General | Page 251 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

December 14, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mauka-Makai Watch

Before I became Chair and Director of the Department of Land and Natural Resources I was Deputy Managing Director for Hawaiʻi County. I had regular (daily) interaction with the Police Department on a wide variety of issues.

Police tell us that an engaged community is one of the best ways to reduce crime. They then help organize and support Neighborhood Watch programs across the Islands.

It’s a program that discourages preventable crime by organizing awareness meetings to help neighbors get to know one another and look out for each other, and recognize and report suspicious activity.

At DLNR, we initiated the Mauka-Makai Watch program. It’s modeled after the successful Neighborhood Watch program; the intent is to get communities working with resource managers and enforcement.

However, here community volunteers focus on natural and cultural resources, especially the coastline and nearshore waters, when partnering with Department of Land and Natural Resources DLNR enforcement officers.

The program incorporated experience DLNR had with the Miloliʻi community, with the assistance of The Nature Conservancy and the Community Conservation Network, as well as with the Wai ‘Opae community.

The Mauka-Makai Watch program is based on the idea that the people who use, live closest to or are involved with the resources are in the best position to help in ensuring compliance with resource protection and preservation. Think of it as a community “watch” program in the forests and/or coastal areas.

It’s not about vigilantism or exclusion, but simply a willingness to help prevent wrong-doing through presence and education, look out for suspicious activity, monitor and care for the resources, and report inappropriate activity to law enforcement and to each other.

The program is flexible and versatile; it can focus on marine and coastal related context under a “Makai Watch” reference, or it can center on forest, hunting or other inland issues under a “Mauka Watch” reference. Or, it can incorporate a broad, comprehensive network linking inland and coastal matters under a Mauka-Makai Watch.

Most attention has been to the “Makai” aspect of the program. Makai Watch focuses on caring for near-shore marine resources with the active participation of local communities.

Makai Watch volunteers in over ten communities across the state serve as the ‘eyes and ears’ for conservation and resource enforcement officials (DLNR-DOCARE), as well as help monitor and protect the resources.

The Makai Watch Program was initially created as a partnership effort by the DLNR and several non-governmental organizations including Community Conservation Network (CCN), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Hawaii Wildlife Fund (HWF) and several community-based organizations.

Community-supported natural and cultural resource protection and preservation programs represent a win-win opportunity. DLNR wants and needs citizens to take more personal and collective responsibility for protecting the resources.

Over the years, DLNR has developed various programs to involve communities in resource protection and management. Until now, these programs worked interdependently and, although very successful, lacked a coordinated effort by the department.

When the community is part of an ongoing stewardship-type presence and educational outreach, they can help monitor and care for the resources. This protection can also extend to being aware of suspicious activity, and reporting it to each other and law enforcement.

The Makai Watch Program has grown over the past 10-years and DLNR partners with communities and non-governmental organizations including The Nature Conservancy, Kua‘aina Ulu Auamo, Hawai‘i Wildlife Fund, Project SEA-Link and funding provided by Conservation International Hawaii and the Harold K Castle Foundation.

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December 10, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Watershed Partnerships

I have often said these are one of Hawai‘i’s best untold stories.

Let’s look back …

Hawaiʻi’s native forests evolved over millions of years to become one of the most remarkable natural assemblages on Earth. Yet since the onset of human arrival, about 1,000-years ago, their history has largely been one of loss and destruction.

The worst damage occurred during the 19th century, when cattle and other introduced livestock were allowed to multiply and range unchecked throughout the Islands, laying waste to hundreds of thousands of acres of native forest.

The situation became so dire that the captains of government and industry realized that if the destruction continued there would be no water for growing sugarcane, the Islands’ emerging economic mainstay. (TNC)

On May 13, 1903, the Territory of Hawaiʻi, with the backing of the Hawaiʻi Sugar Planters’ Association, established the Board of Commissioners of Agriculture and Forestry. (HDOA)

That year, the Territorial Legislature created Hawaiʻi’s forest reserve system, ushering in a new era of massive public-private investment in forest restoration.

With Hawai‘i’s increase in population, expanding ranching industry, and extensive agricultural production of sugarcane and later pineapple, early territorial foresters recognized the need to protect mauka (upland) forests to provide the necessary water requirements for the lowland agriculture demands and surrounding communities. (DOFAW)

After more than a century of massive forest loss and destruction, the Territory of Hawai‘i acknowledged that preservation of the forest was vital to the future economic prosperity of the Islands.

While forest reserves were important watersheds, their boundaries were drawn “so as not to interfere with revenue-producing lands,” and such lands were not generally thought to be useful for agriculture. (hawaii-edu)

Forest reserves were useful for two primary purposes: water production for the Territory’s agricultural industries, and timber production to meet the growing demand for wood products. The forest reserve system should not lead to “the locking up from economic use of a certain forest area.” (Hosmer)

Even in critical watersheds the harvesting of old trees “is a positive advantage, in that it gives the young trees a chance to grow, while at the same time producing a profit from the forests.” (LRB)

Forest Reserves are commonly known and were critical steps forward in protecting our mauka resources. But, while they are the foundation of the focus of this summary, it is what happened 100-years later, and that continue today, that folks should also be aware of … Watershed Partnerships.

