After more than a century of abuse by cattle ranching, Kahikinui, meaning “the great rising,” is on an upswing. Although still isolated, rugged, and dry, the land there managed by the state Department for Hawaiian Home Lands has for the past several years supported a small number of Hawaiian homesteaders who are committed to replanting about 7,000 acres of native forest denuded by grazing.
In the larger Kahikinui district, about $320,000 of state and federal money has been earmarked for restoring the badly degraded forests there. According to Scot Fretz of the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife, “One of things special about this area is we think it will be very good endandered bird habitat, especially for parrotbills, or akohekohe.” Found in Hanawi and from Waikamoi to Kipahulu, parrotbills disappear at Kahikinui, Fretz says, because of the destroyed habitat. With the return of a koa forest (the parrotbills’ preferred habitat, he says), the parrot will hopefully return as well.
These efforts are rays of hope for the land many have written off as useless or destroyed. But will they be enough? A century of cattle ranching has left the land deeply scarred. And poor management by the DHHL and former lessees Maui Factors and Perreira Ranch of the upland areas has as its legacy herds of wild cattle that will continue to degrade the forest if left unchecked.
Kahikinui Forest
Like most leeward areas, Kahikinui was not a soft and easy place to live for ancient Hawaiians. The shores of Kahikinui, write Handy and Handy in Native Planters, had poor deep-water fishing and scarce shellfish and limu. “The coast and coast lands of southern Maui are perhaps the poorest in the islands. The sparse population there must have suffered severe famine at timesÉ
“We know that fleets [of canoes transporting goods] came from Kohala and Kawaihae on Hawai`i to Hana in war times. If so, probably canoes with supplies came from Kona to Kaupo in the form of bundles of hard poi and to Kahiki Nui, the populations of both being out of proportion to their resources.”
Even so, Hawaiians were able to grow some crops such as sweet potato and banana during wet months, or by using some inventive farming methods. Dryland taro was also grown in the upland areas.
But by the late 1800s, Kahikinui was all about ranching and even had its own grazing association. Not long after, cattle began to leave their mark on Kahikinui’s forest. After a tour of the area in 1905, territorial forester Ralph Hosmer wrote, “This section has not had a forest cover in recent times, if indeed it ever had. Scattering groves and groups of trees are found, but it is said by those who know the locality that even this sort of forest is less in evidence than it was twenty years ago. This forest has gradually disappeared.”
Native Planters cites a December 14, 1910 report in Ke Au Hou that in Kahikinui’s lower forest zone, “rainfall was more plentiful than it is today. Here, as in Kaupo, cattle grazing over all higher country have deforested the land.”
Still, Kahikunui’s remnant forest included some extraordinary plants. A 1911 issue of The Hawaiian Forester and Agriculturalist reports on the 12-day visit of botanist Joseph Rock found to Auwahi and Kahikinui. It was, he said, the most interesting field he ever visited on any island with the exception of Pu`uwa`awa`a. On an area of 350 acres, he found no fewer than 47 species of trees, including one that had been thought to be extinct for more than half a century. “This tree is allied to the Chinese litchi,” he wrote, “and is a delicious fruit, reaching the size of a large potato, and is worthy of cultivation. About 40 trees were observed, and mature seeds of the same collected; it is called Mahoe by the natives.”
Field notes by botanist Charles Forbes between 1910 and 1920 describe the central Kahikinui area as having forest so thick it was difficult to plow through.
In 1920, efforts to protect forests from the cattle at Kahikinui were already underway. The Forester reported that 2.68 miles of fence were built on the ridge from Polipoli Springs to Kanahau, “a big factor in the driving out of the wild cattle from this reserve and in preventing new bands from crossing over from the Kahikinui side.” Two years later, territorial forester C.S. Judd reported in May 1922 that on a visit to Maui in May, he and the commissioner of Public Lands decided on the location of a line separating a new grazing lease and a future forest reserve at Kahikinui.
“On parts of this section comprising about 12,000 acres there are good stands of mamani trees which will increase if cattle are kept out and on others the quantities of dead trees indicate a former rather heavy forest,” Judd wrote. “Any forest growth which may influence precipitation advantageously will be of great benefit in this region where water is very scarce. As soon as a fence is built on this chosen line, it is proposed to recommend that the land above it be set apart as a forest reserve.”
