect, and effectively posses amongst the rarest, most valuable, and most

'prestigious' plant species in the world.

Ka'ena NAR has at least 6 rare plant species (State ofHawai'i,

DLNR, NARS, 1988) of which at least two are Federally registered

endangered species. An important part of the management objective for

the Reserve relates to the protection and monitoring of these, as well as

rare animal species. The out-planting and restoration of the endangered

Sesbania tomentosa species (see section on Ka'ena as landscape garden) is

a part of this approach and preoccupation with the rare and endemic.

Ecological managers probably find it important and exciting to work

with what the reserve Brochure calls 'precious' and 'unique' species, that

are the 'last survivors' to have been 'brought back from the brink of

extinction' (State ofHawai'i, DLNR, DOFAW, 1993: Brochure). This

88

language is used about conserving species in the nature reserve at Ka'ena,

but it has some similarities to the kinds of rhetoric used by 19th century

botanists and plant collectors working for botanical garden research

institutions when they described their sense ofmission and purpose.

Botanical gardens develop collections of exotic plants, while nature

reserves often aim to 'enhance existing populations' (State of Hawai'i,

DLNR, DOFAW, 1995» ofrare native plants. Both bodies are projects of

science, where specialized languages, modes ofknowledge production and

positivist philosophies underpin attitudes and definitions ofnature,

landscape and society. Ka'ena's NAR is a nature reserve, but it shares

some spatial elements and conceptual characteristics with a botanical

garden type oflandscape.

3.7 Conclusion

In this chapter I have demonstrated that it is possible to interpret the

landscape of Ka'ena Point Natural Area Reserve as five forms ofgarden

space. By using a range of documentary and visual evidence from

selected texts and images, I have shown that many ofthe Reserve's

physical and conceptual characteristics are comparable to those of

particular gardens. In this interpretive landscape analysis Ka'ena becomes

transformed from an empty, neutral and natural space into an intrinsically

cultural one. The Reserve landscape can therefore be viewed as a

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socially constructed place, a kind ofcultural landscape, in which a

complex of social and cultural factors act to define discourses and notions

of space and nature.

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CHAPTER 4

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

4.1 Summary

The arguments developed in this thesis are focused on identifying

how Western representations ofnature (mediated through discourse and

culture) are utilized to define and control areas ofland, and how

knowledges and discourses ofnature are used to express social power

relations (Castree, 2001) as well as providing the conceptual basis upon

which ethnocentric nature conservation strategies are conceived. In this

light, it is clear that the conception ofnature and the creation ofprotected

areas tend to be based on a very narrow view of nature. An idea of nature

that is rooted in Western mythology, culture, history, and is

epistemologicaily grounded in rationalistic, positivistic science.

I have deconstructed and examined the representations ofnature in

the landscape of the Ka'ena Point State run natural area reserve to reveal

how various Western rhetorics of 'nature' dominate and inform

management policy and discourses about the site and its nature. These

Western discourses of nature tend to displace and dominate other cultural

representations and cosmologies about the site and its nature.

Through evidence drawn from a range oftexts and other information

about the Ka'ena Point Reserve I have demonstrated how the dominant

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discourses represent Ka'ena as being wild, natural and conceptually

autonomous from the human realm. I have also demonstrated how natural

resource managers and biologists (while apparently believing in these

concepts of nature being intrinsically non-human space) also interact with,

and influence and perhaps determine their visions of nature by actively

controlling, restoring, modifying and studying Ka'ena's so called natural

landscape. They have effectively created an 'ecological garden'. Do they

see themselves as gardeners creating cultural space, or as resource

managers who protect and study natural, non-cultural space?

The Ka'ena Point case study helps to reveal the paradox of trying to

define and manage a 'natural' area as ifit were separate from cultural

ideals, influences and contexts.

In this thesis I have employed the garden model as a metaphoric

device to help reveal the cultural elements in my landscape analysis. The

use of the garden analogy helps to reveal the 'buried epistemologies' that

underlie many areas of contemporary conservation policy and practice

regarding the idea of nature and the creation ofprotected areas.

