Islands' forests losing battle against miconia pest

By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Staff Writer

HANA, Maui — A green cancer is attacking Hawai'i's rain forests, threatening watershed areas and fragile native wildlife and plants.

Stuart Cockburn applies herbicide to a miconia tree within the Hana State Forest Reserve. Cockburn is part of a group of volunteers visiting the islands from the New Zealand Department of Conservation. Timothy Hurley • The Honolulu Advertiser

"It's like a fire. It's jumped all the lines we put out,'' said Jack Peterson, coordinator of the Maui Invasive Species Committee.

Within the past few months, nearly 500 acres of additional infested areas have been discovered in aerial surveys in remote valleys of East Maui.

What's more, a single miconia plant was discovered within Haleakala National Park's remote Kipahulu Valley, a place described as a jewel of native wildlife and one of the most well-preserved native forest areas in Hawai'i.

"That really was a wake-up call,'' said Kyle Moyer, a member of the Pacific Islands Exotic Plant Management Team, a field crew working to battle introduced plants that threaten Hawai'i's national parks. "Finding it there caught a lot of people's attention.''

While news of the growing infestation has been disheartening to the conservation community, it's not entirely surprising considering the control effort is undermanned and needs more money, officials said. The Legislature, they point out, decreased money for miconia control this past session.

Randy Bartlett, chairman of the Maui Invasive Species Committee, and other leaders in the miconia war believe it's time for state lawmakers to step up and establish a long-term source of money not only for miconia control but for battling other pests.

"There simply comes a time when you've got to draw a line in the forest,'' said Steve Lohse of the University of Hawai'i, one of the leaders of the Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species, a statewide multi-agency partnership concerned with invasive species. "Biodiversity doesn't last forever. You come to a point where you have to decide to win this thing.''

Lohse said his organization will be forming committees to examine exactly what it will take in dollars to adequately address the alien pest problem, which includes miconia. One goal, he said, is to present a more unified statewide request for money to lawmakers.

A native of Central and South America, Miconia calvescens was brought to Hawai'i in 1960 as a garden plant. Although initially sold at nurseries for its appealing green and purple foliage, it wasn't until 1992 that it was named a state noxious weed. It has become established on O'ahu and Kaua'i, but the largest infestations are on the Big Island and Maui.

In its native habitat, miconia is kept in balance by fungi and insects not found in Hawai'i. Absent enemies here, the "superweed,'' as it has been called, has spread far and wide, its large leaves shading out native rain forests, killing the plants underneath its canopy and creating single-species ecosystems that accelerate erosion and undermine the watershed.

In Tahiti, 70 percent of the native forest has been invaded since the plant was introduced 65 years ago. Miconia now dominates some of the Tahitian landscape and has put nearly half of its endemic plant species in danger of extinction.

Russell Suzuki of the Maui Invasive Species Committee finds a healthy miconia plant in the forest above Hana. Scientists say the invasive superweed has the potential to crowd out all other wet-forest plants. Timothy Hurley • The Honolulu Advertiser

In the meantime, destroying miconia here is not easy work. Seedlings pop up in the roughest terrain. They can grow with very little light. Thousands of seeds from a single plant can remain in the soil for six years. Areas already treated by work crews must be treated again and again.

"At the end of the day, you're whupped,'' said Russell Suzuki, a crew worker with the Maui Invasive Species Committee. "It's a war out there. You come out here and gear up and it's a war.

"Some guys get discouraged (to see it again) after all the work we do. But we just go back out there. You know you're going to have to revisit everything. It's not just a one-shot deal.''

On the Big Island, the state's largest infestation has reached 20,000 acres and the present budget allows a perimeter control strategy only. Officials are aiming to increase a $350,000 budget to $850,000.

On Maui, where miconia has now spread to nearly 13,000 acres, conservation officials want to more than triple the current $750,000 budget next year — money they hope will help pay for four additional five-person work crews and beef up aerial herbicide spraying and survey work.

"New tactics and funding must be deployed immediately to deal with the ecological crisis,'' said Lloyd Loope, research scientist with the federal Biological Survey Division's Haleakala Field Station.

Loope and other Maui scientists say the latest infestation discoveries have pushed the miconia problem to a critical stage, leaving only a short window of opportunity, perhaps a handful of years, to substantially knock it down.

Last month, Haleakala National Park announced that a large portion of Kipahulu District entrance fees will go toward miconia eradication, up to $1 million annually.

Maui County has also doubled its contribution to eradication efforts this year, with the County Council and the Department of Water Supply allocating $200,000 apiece.

But those sources simply aren't enough, according to Bartlett. He said state government must decide now whether it wants to eradicate miconia or to resign itself to perpetual control measures. Eradication is more costly, at least initially, but may be cheaper in the long run, he said.

"There's still a chance to eradicate it. But we've really got to ramp up and get more money,'' Bartlett said.

The problem in getting state money, he said, is that key lawmakers come from urban O'ahu and may not understand the serious implications for the watershed — for maintaining an adequate supply of drinking water, for preserving the environment and for maintaining the plants and animals critical to Native Hawaiian culture.

"They've got to decide how much of Hawai'i's heritage they want to save for future generations,'' he said.

State Sen. Avery Chumbley (D-6th, East Maui, North Kaua'i) agreed, adding that he has been frustrated by colleagues who don't understand the environmental threat these pests represent.

"It could be devastating,'' he said. "It's time for the state government to step up to the plate in a more meaningful way.''

Chumbley said additional monetary support and more manpower should be provided, including perhaps prison work crews.

Bartlett said his guess is that $10 million a year would take care of the miconia problem statewide.

However, there isn't even consensus on whether eradication is even realistic. Duane Nelson, head of the Big Island Invasive Species Committee, said that while eradication is certainly possible on Kaua'i and O'ahu, with their smaller, confined miconia populations, it's probably out of the question on the Big Island and doubtful on Maui.

Nelson, chairman of the Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species and forest health coordinator for the U.S. Forest Service, said eradication is expensive, costing about $150 an acre and involving ground forces and helicopters.

"If you want to take the entire state budget and throw it at it, then you can eradicate it,'' he said. "But you've always got to look for that last miconia. You never know if you found it. You may not know for 50 years. If you miss that one seedling, the one that escaped, then ... ''

Hawai'i has many other alien pests to deal with, he said. "We can't afford to focus on one weed.''

Nelson said he's going to suggest retreating from the dream of eradication and using more money to concentrate on finding a biocontrol method that will contain the plant pest.

"Miconia is an environmental disaster currently blossoming. We need to contain and control it,'' he said.