COMMENTARY
Land agency needs help more than lake

By Mike Markrich

For the past several weeks, workers from the Department of Land and Natural Resources have been wading knee-deep into the murky mosquito-laden waters of Lake Wilson to remove the invasive species Salvinia molesta.

A boat with a boom rounds up invasive salvinia near the Lake Wilson boat launch. The million-dollar weed cleanup is just a symptom of a larger problem at the Department of Land and Natural Resources. Advertiser library photo • Feb. 26, 2003

Most of the weeds have now sunk to the bottom. However, if other things within the state's resource management policies are not changed, the project won't make much of a difference. The weeds are not the problem.

"The department is out of date," said Ira Rohter, professor of political science at the University of Hawai'i. "We have so many special-interest groups at war with each other, and so many claims and counterclaims as to what should be done, that the role of government in this area is no longer clear-cut.

"The developers want to develop. The environmentalists are purists and don't want anything changed. While they shoot at one another, DLNR is caught in the middle, and nobody backs up the poor guys in the trenches."

Conflicts include hunters' call for wild pigs to run free, and environmentalists trying to keep the forests free of them. State parks and trails welcome millions of visitors while state lawyers work to prevent lawsuits against the state when natural disasters occur, such as at Sacred Falls.

The Division of Aquatic Resources has little money to manage gill-netting and nonsource pollution on reefs, but must devote part of its budget to breed alien trout and catfish species for recreational fishing.

Likewise, permits for land development are granted by regulators charged also with protecting scarce open space and water. Wildlife and parks officials who try to remove feral cats that attack birds and spread disease are attacked by animal-rights activists for being inhumane.

Meanwhile, DLNR is required to make all parks and buildings wheelchair-accessible, with no money to do so. In the division that manages small-boat harbors, users who pay the lowest fees in the nation for public dock space demand more services and complain about decaying infrastructure.

"The thing is driven by who yells the loudest," said organizational psychologist Irwin Rubin. "Part of the problem is that everyone is demanding and screaming rather than dialoguing and problem solving. We have one natural resource in Hawai'i, and instead of sitting down and discussing how we can both protect this resource and get our needs met, everyone approaches the situation based solely on their needs. Every time one of the constituent groups wins in the short term, the people of Hawai'i lose in the long term."

Against this background, Gov. Linda Lingle's appointment of Dan Davidson as DLNR deputy director may spark an ideological battle. Davidson headed the Land Use Research Foundation, a professional lobbying organization for developers. His appointment follows eight years of ascendant environmentalism under the Cayetano administration.

The problem is not only ideological, however.

Budget slashed

Much of Lake Wilson has been cleared — but the DLNR's problems continue to affect management of the state's resources. With a change in leadership, now is the time to re-evaluate the department's role. Advertiser library photo • April 4, 2003

Since 1994, DLNR's budget has been cut by more than 25 percent, and recently went through a period of wrenching internal change that left 15 percent of positions vacant.

The department lacks basic administrative tools. From 1903 to 1994, the DLNR issued annual reports that documented what the various divisions were doing, sometimes in exhaustive numeric detail. These reports were largely discontinued during the Cayetano years.

During that time, a careful report with statistical data was issued only once, at the end of 2002, on the personal insistence of Gil Agaran, then DLNR director. Data have been recorded for specific programs to track projects paid for by the Legislature and federal agencies. But there has been little or no analysis and few inventories or tracking of long-term trends.

Budget cuts and lack of long-term planning and administrative discipline have significant impact in a department charged with the management of parks, archaeological sites, small-boat harbors, Kaho'olawe, land management, forestry, ocean management, wildlife preservation and parks. The agency's powerful board determines much of what happens in Hawai'i.

Although there have been popular movements to decentralize the department and give its tasks to the counties, few are confident it can be done. The counties are worse off financially than the state, and could not afford the ornithologists, fisheries biologists, flood-control experts, foresters, environmental planners, archaeologists, engineers and other specialists on the DNLR staff.

Moreover, the state has suffered serious drought for the last five years, and a renewed outbreak of the West Nile virus is expected in California this summer. Hawai'i's forests are home to millions of feral animals that can pass diseases to humans.

