A balance of values and economics
By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui County Bureau
After 30 years on Moloka'i, Diane Adachi knows how hard life can be here.
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Both she and her Moloka'i-born husband, Clarence, lost their jobs following the closing of the Kaluako'i Hotel two years ago, and they've struggled to keep their home and put food on the table.
Hano Naehu holds a raft still with a pole while Kalaniua Ritte scatters fish meal for their 'awa, or milkfish.
The Adachis are surviving in part because of Diane's sewing talents. The former hotel waitress turned her hobby into a business selling baby blankets, comforters and other handmade items at a weekly craft fair. Her husband, the hotel's former security chief, finally landed a job in December as a temporary laborer.
"The economy has come full circle for us,'' said Diane Adachi, whose three grown children moved to Maui for better opportunities. "When the kids were little, it was either pay the bills or buy groceries. Now we're right back where we started.''
It's an old story on Moloka'i, where the economy has lagged behind the rest of the state ever since the pineapple companies closed in the 1970s and '80s, laying off 60 percent of the island's workforce.
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Hawai'i's largest industry — tourism — has struggled to gain a steady foothold on the island, and the current controversy over cruise ship visits represents the latest battle between those who fear the spoiling of Moloka'i's country lifestyle and those who see the promise of greater prosperity.
Bo Perez, bellman at The Sheraton Molokai Lodge, returned to the Island after 38 years on the Mainland to help his mother look after her homestead. Perez says Moloka'i needs balance in its development.
For now, those opposed to cruise ship visits are winning. Holland America Line, which was hoping to add Moloka'i to its expanding cruise itineraries, has agreed to delay visits to the Friendly Isle until after a meeting is held with residents concerned about the social and environmental impacts of the ships.
Boatloads of Holland America Lines passengers were scheduled to be shuttled into Kaunakakai Wharf during the island's first-ever cruise ship visits April 15 and 18. Apparently that won't happen now until at least next winter.
Even without the cruise ships and their tourist dollars, Moloka'i has achieved a number of recent small-business successes that are challenging the island's reputation as an economic basket case. After decades of severe unemployment, the island has emerged in the past year with consistent single-digit rates, an achievement one official called "an economic miracle.''
"Overall, Moloka'i is doing well,'' said Alton Arakaki, a University of Hawai'i agricultural extension agent who has a degree in agricultural economics. "Of course, we could do better. We're not 100 percent satisfied. There's a lot of work to do.''
At first glance, it doesn't look good for the "Most Hawaiian Island'' and its population of 7,300. The economic numbers are in many cases the worst in the state, with the poverty rate hovering around 25 percent and nearly the same number of food stamp recipients.
There are limited opportunities for high-school graduates, and many are forced to leave the island. Until last year, unemployment averaged around 15 percent — more than three times the state average. Today it stands at 6.8 percent, a major improvement but still worst in the state.
Subsistence living
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With its large population of Native Hawaiians, Moloka'i is a place where many provide food for their families directly from the land and the sea. Fishing and hunting are not only a recreation but an economic fact of life. According to a 1994 Governor's Moloka'i Subsistence Task Force, 28 percent of the food for all families on the island is acquired through subsistence fishing, hunting, gathering and farming.
Hano Naehu relaxes on the rock wall he and others built in their Project Loko I‘a. Also visible is a halau at right. Naehu hopes to open the area to educational tours, stressing the Native Hawaiian culture. Moloka‘i provides limited job opportunities for young adults, many of whom are forced to move away after graduating from high school.
Agriculture has always been important to Moloka'i's economy, and today it is diversified in seed corn, fruits and vegetables, and livestock, albeit on a limited scale. With a vast plain in Central and West Moloka'i, there is potential for much more, but success in farming remains elusive because of water shortages and limited shipping opportunities.
Most folks here are proud of the fact there's no stoplight on the island. Many do not lock their doors. Even those who lament the high electricity bills and lack of opportunities say they wouldn't trade life on Moloka'i for one in Waikiki, or even Kihei, Maui.
In recent years, much of the division over the future of Moloka'i has centered on proposals for economic development by Moloka'i Ranch Ltd., the subsidiary of BIL International Ltd., a Singapore-based investment company that bought up a third of the island in 1988, including almost all of the island's arid western end.
