Conservation experts embrace new tool: fences
By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Staff Writer
To Maui biologist Art Medeiros, a fence is a magical thing, a conservation tool capable of pulling off miracles.
"They're just pieces of metal, but you twist them together and the effect can be phenomenal," said Medeiros, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist.
The native vegetation in Hawai'i's natural areas is under attack by wild pigs, goats, sheep and deer. Many native forest plants have been mowed down and chewed to the nub by these foraging animals, while others have become extinct.
Put up a fence, however, and it's like turning back the clock, says Medeiros: What emerges are plants and landscapes known only to ancient Hawaiians.
Medeiros, who has enclosed two sections of Maui's dryland forest with fencing and hopes to revive vast koa forests on the island's upper leeward slopes, says that when he shows volunteers the other side of the fence, they are amazed by the contrast.
"They are literally slack-jawed," he said. "They say 'Wow, everything is chewed out there.'"
Medeiros and his volunteers aren't the only ones in awe of fences. In recent years, scientists and conservation land managers across the Islands have embraced the idea, spending millions to build hundreds of miles of fences, protecting hundreds of thousands of acres. But the practice is controversial.
Deploring the loss of hunting grounds, hunters have come out in force to oppose fencing plans. Some have even taken the issue into their own hands, cutting and vandalizing the fences that get in their way.
"The more fences go up, the more people get upset," said Big Island hunter Matt Hoeflinger, a member of Pig Hunters of Hawai'i. "It's very frustrating. All we see are more fences going up, and our hunting areas are disappearing."
Many more fencing projects are in the planning stages, and land managers are eyeing additional acreage in need of barrier protection.
Fencing off natural areas isn't exactly new in Hawai'i. Beginning in 1903, the Territory of Hawai'i created a series of forest reserves to protect upper watershed areas and then began fencing them to keep out cattle.
Most of the inspiration for today's fences date back to the early 1970s, when Don Reeser, then the resources manager at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, created a small enclosure in the Ka'u Desert. Within two years a new species sprouted within the protected area.
"Up to that time, the general feeling was that there was nothing you could do about the decline of native ecosystems," said Lloyd Loope, U.S. Geological Survey biologist based at Haleakala National Park.
Within 10 years both the Hawai'i Volcanoes and Haleakala parks were putting up fences and showing that it is possible to reverse the affects of feral animals.
At Haleakala, the results were dramatic: Ailing mamane trees began to grow and fill out. Koa trees, many of which had disappeared, shot up with incredible speed. Pilo and other native shrubs flourished.
Medeiros, who described himself as a "crater monkey" while volunteering at Maui's mountaintop national park in the 1980s, said he saw the emergence of lush native habitats he'd never seen before.
"It was shocking to me," he recalled.
Costly but worthy tool
Over the years, fencing technology and materials have evolved by necessity to lock out digging pigs as well as high-leaping deer, and the effort — usually accompanied by ongoing maintenance, weed control and the elimination of foraging animals within the fenced area — remains quite expensive, costing thousands of dollars per mile.
The expense is well worth it, said Sam Gon, director of science for The Nature Conservancy of Hawai'i. The fence has become perhaps the most important tool in Hawai'i's conservation tool chest, he said.
Tapping into new money sources in the 1990s, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Nature Conservancy and other entities began to fence in preserves.
And now, so-called watershed partnerships — large landowners working with government and conservation agencies — are fencing large tracts of forested areas.
Since 2002, for example, a handful of crew members hired by the East Maui Watershed Partnership has been flown by helicopter into some of the most rugged slopes of windward East Maui to install a pig-proof fence over several miles.
Projects getting under way
It's tough, sometimes dangerous, work lugging building materials, supplies, backpacks and tools in muddy, slippery conditions. "Twisted ankles, sore backs and strained wrists are common," said Alex Michailidas, East Maui Watershed Partnership coordinator.
So far 2.5 miles of fence line have been installed at about the 3,600-foot level, Michailidas said. Another four miles must still go in, connecting existing fences. When the fencing project is completed in three years, more than 10,000 acres will be enclosed by fences.
Other fencing projects in the works or on drawing boards include a series of strategically placed fences by the West Maui Mountains Watershed Partnership, a plan to protect 3,500 acres of Lana'ihale watershed on Lana'i, nearly three miles of fencing at the Pu'u Ali'i Natural Area Reserve on Moloka'i, fencing protection for an island of native vegetation surrounded by lava flow in South Hilo, and a plan to enclose 80 acres of Kaua'i's Kanaele Bog.
The Nature Conservancy and other agencies say they've worked to involve community members and hunters in planning for fencing activities.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has gone a step further. Three years ago the agency, with help from Sen. Dan Inouye, launched a program with $700,000 annually that aims to finance projects designed to both improve endangered species protection and the quality of hunting grounds.
The projects, for example, might open new areas for hunting but also provide protection, such as fencing, for endangered species in the areas.
Hunters feel constrained
Benton Pang, program coordinator, said the effort, which is based on a belief that there's enough wilderness for both resource protection and hunting, aims to reduce the conflicts between hunters and the environmental community.
"It's working out really well so far," he said.
But while the Fish and Wildlife program is worthwhile, hunters remain upset about an ongoing decline in hunting grounds, said Jeffrey DeRego, a hunter from Makawao, Maui, and a member of the Hunting Advisory Council of Hawai'i.
DeRego said hunters generally don't like what's going on but lack the power to fight large landowners. He said the growing number of large-scale fencing and feral animal eradication efforts are undercutting the heritage of Hawai'i's hunters.
"In the next 10 years the next generation won't have anything to hunt in East Maui," he said.
Bill Evanson, Maui manager of the state's Natural Area Reserve System, said he can understand how the hunters feel. But, he said, there's another heritage, Hawai'i's natural history, that is being threatened as well.
Deer and goats can be brought back anytime, Evanson said. "But we can never bring back the native plants once they are gone."
Reach Timothy Hurley at thurley@honolululadvertiser.com or (808) 244-4880.