I focused on five garden types in this thesis. These garden forms

can be used as symbols to help illuminate some of the cultural elements

(that are usually lost behind the rhetorical representations of 'nature') that

define ideas of nature and motivate approaches towards its conservation at

Ka'ena and in protected area landscapes.

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I will now summarize some of the properties that these garden types

reveal about the representation and creation of nature in protected area

landscapes:

The Garden of Eden analogy highlights how wilderness myths and a

cosmology ofnature that is based in Western culture and religion are

frequently apparent in constructions of space and nature in protected areas.

In this representation nature is usually seen as being pristine, pure,

morally sound and of the past.

The Landscape Garden analogy highlights the way that conservation

biologists and ecological managers often quest to create restored

ecological landscapes (modeled on perfected idealized visions ofnature)

that are reminiscent of 18th century English landscaping approaches. In

this kind ofrepresentation nature is usually enclosed and aggressively

modified (e.g. control of alien species, ecological restoration) as a means

to improve the ecological habitat (aesthetics?) and reinstate native

biodiversity (value?).

The Public Park analogy places an emphasis on the way that

protected areas are bounded and controlled socially constituted spaces,

with sets of rules, systems of interpretation and facilities to guide and

direct public use. Nature is made into a political space, and a centralized

body decides on ecological management regimes and general policies that

establish bounds between the area's 'natural resources' and its visitors.

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Nature tends to be contrived and 'put on display', whilst it is romanticized

and imbued with bucolic characteristics.

The Colonial Garden highlights the way that colonial discourse

often appropriates and controls territories and nature that are defined as

being within protected areas. This analogy focuses on the primacy of

Western cultural epistemology ofnature and the dominant imperial forces

that attempt to represent and speak for nature, or 'on nature's behalf in a

globalized context. There is a focus on how rhetorics ofnature can support

and sustain systems ofland control and concepts ofland ownership that

are often foreign and inequitable. This kind ofapproach towards

protected area creation tends to be normative and usually dislocates the

reserve site from its traditional cultural context, whilst displacing

alternative (frequently indigenous) discourses and claims about nature.

The Botanical Garden establishes protected areas as the exclusive

domains of science. Reserves become sites where the specialized

practices ofcollecting, cataloguing, naming and studying become the

dominant approaches by which nature is defined, valued and appropriated.

Western scientific constructions of knowledge characterize how nature is

defined, and empower scientists and other 'experts' to represent it, and

determine land use policy, landscape ideals and conservation goals.

Nature tends to be seen as the material manifestation of physical processes

that can be understood through scientific rationalism and positivism.

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There tends to be a focus on the 'rare and the exotic' and on ideas of

biodiversity and ecological integrity.

4.2 Response to Research Questions and Implications

I. Is Ka 'ena Natural Area Reserve's landscape a natural space or

an artifice? There is no doubt that the landscape of Ka'ena Point

contrasts starkly with most other stretches of Oahu's coastline. Ithas

none of the obvious signs of human habitation and modification that are

now such characteristic features of Oahu's developed coastal environment.

For instance, there are no houses, residential areas, roads, or any other of

the urban, agricultural, industrial, military, or tourist landscape elements

that are so familiar elsewhere on Oahu (there aren't even any golf courses

at Ka'ena!). In other words, it is an undeveloped coastal landscape that

appears to be predominantly composed ofrocks, sand, vegetation, sea and

sky. But does this mean that Ka'ena Point's landscape is a natural one?

There have certainly been many anthropogenic environmental

modifications at Ka' ena Point, and these are still in evidence today. One

can still see signs of the railway line that was built in the late 1890s and

functioned until 1947 (Arrigoni, 1978). There is a coast guard radio

facility built at the end of the Point. There are also many areas where rock

has been quarried or blasted away in the past. There are still many dirt

roads and tracks in the sand dunes, left over from the area's previous use

95

by off-road vehicles. And as I have emphasized in this thesis, there is

plenty of evidence of the State's human activities related to the definition,

maintenance and control of the Ka'ena Point Natural Area Reserve.