Many Moloka'i residents have come to view the 64,000-acre ranch with suspicion and mistrust, engaging in battles over development proposals that include tapping into the water found on the island's eastern end.
As the island's largest private employer — 130 jobs — the ranch also has a fair number of supporters. The divide has split families.
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Peter Nicholas, chief executive of Moloka'i Ranch, said the ranch has lost a lot on its investment over the years, but the recent acquisition of the deteriorating Kaluako'i Resort has put the company "where it needs to be."
The Sheraton Molokai Lodge in Maunaloa provides jobs for some island residents, but many remain fearful of the long-term effect of large-scale tourism, including stops by cruise lines. Others point to the lack of jobs as a result of limited tourism development.
He said the ranch, in possible conjunction with a development partner, plans to spend $30 million to revive the resort and reopen the 138-room hotel, perhaps as a time-share operation. To pay for it, it is proposing to build a 200-lot subdivision of luxury "second and third homes" on the water at La'au Point. The proposed build-out would span five to seven years.
As for the hotel, the intention is to embrace a Hawaiian theme and atmosphere and to capitalize on Moloka'i's tranquility and isolation.
"It's got to have a future," Nicholas said of the hotel. "We didn't buy it to leave it the way it is."
Nicholas acknowledged the ranch has made mistakes in the past by not being as forthcoming as possible with residents about its plans.
Nevertheless, he said 95 percent of the people support economic activity on Moloka'i, many of them because they want the jobs that will give their children a choice of whether to stay on the island.
"Only a small group of people don't like us," he said.
Native Hawaiian activist Walter Ritte Jr. contends it's more than just a few people.
"They're here just to exploit Moloka'i," said Ritte, a veteran of many battles with the company. "They bought it cheap, and they want to paint it up and sell it for big profits."
Ritte, who enjoys hunting and is a coordinator for a fishpond restoration program, said many of the battles over economic development on Moloka'i occur when "the dollar economy" threatens the subsistence economy.
"We're very protective of our island," he said. "This is not Moloka'i, the Friendly Isle. This is Moloka'i Nui a Hina, the child of (the goddess) Hina. When you deal with Moloka'i, this is our child. It's not just for us to raise, but to protect. You cannot destroy the thing that feeds us."
He said Moloka'i has fallen victim to a series of monolithic economic schemes that have wreaked havoc on the environment, he said. Sugar planters ruined an aquifer, he said, while the pineapple companies left a legacy of erosion. Cattle from the ranch have denuded the hillsides.
Fears of tourism
Tourism is another such scheme, according to Ritte. "We've seen what it's done to Waikiki. They can't get their food for free anymore, so now they have to clean rooms. Thanks but no thanks."
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Ritte said Moloka'i is not for everyone, but the quality of life is good for those who enjoy the rural lifestyle.
Diane Adachi, in her sewing room at her Kaunakakai home, turned a sewing hobby into a full-time job after losing her job as a waitress. The Redondo, Calif., native, who has lived on Moloka‘i for 33 years and has three adult children who moved to Maui, says she wouldn’t trade life on the Island for anyplace else despite the economic uncertainties.
"I'm no economist, but people come back here because they want to raise their kids under these conditions. Something must be right here."
Hano Naehu came back. The 25-year-old former Moloka'i High School rodeo star returned home after living on the Mainland and the Big Island, and landed what he calls his "dream job," restoring ancient Hawaiian fishponds for Project Loko I'a, a federally financed program that aims to meld the subsistence and Western economies by examining the feasibility of restoring Moloka'i's fishponds as money-making ventures. It is the same project that employs Ritte.
"Imagine working and playing in the water all day," he said, while showing visitors the latest East Moloka'i fishpond being restored. "I lift rocks. It sounds like hard labor. But if you look at it like lifting weights, it's good exercise."
Naehu said Moloka'i can excel economically without compromising the things that make it special.
"We just need to be creative, do our homework and we can make it," he said.
Bo Perez also came home. He returned a year ago after 38 years on the Mainland to help his 81-year-old mom look after her Hawaiian homestead in Ho'olehua.
