Critical habitat acreage on Moloka'i reduced

By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui County Bureau

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reduced its critical habitat designation for threatened and endangered plants on Moloka'i to 24,333 acres, which is just over half the acreage proposed last year.

The final rule, published in the Federal Register yesterday, establishes 88 single-species critical habitat areas, many of which overlap. Half of the acreage is privately held, while the remainder is state land except for three acres under National Park Service jurisdiction. Almost 90 percent of the land is in the state Conservation District.

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.

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. Landowners have complained that that the designation limits options in the use of their property.

The service earlier this month reduced the proposed critical habitat for Kaua'i and Ni'ihau by about half, and in January established just 789 acres on Lana'i, down from a preliminary figure of 19,500 acres.

For Moloka'i, almost 19,200 acres of the 43,532 acres originally proposed for critical habitat status were eliminated.

"Thirty-five of these plant species are found on other Hawaiian islands in addition to Moloka'i," said Paul Henson, field supervisor for the Fish and Wildlife Service's Pacific Islands office. "In some cases, we were able to eliminate areas proposed for critical habitat status on this island because better habitat for the plants exists elsewhere."

Among the areas excluded from designation were the Kamakou, Mo'omomi and Pelekunu preserves managed by The Nature Conservancy.

Henson said the areas were excluded to maintain and improve relationships between the service and the Nature Conservancy and to provide an incentive for other landowners to undertake similar voluntary conservation activities.

But Earthjustice attorney David Henkin said he doesn't think the move is justified.

"These preserves are home to 14 species of endangered plants and scientifically these areas must be protected for their recovery," he said. "Eleven of these species are found on Moloka'i and nowhere else in the world. If we don't protect these habitat areas from destructive projects, we may lose forever the chance to bring them back to full recovery."

He said a Nature Conservancy preserve in the Wai'anae mountains is being targeted for development as part of an Army live-fire training facility.

Although the Moloka'i areas may not be planned for federal development, "these types of projects come up suddenly with little warning. We want to make sure the appropriate protections and reviews are in place before they occur because when they occur it's too late to designate the habitat," Henkin said.