Ka'ena's landscape is obviously modified, trammeled, and 'touched'

by human culture. In fact, the area is actually quite well visited and it is

unusual to witness its landscape without walkers, cyclists or fishermen.

Ka'ena Point is therefore clearly not a natural wilderness by any definition

ofthe term. And it could perhaps only be called a 'natural' space by those

who wish to dialectically stress what it is not; a highly developed urban,

and 'concretized-humanized' sprawl.

2. Is Ka 'ena 's ecology an expression ofnatural or anthropogenic

forces? Ka'ena Point Natural Area Reserve's ecology results from the

interplay ofboth natural and anthropogenic factors. The site's

physicochemical and biological conditions obviously effect the area's

ecology and biodiversity. The type of strand vegetation habitat and

coastal fauna are clearly effected by, and largely detennined by the

'natural' conditions. However, there is little doubt that the area's native

coastal ecosystem has been modified and influenced by human forces both

directly and indirectly, deliberately and accidentally, over thousands of

years, since people first arrived on Oahu. This human induced

environmental modification has been particularly rapid and destructive

over the last 200 years since the 'discovery' and eventual settlement of the

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Hawaiian Islands by non-Hawaiian Peoples (Culliney, 1988, Josayma,

1996).

There is often a presumption that Ka'ena's ecology was somehow

more 'natural' and 'wild' in historical periods before contact with the

West. Clearly, there would have been fewer introduced alien species to

threaten the area's native ecology. There were alternative, and perhaps

more sustainable approaches towards natural resources utilization along

Hawai'i's coastal zones. There were also very different cosmologies of

nature and ideas about society that would have guided environmental

ethics and land use practices. However, it is unclear how much the

ecology ofKa'ena Point was modified and effected by human activities in

the pre-contact period. We know that there were some small settlements

and fishing shrines in the area and that the sight was used for religious

purposes and for the gathering of shoreline resources (Arrigoni, 1978). It

is conceivable (and I would argue probable) that there may have been

management regimes (e.g., perhaps periodic burning ofthe area's

vegetation) and extensive economic activities (e.g., perhaps collecting of

ethnobotanic plants for medicine, fiber, and religious practices, or hunting

of sea birds and seals) carried out by Hawaiians at Ka'ena over the

centuries that influenced and helped determine the area's present ecology.

Looking beyond the obviously physical and 'natural' ecological

determinants that effect Ka'ena's ecology, we can conclude by saying that

97

the ecological character of Ka'ena Point Natural Area Reserve is also the

result of anthropogenic modification and active habitat management. The

ecological landscape of Ka'ena Point Natural Area Reserve looks like it

does today because it has been bounded, weeded, and planted. As I've

stressed in this thesis, Ka'ena's landscape is effectively gardened and

therefore clearly at some level culturally constructed.

The process of designating and administratively defining a natural area

reserve at Ka'ena Point does not in itself create a physically 'natural'

landscape, although it may construct the idea of a natural space in lingnistic

and cultural terms. In this sense, the creation ofthe Reserve can be seen as a

ethnocentric and culturally mediated landscape feature that creates a

conceptual boundary which attempts to divide the natural from the unnatural,

and the human environment from the natural environment. The Reserve can

thus be seen as a artifice, that dictates and defines an abstract, idealized idea

of 'nature'. The nature at Ka'ena Point Natural Area Reserve can be

considered from this perspective to be as much an epistemological and social

construct as a spontaneous, natural entity.

