Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 14, Number 9, 1 September 1997 — PHOTO: KEONI FAIRBANKS Healing Kanaloa [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PHOTO: KEONI FAIRBANKS Healing Kanaloa

A long struggle wins Kaho'olawe haek for the people of Hawai'i, more effort is needed to heal the island, rav - aged by military practice bombing since World War II.

By Snsan Esso_van With the award thi month of a U.S. Navy contract to remove weapone and ammunihon and restore the island, the desolate island will heeome a beehive of activity. Congress has appropriated roughly $40 milhon a year for the elean-up effort sched uled through 2003. "Huge amounts of money and resources will be pouring into the island over the next seven years — and then it's goin; to go away," said Keoni Fairbanks, executive director of the Kaho'olawe Island Reserve Com mission, whieh manages the island. "The question is how ean we conduct the ordnance eleanup in a way that accomplishes more than one purpose, so that when the Navy goes away, we're left with more than elean dirt. We need to heal the land and stop th< erosion." The Navy will continue to control access to the island during the eleanup, because of the danger of unexploded ordnance. The Kaho'olawe Island Reserve Commission (KIRC) manages the island as part of the state's land trust. Onee a sovereign native Hawaiian entity is recognized by the state and federal government Kaho'olawe will be transferred tc the group's control. The commission has mapped out a future centered on the island's natural and cultural assets. That vision is detailed in Palapala Ho'onohonoho Moku'āina o Kaho'olawe, the Kaho'olawe Use Plan. It sets priorities for the Navy eleanup, and describes how areas may be used for educational/ cultural centers or botanical preserves. Commercial activity is prohibited. As they seek to restore life to battered laiad, the managers of Kaho'olawe face huge challenges: unexploded ammunihon, massive soil erosion and almost no fresh water. Military shelling and overgrazing by feral goats have reduced the top third of the island to barren hardpan. Soil must be stabilized, vegetation reestablished, and the water table recharged. The commission also faces poliheal land mines in the eompeting demands from people with a stake in the island and its waters. Archaeologists want left f 1 | ! r ■

untouched sites where Hawaiians seek to revive ancient practices and use the wahi pana [storied s places]. Hardier, but controversial, alien plants may be necessary to establish a foothold for > fragile indigenous plants. The commission recently ignited a firefight when it voted to close Kaho'olawe's waters entirely to commercial fishing for a year. Maui fishermen who have harvested those waters for generations are protesting the blanket prohibition whieh goes into effect several months from now. "The commissioners really agonized over this," Fairbanks y explained. "People felt for the Maui community. But the eommission sees a higher purpose. The other Hawaiian islands are in the western commercial system. Because of its cultural significance : and importance as a demonstration of native Hawaiian stewardship, we want to keep Kaho'olawe free of commercial use." The Kaho'olawe Use Plan is s based on the philosophy of aloha 'āina. Rather than western tools, planners relied on the ancient Hawaiian watershed divisions to map out the island's 28,800 acres. Kaho'olawe was one ahupua'a, with pie-shaped wedges known

; as ih. A 19th century map of the ancient 'ili forms the basis for the new use nlan.

, The plan envi i sions hikmg trails leadI inv

mauka from the various 'ih to Kaho'olawe's dirt road spine. A coastline trail is also proposed. Most of the island will remain kula, or open land. Thousands of acres requiring revegetal tion and soil stabilization have been identified. The plan also pinpoints sites for Kahua Kauhale (educational/ cultural centers); Kahua Ho'omoana (overnight eamp sites); Kahua Kahiko (eultural/historical preserves); Kihāpai Ho'oulu Mea Kanu/Pūnāwai (nurseries and reservoirs); and Nā mea kanu/Nā holoholona a me nā i'a (botanical and wildlife preserves).

"There are few places left in today's Hawai'i where one ean go to learn about being Hawaiian," the commission says. "Kaho'olawe offers such a plaee." Inhabited for over 1,000 years, Kaho'olawe was also known as Kanaloa, after the god

ot tne oeean and me toundations i of the earth. Pre-contact Hawaiians fished, farmed and lived in settlements across the island. Midden — shells and other food remains — is scattered across the top of the island, where farmers worked. Kaho'olawe's adze quarry is the second largest in the islands. Numerous ko'a (fishing shrines) dot its coastline, including some of the best preserved in the islands. "It is as if the people walked away just yesterday," said Hōkūlani Holt Padilla, eultural coordinator for KIRC, who is helping develop a protocol for culturally appropriate conduct and standards. The entire island is on the Nahonal Register of Historic PIaces. The proposed Honokoa Cultural Preserve would set aside a valley rich in archaeology to remain untouched. Other areas may be allocated to modern-day cultural activity. But that is tricky. Some observers object to Protect Kaho'olawe 'Ohana's contemporary shrine at the adze quarry, for example, as a change to the historic site.

"The question is, 'How do we provide for continuing cultural use of the sites and how does it fit into the archaeological plan?"' Fairbanks said. "The [state] Historic Sites Division wants a management plan for these sites." Along with site protection and oeean management, the eommission is preparing for restoration and revegetation. Its plan should be submitted for public review in September. The ultimate goal (see sidebar) envisions an island lush with native plant and animal life. Getting there from here, however, whl be a huge task. The southern cliffs of Kaho'olawe harbor 14 rare plants,

including Ka Palupalu o Kanaloa (Kanaloa kahoolawensis), a genus recently discovered, but most of its land Ls hardpan, barren, or covered with alien vegetation, Most of the groundwater is now brackish. The island is windswept and its west coast receives barely 10 inches of rain a year. "There has always been an indigenous, intuitive link to the land," Fairbanks said. "At the same time, historic forces have utterly devastated the island. lt will require some innovation, some mcxlern assistance, and maybe even some exotic plants to help in stabilization, only as a means of creating a better habitat for native plants. We're talking about a several-generation plan." The tamarisk windbreaks planted by the state and the Navy, for example, have not spread, and have encouraged such natives as pili, 'ilima and 'a'ali'i. Restoring the island from the top down makes sense. Mountains tops are sacred to Hawaiians. Stabilizing the top will reduce erosion and help prevent unexploded ordnance from migrating downhill. The commission hopes to restore the island in such a way that it will not need irrigation after a few summers. "The Navy will start at the summit and move out in eoneentric circles," Fairbanks said. "We will have to balance that with the need to clear coastal areas for eulturaluses." The island's restoration will not be complete the Nav/s departure in 2003, and the job will become tougher with military Iogistical support gone. Revegetation is labor intensive, and will require hundreds of energetic, well-equipped voIunteers for many years. Roughing it is part of — the Kaho'olawe experience. Visitors with the Protect Kaho'olawe 'Ohana have to wade or swim from their boats to the beach at Hakioawa, lugging their A belongings in waterproof '/ garbage bags. Onee ashore, they proceed on foot Fairbanks noted, however, that "if you have to be there to take care of the plaee, you've got to be practical. We have to have ways to move volunteers around to do the work to heal the island." ■ At press time, Ka Wai Ola learned the Naiy had axvarded a $280 milliem contract for ordnance eleanup to a joint venture of Parsons Infrastructure and Technology Group ofCalifomia and UXB Intermtional of Virginia. The team also includes one Virginia-based and six loeal suhcontractors. Aeiual clearanee work will st art within three to six months under the mamgement of the Pearl Harbor Base Commander.

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