In 1928, the Kahikinui Forest Reserve was proposed for 16,013 acres, all above the 3000 foot elevation. Eighty-three percent was owned by the territory of Hawai`i. The only unfenced area was 6,559 feet along the private land of Auwahi, “and as soon as cattle threaten to enter at this point immediate steps will be taken to fence this, in cooperation with Ulupalakua Ranch,” it stated. More than 8,700 acres of the land in the reserve was part of the 25,000-acre tract of land that, under terms of the 1920 law establishing the Hawaiian Homes Commission, would be under the jurisdiction of the DHHL on expiration of the existing lease.
Violations
In 1965, Maui Factors, Inc., headed up by Elmer Cravalho, a prominent politician, outbid former DHHL lessee Ulupalakua Ranch to win a 15,620-acre, 25-year lease of pasture land at Kahikinui. Annual rent was $24,000 a year for the first 10 years, and lease provisions required, among other things, fencing of the parcel’s perimeter and exclusion of animals from forest lands.
By late 1969, Maui Factors had 2,000 cattle in the area and according to DHHL’s Oscar Asahina, “The ultimate goal of this operation is to carry 5,000 head of cattle after all improvements É are completed.” When the lease’s first reappraisal came in 1977, Maui Factors’ herd was down to 1,500 cattle at Kahikinui, “although they indicate 2,500 would be possible,” appraiser Ed Bolles wrote.
On March 27, 1980, an addendum was added to the lease. Rent was set at $31,240 (retroactive to April 1977) for the second decade of the lease, and the DHHL agreed to waive the performance bond requirement, even though, as would later become clear, Maui Factors had not completed the improvements and undertaken the work it was supposed to under lease terms. Unfinished tasks included fencing and removal of livestock from the forest.
In November 1980, Robert Hobdy, a forester with the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW), informed Dewey Eberly of the DHHL that in the past two years, cattle belonging to Maui Factors had been spotted in the forest reserve at 6,500 feet. No fence existed along the mauka boundary of the lease, Hobdy added. (DLNR had noted cattle crossing the unfenced Maui Factors boundary as early as 1975.)
According to a memo Eberly wrote at the time, Wes Wong of DOFAW had told him that DOFAW had not pushed for fencing along the boundary because cattle movement was controlled with portable water troughs. But the cattle seemed to have “found some water holes in the upper elevation and are inclined to stay in the area,” Eberly continued. “Maybe the time has come for the Department to require fencing of the mauka boundary (approx. 5 miles).” In fact, the DHHL lease always required construction of a boundary fence, but up to that point the agency had not concerned itself with enforcing this lease condition.
Not until February 4, 1981, did the DHHL send its first letter to Maui Factors reminding them of the requirements for fencing and exclusion of animals from the forest. Eberly told Maui Factors he would conduct an inspection in 60 days “and remedial action will be initiated should this default still exist and no corrective measures rendered.”
From there, the delays began. More than a year later, in April 1982, DHHL was ordering Maui Factors to complete the fence within six months.
By January 31, 1983, the fence still had not been built, but Maui Factors’ attorney Meyer Ueoka informed the DHHL that the following month, 39 rolls of barbed wire would be ordered, along with a box of staples. Maui Factors, he said, “will string 5 strands of barbed wire nailed on keawe posts ten feet apart.” He provided a timetable that called for post-holes to be dug by July or August, and completion of the fence within a year to 15 months. “As a matter of good faith, Maui Factors has deposited with me the sum of $20,000, which is being held in trust,” to be applied toward fence cost, he said.
Despite the reassurances that Maui Factors was on the ball, delays continued – because of bad weather, or attempts to shift to responsibility to the DLNR – until 1991.
Overlap
A major sticking point in the construction of the fence involved a clash of jurisdictions between the DLNR and the DHHL that affected the location of the boundary. In a memo outlining the dispute, Eberly wrote that since 1928, the makai boundary of the forest reserve began at 4,000 foot elevation. “However, the description of the lease É shows the mauka boundary as the 5,000 foot elevation. There is an overlapping of our general lease and the forest reserve boundaries.”
While no one at DHHL was arguing for cattle in the forest reserve, in resolving the overlap, the DHHL effectively erased the forest reserve above its property. In January 1981, DHHL’s Oscar Asahina wrote to Francis Ching of the DHHL Land Division that the department’s attorney general had determined that the Governor’s Proclamation placing the 8,700 acres of Kahikinui land into the forest reserve was illegal, “and also the Department has the managerial authority to designate the use of its lands.”
