Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park is a big place — nearly 350 square miles. But the already expansive park may grow by nearly 50 percent if the National Park Service can round up the funds to purchase a major chunk of Kahuku Ranch, a working cattle ranch owned by the Damon Estate. In July, the Park Service got a step closer to its goal when the U.S. Senate approved an appropriations bill that included $7 million toward the purchase.
As seen from the Belt Road in Ka`u, the property doesn’t look like much. Simple wooden signs, like those in a state park, mark two entrances to the ranch; the patches of `ohi`a and pastureland look about the same here as on neighboring properties.
But the roadside views are deceiving. “There’s nothing else like this place,” park superintendent Jim Martin says of the ranch. The property borders the park’s western boundary at the Mauna Loa summit and sweeps down almost to the ocean. In addition to the 1,200 acres currently used for cattle grazing, another 90,000 acres are conservation land where spectacular geologic formations, unspoiled native Hawaiian cultural sites, and the largest remaining population of the gravely endangered Ka`u silverword have been preserved.
Manifest Destiny?
The idea that the Park Service might acquire this tract and its treasures dates back to 1916, when the park was created. From the beginning, park administrators recognized the logic of adding Mauna Loa’s active Southwest Rift Zone, since some of the eruptions that occur inside the park originate in this zone. And from the beginning, park administrators were aware of the ecological significance of the ranch’s varied natural habitats.
Despite early interest in the property, the long-term plan to acquire the land only started to look like a realistic possibility in 1999, when the Damon Estate offered the property for sale. Damon Estate, a major shareholder in First Hawaiian Bank, has reportedly set an asking price of $32 million for all 117,000 acres of the ranch
A Park Service-funded appraisal of the property is now in progress; Martin notes the process of determining the land’s worth has been difficult. “How do you put a value on conservation lands or alpine lava fields?” he notes. “Our appraiser has really struggled with that.”
Currently, says Martin, the park hopes to purchase about 115,000 acres, or roughly 98 percent of the ranch. Excluded will be the small section of the ranch that extends seaward from the Belt Road; this section includes the historic main ranch building. The park ultimately decided against purchasing this area in light of potential difficulties obtaining clear title. In contrast, says Martin, the upper part of the ranch is an intact parcel originally granted by King David Kalakaua to Supreme Court Justice C.C. Harris more than 100 years ago. “There’s a very clean title on that section of the property,” Martin explains.
Footing the Tab
Martin was reluctant to speculate as to what the park might pay for the parcel but conceded that the tab might be around $20 million. That’s significantly more than the pending $7 million appropriation. The park has an additional $1.5 million put aside from an appropriation last year, but that is still probably short of the funds needed for the purchase.
Enter The Nature Conservancy, which has been working energetically with the Park Service and other Hawai`i conservation organizations to facilitate the Kahuku Ranch purchase. The organization has already produced a striking 10-minute videotape about the ranch and is using it to give prospective donors and legislators an up-close view of what TNC calls “one of Earth’s last great places”.
“It’s a really marvelous landscape. One of the beauties about the area becoming part of the National Park is that people will be allowed to see it.” – Don Swanson, geologist
The exact role TNC will play in the Kahuku purchase is still being determined; TNC might provide or bring to the table bridge funding for the purchase. Kim Hum, director of protection for The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii, emphasizes that no official plan or agreement exists between the Park Service and TNC just yet. “It’s still very early in the process,” Hum says. “So it’s hard to say what our financial role might be.” But, she adds, TNCH is already working to identify possible funding sources and to muster support for the purchase by “putting the right people in touch with the right people.”
If funding for the purchase is still up in the air, at least the purchase is possible. That hasn’t always been the case. Past proposals to expand Hawaii Volcanoes National Park were constrained by a law (enacted when Hawai`i was still a territory) that prohibited the park from purchasing land outright. Instead, new park lands could only be acquired in a trade or through outright donation. In 1998 new legislation sponsored by Hawai`i’s U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka lifted the prohibition on National Park Service land purchases in Hawai`i.
A Land of Treasures
Don Swanson, scientist-in-charge at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawai`i Volcano Observatory, calls Kahuku’s geological features — which include the longest fissure system in Hawai`i — world class. Swanson last viewed the property in the early 1970s, when he and a colleague made the arduous hike along the Southwest Rift zone from the Mauna Loa summit down to Ocean View Estates. Among the marvels Swanson spotted on his hike was a cinder cone that had deposited a flow of pure sulfur. “It was really beautiful, with a ropy surface like pahoehoe lava,” he says. “Sulfur flows occur in only a few places in the world.” Swanson also noted formations called run-ups, places where fast-flowing lava had washed up the backsides of cinder cones. “That’s pretty rare,” he says.
Swanson likes the idea that, if the ranch becomes part of the park, more people can view these geological wonders firsthand. “I think it’s a really marvelous landscape,” he says. “One of the beauties about the area becoming part of the National Park is that people will be allowed to see it.”
Hawaiian entomologist Steve Montgomery of the Conservation Council for Hawai`i, the state affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation, agrees that the proposed Kahuku acquisition is good news. Like Swanson, Montgomery was last on the property in the early 1970s, when he studied the various insect species that are dependent on the rare Ka’u silversword. He doesn’t know how the rare flies and moths are doing; Montgomery says his 1992 request to repeat the survey was turned down without explanation by the ranch owners.