As I have shown in this thesis, Ka'ena Point Natural Area Reserve

shares many properties with a gardened landscape. Both are culturally

created bounded spaces that highlight social ideas about nature and ideals

about humanity's relationship to relation to it. Both are also bounded and

controlled spaces that represent nature in socially constructed and cultura1ly

98

detennined contexts. For this reason the garden analogy and theories of social

constructionism provide valuable perspectives when approaching nature

conservation and the design of protected areas. They help to reveal cultural

biases in the dominant discourses and representations ofnature that underlie

most conservation projects and their approaches towards protected area

management

Social constructivism in its extreme argues that there is no nature 'out

there', just a series ofsocial constructs that reflect meanings that we ourselves

create. I reject this philosophical position and prefer to accept that there is an

ontologically 'real' nature of sorts, and that we are embedded in it and

constantly engaging with it. Although I argue that Ka'ena is not a natural

landscape, I would also stress that natural forces, processes and spontaneous,

'non-human' elements are fundamental and definitive parts of its space. But I

would stress that visions and beliefs about nature are always mediated

through, and informed by our socialization and cultural heritage.

Nature tends to be physically and conceptually shaped and defined by

our values and actions, which are themselves usually predominantly driven by

cultural factors. As the 'ways that people see and value nature are strongly

influenced by their cultural context', and 'understandings ofnature and

relations to the non human world differ widely by culture and epoch'

(Peterson, 1999:340), biologists and resource managers should learn to have a

certain humility about the ways that they understand and attempt to manage

99

nature. There needs to be an awareness that there are alternative cosmologies

and epistemologies of nature and that nature is not an autonomous domain

that is essentially'other' to human culture.

3. Is the garden an appropriate metaphorfor protected areas?

The garden analogy is perhaps most appropriate when examining

protected areas that are small, highly managed and in densely populated rural

or semi-urban areas. It also has value when analyzing protected areas in

natural landscapes that are, or have traditionally been used by local

populations or indigenous people. In these situations, the garden analogy

contrasts with most current approaches towards protected area

conceptualization because it stresses the importance ofcultural and social

elements in the landscape's origins and interpretation. Conceptualization of

nature in most contemporary protected area conservation projects tends to

focus on a scientific vision of nature that is sharply divided from any human

content. The garden analogy focuses on the human aspects in the landscape,

and highlights the role that cultural practices have had in fonning,

representing and maintaining an area's ecology. The garden analogy also

draws attention to the fact that ecological management in protected areas is

itself a fonn of cultural practice.

Viewing protected areas as gardens may provide an analytical model

with which to re-evaluate conservation goals and ideals, and could serve

as a means to broaden the discourse and develop new perspectives relating

100

to conservation and the politics ofprotected areas. This could help to

make for more effective and culturally sensitive planning and policy

development in the field of conservation biology.

The garden analogy could also help to remove the sharp conceptual

boundaries, which at present divide the natural from the unnatural, the

human environment from the natural environment, and 'our' idea of

nature from 'their' idea of nature. These boundaries which are used to

define 'nature' are currently the epistemological constructs that divide and

separate various stakeholders and user groups in regards to many

conservation issues.

4.3 The Garden as Model a for Landscape Management

The garden metaphor could be used as a conceptual model to help

develop more holistic, inclusive and culturally sensitive approaches when

designing conservation and resource management regimes for ofprotected

area landscapes.

Contemporary conservation attitudes and ideas are deeply rooted in

dualistic approaches to nature and Western scientific rationalism. The

ontological separation ofnature and society has been an influential and

important dualism in post- Enlightenment Western thought (Castree,

2001). This conceptual separation ofhumans from nature, and wilderness

from civilization has philosophically helped to shape Western cultural

101

attitudes towards nature. The dualistic philosophical concept of nature is

an essential element in scientific approaches towards the world of

phenomena. This dualism and its scientific application in regards to the

natural world has also historically influenced and helped characterize

many of the ideas and strategies related to nature conservation. The ideal

of a protected natural area is a case in point.

The idea of a wilderness preserve, or a protected natural area is a

conceptual model that historically developed in a Western cultural context

and has since been 'exported' around the world as a strategy to aid nature

conservation (Guha, 2000). It has helped shape and guide conservation

policies worldwide (Runte, 1995), and has undoubtedly had a profound

effect on a diversity of global landscapes and peoples.