“If we were to designate the fencing to follow the forest reserve boundary at the 4,800-foot elevation we would need to withdraw approximately 1,300 acres and reduce the rental by its proportionate amount determined by appraisal,” Asahina wrote. He recommended that Maui Factors be told to fence its mauka boundary, but at 5,000 feet elevation to avoid having to subdivide and reappraise the parcel.
But the DLNR wanted the fence to be at the 4,000-foot elevation to protect remnant stands of native plants including hahawai (Cyanea obtuse), mapele (Cyrtandra sp.), Wawae`iole (Lycopodium mannii), and kamakahala (Labordia sp.), which at the time were proposed to be included in the list of threatened and endangered species for the island of Maui.
The argument became moot when on December 27, 1984, Governor George Ariyoshi issued an executive order canceling the governor’s proclamation of December 22, 1928, that placed the Kahikinui acreage in the forest reserve. This effectively kicked the Division of Forestry and Wildlife out of any role in managing Kahikinui’s forested areas under DHHL jurisdiction and meant the fence line would be put in at 5,000 feet.
Fences
Although the forest reserve technically no longer existed on DHHL’s Kahikinui lands after December 1984, the lease still required a fence and the exclusion of animals from forested areas.
On January 15, 1985, Haleakala National Park biologist Arthur C. Medeiros Jr. asked the DHHL’s permission to fence part of the Kahikinui land. “With the cooperation of Maui Forestry and various conservation groups (Friends of the Maui Botanical Garden, Sierra Club, Hawaiian Botanical Society, etc.) I hope with your permission to arrange the fencing of a rich area of koa forest in the Kahikinui district of East Maui. This relatively small area is located along the western drainage of Manawainui at ca. 5,300 ft. elevation on Hawaiian Home Lands. The project would be run on a non-profit volunteer basis, though funding still has yet to be worked out completely,” he wrote in a letter to the DHHL, which later denied him permission, assuring Medeiros that Maui Factors was working on its own fence.
The forest continued to degrade. On August 6, 1986, DHHL Land Agent Benny Wong inspected the lease area with state foresters. In a report to the DHHL, Wong wrote, “While in the forest reserve we saw signs that cattle and wild pigs had been as high as 8,500+ feet.”
A year later, DHHL Maui District manager Dan Awau Jr. found that at the 5,000-foot elevation, on the Maui Factors land, “Noticeable were ohia, mamane, and hapu trees ravaged during the dry season by the cattle.” He and DOFAW staff found keawe poles about 10 feet apart with strands of worn, rusty wire and “came across an open gate leading to the forest reserve and noticed cattle roaming in the reserve area.”
In the meantime, Haleakala Ranch complained to the DHHL that Maui Factors cattle wandered through the reserve and onto its own lands. In a January 20, 1988 letter from Michael Banfield of Haleakala Ranch to DHHL, Banfield inquired about the status of Maui Factors’ fence. “Here [DHHL’s Kahikinui land], as well as on some of our fee lands and much of the State Forest Land, the presence of these stray cattle is leading to overgrazing, erosion, and destruction of the native forest.” A year later, while removing about 70 trespassing Maui Factors cattle, Haleakala Ranch “observed large numbers of Maui Factors’ cattle in the Kahikinui Forest Reserve, and particularly in the parcelÉwhich wasÉfenced by state forestry some years ago.”
Frustrated with the nonaction, the DLNR went to the state Legislature for money to build a fence. Funds were appropriated, but according to a DHHL memo, the state Department of Budget and Finance “disapproved funds saying that it was general lessee’s responsibility. DLNR will be using the funds for another fence in another location at Kahikinui.”
DOFAW did undertake a small fencing project in May 1990. With help from the Native Hawaiian Plant Society, DOFAW staff and volunteers built a fence on Hawaiian Home Lands in Manawainui Gulch in the forest Reserve.
According to the Native Hawaiian Plant Society’s newsletter, volunteers, gear and materials were helicoptered in to build the fence, paid for by DOFAW Endangered Species funds. Coordinated by Bob Hobdy, volunteers included Linda Nelson, Pat Conant, Stef Nagata, Rob Rydell, Randy Bartlett, and George Markt.
