Land group's holdings expand

By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Staff Writer

The largest landowners on the slopes of Mauna Loa are getting serious about conservation.

Formed eight years ago to manage and protect forested areas on the eastern slope of the volcano, the 'Ola'a-Kilauea Partnership recently saw the lands under its purview balloon from 32,000 acres to about 420,000 acres with the addition of new lands on the other side of the mountain.

Among the acreage added in the past couple of months is the entire 219,000-acre Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park as well as property owned by the Kamehameha Schools, including 30,000-acre Keauhou Ranch and 150,000 acres in Ka'u and Kona.

The partnership is also preparing to create two more fenced preserves in the coming year. One is a 2,300-acre area at the end of Wright Road in Volcano. The other is on 3,000 acres at nearby Pu'u Lala'au.

Environmental workers are planting Mauna Loa silversword at the Kulani Correctional Facility in an effort to restore habitat on the Big Island for native species. Joan Canfield

For years, the native ecosystems have been under attack by wild pigs, sheep and goats, alien plants and other predators.

The 'Ola'a-Kilauea Partnership is an effort to fight back — functioning much like the handful of multiagency watershed partnerships around the state that aim to protect huge ecosystem areas.

The Big Island project is jointly managing 14,300 acres with programs aimed at controlling alien species, restoring rare populations of plants and ensuring the survival of endangered plants, animals and insects.

The partners include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Pacific Islands Program-Ecosystem Region Office, the Department of Land and Natural Resources, the U.S. Forest Service, Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, the U.S. Geological Survey, the state Department of Public Safety (Kulani Correctional Facility) and Kamehameha Schools.

Over the years, the partnership has conducted alien plant surveys and helped with restoration of the Mauna Loa silversword and other endangered species. Kulani staff and inmates built a greenhouse for native plants and started propagation and planting to restore and landscape Kulani and other partnership lands.

Among the group's future activities is developing a strategy for controlling the Big Island's burgeoning mouflon sheep population, said Tanya Rubenstein, 'Ola'a-Kilauea Partnership coordinator.

The group will also look at ways to manage its newest acreage.

"We still have to sit down and figure out what to do with it," Rubenstein said.

The partners will have to determine whether more staff is needed and how much additional money will be required to manage the new acreage. "It's definitely a transition time for us," she said.

For the national park, which already maintains a strong resource management team, the inclusion of all of its acreage in the partnership means being able to tap new resources, such as the Kulani labor, Rubenstein said.

For Kamehameha Schools, it's a matter of taking advantage of the collective expertise of the organization, said Peter Simmons, the trust's senior land manager for forestry and natural resources on the Big Island.

Kamehameha Schools, which originally put only 3,000 acres to the partnership, has also taken note of the organization's successes and national conservation awards, he said.

"We've seen the results on the ground," Simmons said. "And we're comfortable with the agency partners.''

The new commitment also reflects Kamehameha School's recent emphasis on land stewardship and conservation.

The partnership's expertise will come in handy in the stewardship of Keauhou Ranch, the leasehold interest of which Kamehameha Schools is reaquiring.

Simmons said the nonprofit plans to come up with a strategic plan for the Ka'u ranch that will focus on restoration, education, cultural enrichment and ecosystem management. If any economic activity occurs there, he said, it must complement those goals.