Watershed Partnerships are voluntary alliances of private and public landowners and others working collaboratively with common goals of conservation, preservation and management of Hawai‘i’s precious natural and cultural resources to protect forested watersheds for water recharge, conservation and other ecosystem services.

The first Watershed Partnership was formed in 1991 on East Maui when several public and private landowners realized the benefits of working together to ensure the conservation of a shared watershed that provided billions of gallons of fresh water to the area.

In the following years six more watershed partnerships formed including, Koʻolau Mountains Watershed Partnership, East Molokai Watershed Partnership, West Maui Mountains Watershed Partnership, Lanaʻi Forest and Watershed Partnership, The Kauai Watershed Alliance, Kohala Watershed Partnership. The success of these partnerships highlighted the need to address watershed issues statewide.

One of the first forestry-related actions I worked on while I was Chair of DLNR related to Watershed Partnerships. We worked to get the independent Watershed Partnerships into a cooperative association.

On April 24, 2003, the 100th-anniversary of Hawaiʻi’s Forest Reserve System, Governor Linda Lingle and the seven existing watershed partnerships signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) formally recognizing the State’s dedication to watershed protection and established the Hawai`i Association of Watershed Partnerships.

Four additional watershed partnerships, Leeward Haleakalā Watershed Restoration Partnership, Three Mountain Alliance, Waiʻanae Mountains Watershed Partnership and Mauna Kea Watershed Alliance have since been established. (HAWP)

Most management actions “blur” boundary lines (they are habitat, rather than ownership, based) and revolve around combating the main threats to forests: feral animals (such as goats, deer, sheep, pigs, etc) and invasive species.

Actions include fencing and animal removal, invasive species control, rare plant outplanting and native habitat restoration, and outreach and education.

These management actions make a critical difference by benefitting native forests, watersheds, coastal and coral reef areas by reducing erosion and sedimentation run-off into streams.

Together, eleven separate partnerships involve approximately 75 private landowners and public agencies that cover nearly 2-million acres of land in the state (about half the land area of the state.) There is no model like it with respect to watershed management breadth, scope and success.

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Native forest, Alakai Plateau, Kauai

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Aerial of Olokele Valley, Kauai

Iliiliula north falls with ohia lehua blossom in foreground, Kauai

Iliiliula North Falls, Kauai

Laau ridge, Alakai region, Kauai

Native landscape, Kalalau Valley, Na Pali coast, Kauai

Native landscape,Alakai Plateau, Kauai

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Watershed Partnerships State-map

December 6, 2015 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

‘It’s Different’

These weren’t the words expected by the questioner in my response to what I thought about my first trip into the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (now the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.)

I think she was expecting words like: spectacular, pristine, resource rich, special, abundant, etc.

Yes, it’s all those descriptors, too; and for me, therefore, “different.”

I wasn’t trying to be cute, but, rather, acknowledge the responsibility we faced in protecting this place. (I have been to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands several times, each time reinforced the feeling.)

My first trip – a 3 ½ plane ride there, 3 ½ hours on the ground and 3 ½ hours back – was to Tern Island at French Frigate Shoals (it looks like an aircraft carrier in the reef.)

French Frigate Shoals is the largest atoll in the chain, taking the form of an 18-mile long crescent. It is estimated to be 12.3 million years old.

Tern Island (approximately 30-acres) in the atoll is the site of a Fish & Wildlife Service field station, which occupies a former U.S. Coast Guard Long-Range Aids to Navigation (LORAN) station that closed in 1979.

A relatively deep (80 to 100 feet) coral reef at this atoll has been recently discovered to function as a spawning site for Ulua (the giant trevally); a rare discovery of spawning sites for top predators.

The lagoon is also unusual in that it contains two exposed volcanic pinnacles representing the last vestiges of the high island from which the atoll was derived, as well as nine low, sandy islets.

The sand islets are small, shift position, and disappear and reappear. These islets provide important habitat for the world’s largest breeding colony of the endangered Hawaiian monk seal.

On a tour around Tern Island we saw monk seals and turtles resting on the sandy shore, as well markings in the sand of a turtle who laid her eggs the night before.

And lots of birds … mostly terns —> Tern Island.

On that trip, we were unexpectedly greeted by Jean-Michel Cousteau; he was on the island during his filming of “Voyage to Kure.”

Here’s a link to the Google ‘Street View’ on Tern Island.

https://goo.gl/fE0dni

I also visited Midway. Look at a map of the Pacific and you understand the reasoning for the “Midway” reference (actually, it’s a little closer to Asia than it is to the North American continent.)

Kuaiheilani, suggested as a mythical place, is the traditional name for what we refer to as Midway Atoll. Described in the legend of Aukelenuiaiku, the origin of this name can be traced to an ancient homeland of the Hawaiian people, located somewhere in central Polynesia. (Kikiloi)

According to historical sources, this island was used by Native Hawaiians even in the late-1800s as a sailing point for seasonal trips to this area of the archipelago.

