Koaiʻa Sanctuary: The Department of Land and Natural Resources has applied to Hawaiʻi County to subdivide a large parcel of land now leased to Parker Ranch in order to extend a sanctuary for Acacia koaiʻa, the smaller cousin of the koa tree. The proposal would expand an existing 13.5 acre reserve along the mauka side of Kohala Mountain Road by 374 acres, extending the protected area up to the Puʻu o Umi Natural Area Reserve.
Koaiʻa once were plentiful in the leeward Kohala area. Now they are relegated largely to gulches that offer some protection from browsing cattle and other ungulates.
The existing small koaiʻa sanctuary dates back to 1951. The proposal to extend it by carving out acreage from the Parker Ranch lease dates back more than 13 years, when, in November 2009, the Board of Land and Natural Resources approved the proposal.
A spokesman for the DLNR explained the delay in this way: “We have lacked the administrative capacity to process the formal paperwork for this to occur. Instead, we have devoted our limited capacity to doing on-the-ground field work, including fencing and planting thousands of native trees in the area. DLNR has partnered with The Kohala Center and many community volunteers to restore this area.”
Side-by-side images of the area from 2015 and 2022 show the fruits of those efforts.
Credit: DLNR
Milestones: We are sad to take note of the recent deaths of several friends, all of whom were outstanding in their fields of expertise and whose legacy in Hawaiʻi will continue long after their passing.
Derral Herbst may be best known as co-author of the seminal two-volume work Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawaiʻi, for which he and co-authors Warren Wagner and Sy Sohmer were awarded in 1990 the Engler Medal for outstanding contributions to plant taxonomy by the International Association for Plant Taxonomy. During the course of his long career in Hawaiʻi, he was employed by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the University of Hawaiʻi.
Lawrence McCully Judd – Cully – was an early champion and adopter of alternative energy and solar power in Hawaiʻi, founding Inter-Island Solar Supply and co-founding the Hawaiʻi Solar Energy Association. His life partner, Carol Silva, died in January.
Robert Shallenberger also worked for the Army Corps for a time before joining the Fish and Wildlife Service, where for many years he headed up its Division of Refuges in the Pacific. When the FWS opened Midway Atoll to tourists, Rob headed up that operation, later helping to found the Friends of Midway Atoll and writing Hawaiian Birds of the Sea: Na Manu Kai. After retiring, he was the Hawaiʻi Island program manager for The Nature Conservancy of Hawaiʻi and a board member of the Friends of Hakalau National Wildlife Refuge.
We join their friends and family in mourning their loss while remembering their substantial contributions.
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