Student Author: Adam Hanohano
What is a native Hawaiian dryland forest? Hawaiian native dryland forests once sprawled across the Leeward flanks of each island, these forests typically received fewer than 50 inches of rainfall annually and once were home to 22% of all native Hawaiian plant and animal species. Today, approximately 90% of Hawai’i’s native dry forest habitat has either been lost or severely degraded due to a multitude of factors which continues to multiply.
Great efforts are being made by a host of people, organizations, and agencies who seek to restore and protect these pregnable environments and once a year they all convene to learn and share their progress at the Nāhelehele Dryland Forest Symposium on Hawai’i island. Thanks to the generosity of Alu Like and the Ho’oulu Project Leeward CC was represented this year by several students including myself. Accompanying me were some young ‘āina warriors, Corbin Banua, Christian Flores, and Tazman Shim all of which play a role in Leeward Community Colleges native plants Shade-House under Frani Okamoto who also graced the symposium with her presence.
On the morning of February the 8th we made the hour long journey by plane to Kailua-
Kona where the symposium was to be held on the 9th. We arrived a day early to take part in a day long tour of the Army Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) which is an active combat training installation situated between Hawai’i Islands three major mountains. PTA encapsulates some 130,000 acres of dryland forest and is home to several rare and critically endangered plant species including Solanum incompletum which can be experienced in the LCC shade-house. We spent the day with the PTA natural resources staff who are entrusted with protecting the native flora and fauna within the installation. There, we observed rare-plant enclosures, fire management strategies, and ungulate control measures which all serve to protect the dry forests of PTA. The experience was truly eye opening and revealed the extent of measures required to preserve our beautiful dry forests.
The next day symposium attendees assembled in Kailua Kona for a day of networking,
sharing, learning, and making likeminded friends. The symposium was filled with many people from Hawai’i’s conservation community and representatives from several academic fields. This was a perfect opportunity for members of our group to connect and learn about the many potential opportunities that can be found at these meetings. I myself made several connections that hopefully will stem into some amazing things and picked up several tips I could use refine my academic path. Beyond networking, the symposium was comprised of a number of presentations detailing everything from research to cultural perspectives. This symposium was extremely rewarding for the entire group but fortunately our trip didn’t end there.
On Saturday February 10th, the final day of our trip, we attended yet another tour this
time on the western slopes of the Kohala mountain range. There we observed efforts by the Queen Emma Land Trust Dry Forest Restoration Project to steadily revert fallowed ranch land back to native dry forest. The project includes several small exclosures filled with native plants which once thrived on the Kohala slopes prior to the introduction of cattle. The Koai’a and ʻIliahi trees within these exclosures will one day create a canopy conducive to the growth of many understory species and together they will form a solid foundation for the forests to expand. Unfortunately from our vantage point on the Kohala mountain we witnessed first hand one of the many threats posed to native dryland forests, FIRE! We watched as several acres of dryland ʻŌhiʻa forest burned in the distance, for me this furthered my apprehension about the faith of our dryland forests but after spending time with Christian, Taz, and Corbin I left with a great deal of optimism because they represent the future.
E lawe i ke a'o a mālama a e ʻoi mau ka naʻauao
(Take what you have learned and apply it and your wisdom will increase)