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 from the 1904 report of William L. Hall, chief of the Division of Forest Extension, U.S. Bureau of Forestry, to the territorial Board of Agriculture and Forestry. We publish here that part of his report that expresses concerns over what has generally been overlooked as a factor in forest destruction: the (then-new) system of opening land to homestead settlers and the exploitation of homestead lands by sugar planters.
The whole northeast coast of Hawai’i receives a variable but heavy rainfall, and was originally forested to the shore of the ocean. Years ago this region was found to be adapted to the growth of sugar cane without irrigation. Plantations sprang up rapidly and soon formed a continuous chain from the north point of Kohala to several miles south of the town of Hilo, with the exception of the country between Honokane and Waipi’o. As the land near the sea is all occupied, the only direction in which the plantations can extend is up the mountains, and this many of them have continually striven to do. Already the land has been cleared to an elevation of from 1,400 to 2,500 feet. In Hamakua there remains above the plantations a strip of forest varying from one to four miles wide. It is into this remaining strip that some of the plantations wish to extend.
The sugar companies do not own very much of this land. It is owned principally by the Territorial Government, which leases it to the sugar companies and gives them permits to clear it. Several requests are pending now for permits to clear land above the present limit.
Now it is recognized by sugar planters, land owners and government that a limit exists above which clearing means ultimate disaster to the sugar industry. In the opinion of some, this limit has already been reached. During the early part of the present year an expression of opinion of the plantation men was obtained as to what limit should be set for clearing. Most of them favored a limit below the 2,000 foot contour. Nevertheless, some of the managers are very anxious to extend their plantations beyond this limit.
The opening up of large tracts of forest lands for homestead purposes has also complicated the problem seriously. Several years ago a preliminary trial indicated that coffee could be successfully grown in this region and the insular government, importuned by those who desired to engage in its cultivation, threw open to settlement several large tracts lying just above the sugar plantations in Hamakua and Puna. Clearing and coffee planting went on rapidly for a few years, but came to a sudden halt when it was discovered that the coffee trees bore only a crop or two and then failed. Something had to be done with the homesteads. The most convenient thing was to turn them over to the sugar plantations, and this in most cases was done. Thus the possibility of using the homestead law for extending the sugar plantations was demonstrated. The pressure for opening tracts, ostensibly for homesteads, has continued. Several tracts have been opened within the past few years, and the opening of others is under consideration. In a great many, probably a majority of cases, the homesteader has sold first the timber and then the cleared land to the plantations, for the settler has found it more profitable to dispose of his homestead in this way and afterwards work for the plantation, than to till the land…..
The question may be asked, if sugar is so profitable a crop on this land, what reasonable objection can be raised to cutting away the forest and growing sugar cane upon it? The danger is that the plantations may go so far in the matter as to bring ultimate disaster upon themselves by ruining their water supply and decreasing the rainfall. Many of the plantations now obtain water from the mountain streams for fluming cane to the mills. There is scarcely enough water for this purpose, and it has been noticed that with the clearing of the lower slopes these small streams have been perceptibly diminished.
The other and far more dangerous result to be feared in cutting away the forest is the modification of climatic conditions so that there will not be enough rainfall to insure the growth of sugar cane. Kohala and Hamakua have barely enough rainfall to produce good crops during the best seasons. Dry seasons cut down the crop till there is often no profit in it. In 1901 these districts produced 52,026 tons of sugar, worth $4,080,503 – 15 percent of the entire crop of the islands. In 1902 they produced only 17,079 tons, in consequence of a severe drought which affected the crop greatly…
Throughout the Hawaiian Islands, but especially in these two districts, the influence of the forest upon both the amount and distribution of rainfall is a matter of common observation and experience… On the plains of Hamakua and the lower northeast slope of Mauna Kea, where heavy fogs blow over from the ocean and mists are of almost daily occurrence, the top of a single tree condenses enough moisture to make the ground beneath it muddy, or even to cause water to stand, while beyond the influence of the tree top the surface of the ground may be entirely dry.
Volume 14, Number 1 July 2003
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