In short, Hawai'i's natural resources are under unprecedented siege at a time when DLNR, the state's first line of defense, faces a difficult transition.

Land and power

At the turn of the 20th century, forests surrounding the main population centers were severely denuded because cattle had been considered the personal property of the king and allowed to run free.

The cattle, and later wild pigs, stripped the lands and hillsides in many valleys. Endemic plants were highly vulnerable, having evolved without the defense mechanisms that protect plants elsewhere.

After a century of unchecked foraging, the formerly verdant hillsides were bare, desert-like and subject to erosion. The Pali Lookout a century ago was little more than fields of windswept grass.

The loss of trees was considered a threat to the sugar industry, which needed protected watershed areas to hold moisture from passing clouds to irrigate the fields and the growing city of Honolulu.

In 1903, Ralph Hosmer, one of the nation's top foresters, was brought from the Yale School of Forestry to create a territorial board of foresters. His appointment was an indication of how important forest conservation was to the sugar planters. Hosmer created the Hawai'i Territorial Department of Board of Forestry and Agriculture, which managed Hawai'i's forests with an iron hand.

"It came from the old top-down Polynesian/New England/Japanese command-and-control type of government," said UH professor Roh-ter. "Everything in that system was carefully formatted with top-down, rigid, centralized rules."

By any standard, the department did its job. People knew their work. Statistics were kept. Native forests were protected. Annual reports were printed. New trees were planted. Inventories were kept. Partnerships were forged between landowners and the territorial government. Water was protected. Wild cattle were reined in. Wild pigs were aggressively hunted and shot. Even the nearshore fisheries were well managed. While it was far from a perfect system, it accomplished the main goal of protecting water sources for the sugar plantations.

With statehood in 1959, the department was separated from the Department of Agriculture and became the Department of Land and Natural Resources, encompassing virtually everything that did not fit in any other department. The leadership changed to reflect the times.

During the administrations of governors John Burns, George Ariyoshi and John Waihee, the department and board favored development. Although there was an effort to protect land through such innovative programs as the natural area reserves system and wildlife management, commercial interests often came first.

Under Cayetano, emphasis shifted to reflect his constituency, as well as the success of suits against states under more liberal court interpretation of the federal Endangered Species Act.

Unlike previous administrators, who gave the top jobs to skilled professionals, Cayetano appointed lawyers who, while well intentioned, had limited experience in running large, complex organizations.

The result was a department that was more visionary, that made real strides in creating new parks and programs, but that suddenly found itself in a bureaucratic logjam.

What to do

1) Before another dollar is spent at DLNR, the state should send out a request for proposal to hire an organizational psychologist. The Honolulu Fire Department and other public and private organizations often hire psychologists to help them focus their energies and better understand their mission. The DLNR's mission has become so broad and confused that it needs to be redefined.

2) Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, the Audubon Society, the Hawa'i Community Foundation and the Trust for Public Lands, while they do many worthwhile things, did not once in nearly eight years complain publicly about the absence of an annual report with detailed data. As environmental advocates, the role of these organizations should include holding public institutions to the same standards they hold themselves.

3) The staff of the DLNR needs our support. Many show great integrity and work incredibly hard. Yet not a day goes by that they are not criticized, sometimes viciously, at public meetings. It is not fair to hold department employees responsible for a system of frequent policy changes and unclear mission.

The department does not need more projects. It needs professional economists and accountants, decent uniforms for its patrol officers, trucks for its foresters that don't break down on isolated mountain roads, special conservation courts that don't trivialize wildlife management offenses, and respect from its constituents.

One of the difficulties the Lingle administration faces is how to continue to pay for emergency-hire positions that bring a 3-1 match in federal dollars. If the state does not qualify for the federal money, that will leave DLNR with even less.

Either way, the battle over resources will continue. Environmentalists will fight traditional uses such as hunting and fishing, while hunters and fishermen will resent an intrusion on what they claim as rights. Developers who get their projects approved will be happy, while those who encounter delays will not. Some people will exult in being right. Demands and insults will be heaped on civil servants for doing their jobs. Everyone will be convinced of being right.

In short, if the department is not made more efficient and up to date, DNLR will continue to offer something for everyone — except those concerned about the future of Hawai'i.

Kailua writer and researcher Mike Markrich formerly worked for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.