“The enclosure will be a DOFAW Plant Sanctuary and includes Huperzia mannii, Acacia koa, Phyllostegia ambigua, Cyrtandra begoniaefolia, Cyrtandra platyphylla, Sophora chrysophylla, Labordia hirtella, Pipturus albidus, Neraudia melastomaefolia, and Hillebrandia sandwicensis. We observed many cattle in the area bearing the Maui Factors brand,” the newsletter stated.
This fence was meant to control cattle crossing the mountain into the Kula forest reserve, Hobdy told Environment Hawai`i. “We couldn’t get any action [from DHHL and Maui Factors],” he says, but the two miles of fence erected by the volunteers in 1990 have been successful in keeping cattle out of the Kula side for more than 10 years.
While the small fence protected the Kula area, the Maui Factors fence project languished. Discussion between the DLNR and the DHHL over the possibility of a game management agreement whereby DLNR would put up the fence line bordering the forest reserve area concluded without reaching any agreement, according to DHHL records. DHHL continued issuing Notices of Default to Maui Factors.
On June 19, 1991, Maui Factors completed its fence “but for 2 sections, each between two posts,” attorney Ueoka wrote to the DHHL.
But as Peter Connally of the Native Hawaiian Plant Society wrote in a letter to the governor on November 13, 1990, the fence was too little, too late. “Any fence built now would only be destroyed when they herd cattle from the forest downhill into the pasture lands.”
A December 18, 1991 helicopter inspection of the fence by DOFAW’s Wong and the DHHL’s Joe Chu found fence posts along entire boundary with wires down or hanging at four or to five locations. “There appeared to be more cattle immediately above as were below the fenceline (like 100+),” Chu wrote in a DHHL memo.
The ranch fixed the fence, but left the cattle. Even so, on July 31, 1992, the DHHL gave Maui Factors back a $25,000 time-deposit account it had demanded as bond for fence building and cattle retrieval. “Based on the Lessee’s satisfactory compliance with the foregoing requirements, DHHL relinquishes its interest in the time deposit account,” the DHHL wrote to Maui Factors.
What Now?
Maui Factors’ lease expired in March 1992, and was extended to December 1993 to allow the ranch to remove all of its cattle and equipment from the property. The ranch was able to round up most, but not all of its herd. The remaining cattle – at least 100 animals — are spread across the mountain, says Hobdy.
After the Maui Factors’s exit, the area was turned over to Ka Ohana of Kahiknui, a group of native Hawaiians that wanted homestead lease for the area. As of 2001, DHHL had issued 74 leases at Kahikinui and a handful of families are now living there.
The ohana has a subgroup called LIFE, for Living Indigenous Forest Ecosystem, whose goal, Hobdy says, is to protect the forest. LIFE instituted a hunting program “primarily for DHHL and Hawaiian folks to participate in and they would hunt goats and pigs and occasionally deer,” Hobdy says. But they haven’t really made a dent in the cattle population.
“They got as many cattle out as they could, but it’s a huge area, somewhere in the neighborhood of 9,000 acres.” Since the Maui Factors lease expired, he added, “cattle numbers have started to increase so they are impacting that area and peripheral areas.”
The ohana has reportedly rounded up wild cattle. Branded cattle have been returned to their owners; the rest have been sold. Another group, called the Kahikinui Game and Land Management Ohana, has assisted LIFE with its conservation efforts and has, according to Haleakala Times, planted koa trees and hunted ungulates, and is restoring the fenceline along the forest boundary.
Hodby says hunter at Kahikinui take cattle when given the opportunity, but hauling huge animals on that steep, rocky terrain is not easy. Scot Fretz of DOFAW says wild cows are usually not killed, but are trapped and returned to pasture areas.
“There was a dramatic decrease of cattle when the lessee left because they rounded up as many as they could,” Hobdy says, “so I wouldn’t say there’s anything dramatically different going on now [in the forest] than a few years ago, but the long range doesn’t look so good unless serious activities are undertaken.”
— Teresa Dawson
1. E.S. Craighill Handy and Elizabeth Green Handy, with the collaboration of Mary Kawena Pukui, Native Planters in Old Hawai`i (Bishop Museum, Honolulu, 1972), p.276.
Volume 13, Number 4 October 2002
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