Perez, a mixture of Hawaiian, Chinese and Spanish ancestry who worked in the hotel industry in Florida, took a job as a bellman at the ranch's Sheraton Moloka'i Hotel shortly after he arrived.
Perez said there have been few changes on the island since he left after graduating from Moloka'i High School in 1964.
"The hotel is one of the best changes. I was impressed as soon as I walked through the door. I was shocked to see this on Moloka'i."
Perez said Moloka'i needs economic development as well as the tourist dollars that cruise ship visits would bring to the island.
"I sure hope Moloka'i never loses the Moloka'i friendliness, but there's got to be a balance."
Economic upturn
If there's a recent economic upturn on the island, much of the credit might go to the Moloka'i Enterprise Community. Created at the end of 1998, the federally designated, community-run entity has brought millions in grants and federal money to the island, creating about 90 full-time jobs and dozens of projects aimed at building economic diversity.
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Dozens of projects are outlined in a 10-year strategic plan, including:
Gina Domingo is the manager of the Maunaloa Dining Room at The Sheraton Molokai Lodge in Maunaloa. Moloka‘i Ranch plans to reopen its recently purchased Kaluako‘i Resort, creating more hotel jobs for island residents.
• Taro. The traditional staple crop of Native Hawaiians is now being farmed on a scale not seen since a tsunami destroyed the fertile East Moloka'i valley where the largest crop was grown 50 years ago. Along with the taro being grown in the valley's restored, stream-fed lo'i, 30 acres of dryland taro are being farmed by Hawaiian homesteaders in Ho'olehua.
• Fishponds. Four of the island's 60 ancient fishponds have been restored so far, and workers are trying to figure out how to make this an economically viable business.
• A commercial kitchen. This facility in Ho'olehua was established to stimulate agricultural production that adds value to raw farm products, such as processing taro into poi or chips.
Karen Holt, executive director of the Moloka'i Enterprise Community, is proud of the island's recent improvement in employment. She described it as "an economic miracle."
"I've been here 20 years, and I have never had the experience of seeing single-digit unemployment. It's really extraordinary," she said.
Arakaki, the UH extension agent, said he's also impressed by the progress.
The end of pineapple took away 60 percent of the island's jobs. If the same thing happened on O'ahu, it would translate into the loss of more than 300,000 jobs, he said.
"How long would it take O'ahu to recover from such economic losses?''
Today, the island has recovered all of its lost pineapple jobs and added 600 more, he said. And that's without a heavy reliance on tourism.
Arakaki said Moloka'i has chosen the path of a production-based economy.
"People want to preserve the values of the land, where there are no signal lights, where you don't have to lock your car. They want to hang on to what they've got. It all depends on how you define quality of life," he said.
"I've been here since 1978. I saw the pineapple companies leaving and the state of the economy. And I've experienced the recovery. We're doing better than most people think."
Holt said the Enterprise Community can't take all the credit. Court-ordered mandates, for example, have added jobs to the island's economy by requiring schools to hire special-education aides, and several entrepreneurs have opened small businesses.
Moloka'i-born Ed Medeiros is one of them. Retired from the computer industry, he returned to Moloka'i to become a commercial fisherman. It was a rough way to make a living, and after 15 years he reluctantly returned to California for another high-paying job in Silicon Valley.
Then in 1999, he seized on a high-tech way to carve out a living on Moloka'i, sinking his life savings into a small Internet distance-learning company called Global Medical Transcription Inc. He has since expanded with two new divisions, Pacific Island TeleServices and Mobettah.net, offering Web hosting, data archiving, telemarketing, call center and Internet services, including high-speed wireless.
With 12 locally recruited employees, the company now occupies two old Kaunakakai beach houses and will soon move to the island's industrial park two miles out of town.
While life isn't quite as prosperous for Diane Adachi, the unemployed waitress is not homeless and her sewing business is slowly building. She's also earning money teaching sewing classes at the high school.
Adachi, a native of Redondo Beach, Calif., recalled that when she married in California 33 years ago, her husband told her she had to live on Moloka'i.
"I said why not? And it's been a gift. It's like a slice of the past left like it was,'' she said, pointing to the cornfield next to her house. "I wouldn't trade it for anywhere else."
Timothy Hurley can be reached at thurley@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808)244-4880.