There is usually an assumed primacy of Westem epistemologies of

nature in conservation ideologies. The globalized conservation movement

can be viewed in this light as a new form of 'green imperialism' who's

projects are appropriating and attempting to control and represent

contested domains of the 'natural world'.

The garden metaphor shifts the emphasis ofnature conservation

from being a predominantly scientific, Western cultural enterprise (that

aims to exclusively control and manage protected natural areas), to being a

movement that incorporates and actively engages with a pluralism of

views about nature and environmental ethics.

102

The establishment ofnatural protected areas and associated

legislation has resulted in many instances of forced displacements of

communities and local people from a diverse range ofglobal geographic

locations. Globally, official approaches towards conservation often tend to

overlook, or simply bypass traditional beliefs, practices and knowledges

related to biological conservation in specific localities and places. This

has sometimes resulted in indigenous people being socially disempowered

and politically distanced from decision making processes and policy

fonnation regarding conservation practice, natural resources and control

over land. In some cases the exclusion ofindigenous people has also

served to reduce the protected area's biodiversity and degrade its habitat

(Cotton, 1996).

The garden model could be used as a means to asses a site's cultural

elements and historical significance when considering how to design

protected natural areas in a more culturally sensitive way. It could help

managers to focus on prospective sites' specific cultural landscape

properties and their relationship to local populations and indigenous

people in tenns of past land uses, traditional knowledges, resource

utilization regimes and spiritual significance. These findings could then

perhaps be incorporated with sites' biological characteristics and factors to

create a broader and more holistic database about prospective sites.

103

The garden model for landscape analysis could help to expand and

develop protected area planning, design and management approaches that

actively seek to involve a range ofcultural values, interests, and

alternative philosophies towards resource management and biological

conservation. This could help to develop a less dogmatic and ethnocentric

idea ofnature as the basis of contemporary nature conservation projects.

The garden analogy could help to broaden approaches, policies and goals

of conservation projects involving protected areas. A new approach

would reflect an extended range ofideas of nature that should incorporate

traditional knowledge on resource management, and would actively seek

to integrate indigenous knowledge and communities when designing and

creating protected areas for particular places. This would necessitate

involving indigenous people in creating projects that are more

participatory and community based (Berkes, 1999). Such an approach

could perhaps form the basis of a more holistic and comprehensive

approach towards designing management strategies for protected areas.

The garden analogy would also aim to incorporate culturally

diverse concepts of space and spiritual values about nature. The garden is

a concept that could broaden the ethical base of conservation policy, and

help to facilitate the design ofmanagement regimes that respect and draw

upon a range of environmental ethics and philosophies when creating a

protected area.

104

A part from anything else, the garden analogy presents a new

linguistic approach towards ideas of conservation and protected area

management. The garden is a word that presents a union ofnatural

features and human constructs. In Western thought, the garden represents

a place that is both human and natural. The garden symbolizes the

interplay and interdependence of culture and nature. Although gardens are

cultural constructions, they are founded upon, and literally made of natural

elements. They are landscapes that symbolize humans' place within

nature, and nature's dynamic and varied expression as a construct of

culture. I think that one ofthe major and most important challenges of

contemporary conservation practice and philosophy is to try to remove the

rigid conceptual barriers that presently exist between ideas of 'natural'

space and cultural space. By attempting to do this, we as a society can

perhaps accept greater responsibility for the ways that we influence and

determine natural space, by realizing how our individual actions, cultural

perspectives and conceptualizations of space often effect nature's

construction and as well as its destruction. Protected areas should be

places where people can appreciate biodiverse and rich nature in its

relationship to the multiplicity ofways that humans interact with it,

depend on it and culturally construct and represent it. They are also places

where nature should be left alone and respected for its ontological

autonomy, its creativity and its ecological complexity and powers of self

105

generation. While these aims seem to be contradictory they don't

necessarily have to be conflicting: After all, who grows the flowers in the

garden, nature or the gardener?

106

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