“Whatever I did with that property was my business. I didn’t ask if I could cut a tree down.” So stated James Pflueger in a February 2003 deposition regarding a dispute over the sale of roughly 400 acres at Pila’a, … Continued
The locked gate on the private, unpaved road in lower Puna is unremarkable. Like hundreds of others that lead to the area’s papaya orchards and scattered houselots, it effectively bars access to all but those privileged with padlock keys or … Continued
Unsustainable Losses of Leatherbacks After a run of a hundred million or so years, the Pacific leatherback turtle, Dermochelys coriacea, is looking death in the eye. Over the last couple of decades, exponential declines in numbers of nesting female leatherbacks … Continued
Hamakua Homesteaders, Plantations Conspire Against Forest In celebrating 2003 as the Year of the Hawaiian Forest, Environment Hawai’i is reprinting historical records that depict changes in the islands’ forested landscape over the last two centuries. This month’s selection is taken … Continued
The group of scientists at Paliku cabin along the eastern rim of Maui’s Haleakala crater in May 2001 could not help but draw stares from the backpackers sharing the campground. After sundown, at a time when most campers would be … Continued
For a few days last November, a contingent of local scientists did their best to dazzle a visiting federal task force with the many and varied threats Hawai`i is facing as a result of increasing pressure from aquatic alien plants … Continued
A logging operation that spilled onto state land in South Kona – accidentally, according to the loggers’ attorney – ended up taking from state land timber worth more than a million dollars. But when the Board of Land and Natural … Continued
Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West. Edited by George Wuerthner and Mollie Matteson. Published in 2002 by the Foundation for Deep Ecology; distributed by Island Press. xv + 345 pages. Introduction by Douglas R. Tompkins. $75 cloth. … Continued
The Alenaio canal next to the Wailoa Visitor Center in Hilo is getting a little help from the Division of Aquatic Resources and State Parks to fight off an invasion of Salvinia molesta, an aquatic fern that has recently taken … Continued
East Maui Water Dispute Heats Up With Hearing Officer’s Recommendation “By the time water gets to our patch, it’s warm,” says Beatrice Kekahuna, age 74. Warm water may be good for bathing, but for Kekahuna and other East Maui taro … Continued