Kaua'i, Ni'ihau habitat reserve land reduced
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reduced its critical habitat designation for Kaua'i and Ni'ihau to 52,549 acres, a little more than half the acreage initially proposed last year.
"I still think it's a little bit large, but it's a lot better than it was," said state forester Michael Buck.
Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund attorney David Henkin said biologists will be reviewing the designation to see whether it is adequate.
"Neither Earthjustice nor our clients view this as a numbers game. Whether the area proposed is going to be adequate for the recovery of Kaua'i's endangered plants — that's the question we'll be focusing on," Henkin said.
The service is required under the federal Endangered Species Act to establish "critical habitat" to enable endangered and threatened species to expand their range and numbers. That would increase changes of their recovery to the extent they could be removed from the lists of highly protected species.
Environmental groups sued to force habitat designation after the service failed to take action on behalf of several hundred Hawaiian endangered species.
Critical habitat designation means that before projects receiving federal money or projects requiring federal permits can proceed on these lands, the owners must consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Some landowners complain that state and county agencies also make note of such designations. They contend that the designation limits landowner options in using their property.
One reason the service reduced the Kaua'i and Ni'ihau acreage is that the lands were not as appropriate for the 83 rare native plants as originally thought, said Paul Henson, field supervisor for the service's Pacific Islands Office. In other instances, better habitat was available elsewhere,
Henson said the agency met several times with hunting groups and reduced the acreage of some hunting areas that had been proposed as critical habitat. He said the Fish and Wildlife Service will work with state officials to maintain game hunting in other critical habitat areas.
The service in January established just 789 acres on Lana'i as critical habitat, down from a preliminary figure of 19,500 acres. It set the lower figure after landowner Castle & Cooke Resorts agreed to implement conservation measures on more than 14,000 acres inhabited by more than two dozen endangered plants.
Critical habitat designations for Moloka'i, Maui and Kaho'olawe are expected this month or in April; for O'ahu, in May; and for the Big Island, in June. Preliminary figures call for 111,3645 acres for 99 species on O'ahu; 126,500 acres on Maui and 19,000 acres on Kaho'olawe for 61 species; 45,516 acres for 46 species on Moloka'i; and 437,300 acres for 47 species on the Big Island.
Buck said he is concerned that the deadlines set by a federal court will not have given state botanists time to fully consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service before critical habitats must be designated for some of the islands that come after Kaua'i.
"We spent a lot of time on the Kaua'i critical habitat. We went over this with the Fish and Wildlife Service plant by plant," he said. "Some of them, we haven't had that kind of time."
Rancher and conservationist Keith Robinson, who found that some of his family's land on both Kaua'i and Ni'ihau had been designated critical habitat, said he sees it as a kind of punishment for the very people who have kept endangered species going. For years, Robinson has operated two preserves for endangered plant species — in a dry valley in West Kaua'i and in wet Wainiha Valley.
"The people who get hammered are the people who did the work. We shouldn't have been rewarded this way for all the work we did," Robinson said.
He said he plans to withdraw from much of his endangered species work and spend more time restoring cattle pastures and developing his property for ecotourism.
Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.