The current ranch owners have protected the plants from grazing ungulates with fencing. Still, Montgomery says, “All we know about the flora and fauna of Kahuku is from a few brief trips at long intervalsÉ I predict a baseline survey will turn up a few novelties.” Montgomery also cites a 30-year-old study by geneticist Hampton Carson showing that drosophila (pomace flies) on the Kahuku Ranch have an unusual propensity to hybridize (cross-breed). “Kahuku should be a fruitful site to study evolution in action,” he says.
Ornithologists equally are excited about seeing the ranch protected as a National Park since it provides current or historic habitat for a number of threatened and endangered birds. The dark-rumped petrel has been spotted here, along with the honeycreepers `akepa and `akiapola`au, and the `alala or Hawaiian crow once ranged these slopes.
Meanwhile, Jade Muniz-Nakamura, who heads up the HVNP archaeology program, says the Kahuku property is of particular cultural interest; the Native Hawaiian shrines found there are a type unique to the Big Island. “A lot of cultural sites in Hawaii have been looted over the years,” she notes. “But this area has been pretty well protected by the ranch, so we hope many of these sites are still intact.”
“For the economy, for the environment, and for cultural preservation, I think the land acquisition is a win-win situation.” — Karen Blue, Conservation Council for Hawai`i
Kahuku’s cultural sites are probably 400 to 600 years old, although it’s impossible to know for sure without radiocarbon dating. In addition to the shrines, cave dwellings, used as temporary shelters by ancient Hawaiians during island traverses, are thought to be plentiful on the ranch, along with so-called “excavated pits,” probably dug to attract dark-rumped petrels. The now-endangered seabirds fly inland during the nesting season to rear their young in mountaintop burrows; the plump chicks were a delicacy reserved for ali`i, or the chiefly class. “By creating more habitat, the people encouraged more birds to nest here,” Muniz-Nakamura says.
“We don’t really know the significance of all the cultural sites until we see them,” notes Keolalani Hanoa, a Native Hawaiian community leader and president of the Ka’u Learning Center. “But it’s important to protect all the cultural sites that might be present, to treat them with utmost sensitivity; they are all sacred.” Kealoha Pisciotta, a commissioner with the Hawai`i Island Burial Council, also stresses the importance of protection and access. “Some folks have bumped heads with the Park Service in the past,” she says, “but I think they are working to increase their cultural relations with Hawaiians.”
A Boost to the Economy?
Besides protecting geologic, biologic, and cultural treasures-and making them accessible to the public – park superintendent Martin thinks an expanded park could encourage visitors to linger in the region, something that in turn could provide new economic opportunities for area residents. He envisions a “visitor orientation area” with information about the park’s natural wonders and about local attractions. “It would be a way to encourage people to slow down and enjoy Ka’u,” Martin says. “Right now, once you leave the existing visitor center in Volcano, it’s Kailua-Kona before you get any more information about the area you are passing through.” Martin says a visitor center might be a multi-agency effort. “Of course, all this is very far in the future,” he notes.
Martin is also enthusiastic about expanding the park’s recreational offerings on the Kahuku property, saying a fifteen-mile trail on the southeastern edge of the property might be ideal for mountain biking, and a campground, picnic areas, and horse concession might be situated on the lower end of the property. He predicts increased visits to the area could mean small business opportunities for Ka’u residents, such as bed and breakfasts and other traveler services.
The Public Reacts
To gauge public support for the Kahuku Ranch acquisition, the Park Service held three public meetings in February 2000: in Hilo, South Kona, and Na`alehu in Ka`u. Karen Blue, executive director of the Conservation Council for Hawaii, which supports the proposed park expansion, attended all three public meetings and says she heard overwhelming support for the ranch purchase at all three meetings. “At the meeting in Hilo,” she says, “Jim Martin asked people who were opposed to the park expansion to raise their hands. And in a room of over a hundred people, only three hands went up.”
Almost all the objections to the ranch acquisition center around hunting. Mouflon sheep, native to Europe and an endangered species in their home range, were introduced to the Big Island in the late 1950s and now number in the thousands. Eugene Yap of South Point Safaris leads guided hunts on the property, and local hunters sometimes bag sheep that wander off the ranch and onto the state-owned Ka`u and Kalapana forest reserves, which adjoin the property. Local hunters would like to see their opportunities to hunt mouflon expand rather than contract. Richard Hoeflinger, president of the 385-member Pig Hunters of Hawai`i, says, “Park policy will be to exterminate the mouflon, and we will lose a valuable game animal on the island of Hawai`i.” Hoeflinger would like to see part of the ranch acquired as a preserve where hunting is allowed.
Jon Sabati, chair of the Hawaiian Hunting Advisory Council and president of the state chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation, agrees. “The mouflon is a valuable animal,” he says. “If the state were smart, they would recognize it and capitalize on it.” And Tom Lodge, also a member of Pig Hunters of Hawaii, says hunters also wonder whether the park has the resources to properly manage the land after the purchase. “They aren’t taking good care of what they have now,” he says.
Martin counters that at present, hunters aren’t allowed on the ranch; park ownership would provide at least temporary hunting opportunities. “We’d use the general public to assist us in the removal of feral animals. They’d be part of our resource management team,” he says. But, acknowledges that the “sustainable yield” of game animals hunters desire is not part of the park’s plan.
Despite their concerns, both Hoeflinger and Sabati acknowledged that making Kahuku Ranch part of the park would bring some benefits to the community, particularly through the protection of Hawaiian cultural sites.
Says Blue of the Conservation Council, “For the economy, for the environment, and for cultural preservation, I think the land acquisition is a win-win situation.”
— Cynthia Berger
Volume 12, Number 4 October 2001
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