Posted on: Friday, February 18, 2005

Kona Forest wildlife work to resume

By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Staff Writer

Two Big Island landowners have been ordered to sign a written settlement agreement that will allow the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to resume active 'alala conservation work in the Kona Forest Unit of Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge.

U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway on Tuesday granted the agency's motion to force Nohea Santimer and Moani Zablan to sign the agreement no later than Feb. 28.

The landowners verbally agreed to the settlement resolving longstanding access and other issues on March 19, 2004, but later raised other issues and never signed the agreement.

Under terms of the agreement, the Fish and Wildlife Service will be granted access along an existing road from Mamalahoa Highway to the northwestern corner of the refuge and along its northern boundary. The landowners will have 90 days to remove their property from refuge lands. In return, the agency will pay the landowners $120,000.

The Fish and Wildlife Service bought the 5,300-acre property in December 1997 to protect and conserve the critically endangered 'alala, or Hawaiian crow, and other endangered species.

But since 2001, the agency has been largely shut out of the Kona Forest land for lack of an access road.

"Although we have occasionally chartered a helicopter to allow us to conduct surveys and monitor the status of the refuge unit, we basically have not been able to actively manage or protect its resources for the past four years," said Jerry Leinecke, project leader for Pacific island national wildlife refuges.

The property's natural resource values have declined significantly in the past four years because the Fish and Wildlife Service has not been able to work regularly on the refuge to erect fences, remove wild cattle and pigs, and control weeds, Leinecke said.

The last sighting of a wild 'alala was in 2002, and biologists fear the only remaining birds are those in captivity at the Keauhou and Maui bird conservation centers.

A $1 million grant from the Packard Foundation for habitat management fencing had to be returned to the foundation last year because construction could not take place without access to the property. And with the access issue still unresolved, the refuge office in South Kona was closed in 2003 and the staff transferred to other locations.

"We look forward to getting back to work on the refuge," Leinecke said.

The Kona Forest Unit was purchased from the Les Marks Trust in 1997 for $7.78 million.

Reach Timothy Hurley at (808) 244-4880 or thurley@honoluluadvertiser.com.