The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and in particular Midway Atoll, became a potential commodity in the mid-19th century. The United States took formal possession of Midway Atoll in August of 1867 by Captain William Reynolds of the USS Lackawanna.

Midway’s importance grew for commercial and military planners. The first transpacific cable and station were in operation by 1903. In the 1930s, Midway became a stopover for the Pan American Airways’ flying “clippers” (seaplanes) crossing the ocean on their five-day transpacific passage.

The United States was inspired to invest in the improvement of Midway in the mid-1930s with the rise of imperial Japan. In 1938 the Army Corps of Engineers dredged the lagoon during this period and, in 1938, Midway was declared second to Pearl Harbor in terms of naval base development in the Pacific.

The construction of the naval air facility at Midway began in 1940. At that time, French Frigate Shoals was also a US naval air facility. Midway also became an important submarine advance base.

Here’s a link to the Google ‘Street View’ on Midway Atoll.

https://goo.gl/NaAi28

Here’s a short video of some of the albatross on Midway.

https://youtu.be/cG7JOpL2tEA

Here’s a link to the Google ‘Street View’ on Laysan Island.

https://goo.gl/63WGFK

Here’s a link to the Google ‘Street View’ on Lisianski Island.

https://goo.gl/e8kYHW

Here’s a link to the Google ‘Street View’ on Pearl and Hermes Atoll.

https://goo.gl/9kuFWZ

While I was Chair at DLNR, we created the Refuge rules whose intent is “To establish a marine refuge in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands for the long-term conservation and protection of the unique coral reef ecosystems and the related marine resources and species, to ensure their conservation and natural character for present and future generations.“ Fishing is prohibited.

This started a process where several others followed with similar protective measures. The BLNR unanimously adopted the State’s Refuge rules, President Bush declared it a Marine National Monument and UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site.

Some ask why we imposed such stringent limitations on use in this area. For me, it ended up to be pretty simple; it is the responsibility we share to future generations, to allow them to see what it looks like at a place in the world where you don’t take something.

Check out more on the Monument (look at the Images and Videos, you’ll see this place really is different:) http://www.papahanaumokuakea.gov

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Clouds of reef fish and corals, French frigate shoals, NWHI

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Jean-Michel Cousteau – PTY

Heading out to French Frigate Shoals

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December 2, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Niitaka Yama Nobore

The Qing dynasty (Manchu dynasty,) ruling from 1644 to 1912, was the last imperial dynasty of China. The First Sino-Japanese War (August 1, 1894 – April 17, 1895) was fought between the Qing Empire of China and the Empire of Japan.

The primary interest was control of Korea. As part of that war, in March 1895, Japan forces attacked the Chinese-controlled Taiwan. Japan won that battle and the war.

The Treaty of Shimonoseki ended the First Sino-Japanese War and through it China gave full control of Korea and Taiwan to Japan. Taiwan (also referred to as Formosa) was under Japanese rule from 1895 and 1945.

“In the heart of the savage territory of the island of Formosa rises Mt Morrison, the highest mountain in the Orient, east of the Himalayas. …”

“The mountain was so named to commemorate the memory of the Reverend Robert Morrison, the first protestant missionary to China … in the year 1842.” (Arnold, 1908)

“When the Japanese took possession of Formosa in the year 1895 she re-christened the mountain Niitaka-yama, which means new high mountain; Fuji-yama, sacred to the heart of every Japanese, being thus relegated to the position of old high mountain.” (Arnold, 1908)

The renaming of the mountain “Nii-taka-yama, that is, the ‘New High Mountain,’ (is an) allusion to the fact that this (was) the last to be added to the empire, being also the highest, – higher than Fuji itself.” (Handbook for Travellers in Japan, 1903)

Then, on December 2, 1941 (Tokyo Time,) a coded message, ‘Niitakayama Nobore’ (“Climb Mount Niitaka”) was sent to all Imperial Japanese Navy units.

Approaching the International Date Line from the west at that time were six Japanese aircraft carriers, Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, Hiryu, Shokaku and Zuikaku, along with over ten escorts and supply ships.

Receiving this signal Vice Admiral Nagumo Chuichi, went to his cabin onboard his flagship, the aircraft carrier Akagi, and opened a set of Top Secret documents, which told him, and those that opened the same order throughout the fleet, that on December 8 (the 7th on the Pearl Harbor side of the International Date Line) Japan would be going to war. (Johnson)

Previously, the Japanese force assembled 2 battleships, 6 carriers, 3 cruisers, approximately 20 destroyers and 5 submarines, including midgets which were carried by mother submarines.

The force departed at 6 am, November 26, Japan time, and set an indirect northern course for the next rendezvous, 200 miles north of Oahu. On December 6, when the force was still 800 miles north of O‘ahu; it received the long awaited code message.

When the Japanese attacked, 86 vessels, including 8 battleships, 7 cruisers, 28 destroyers and 5 submarines, plus the usual complement of small craft, were based in the harbor (there were no aircraft carriers moored at Pearl Harbor at the time.) (Morris)

In the Islands, the message: “Air Raid, Pearl Harbor. This is no drill” came at 0755 on December 7, as Japanese planes swept overhead in an attempt to cripple the Pacific Fleet.

The first wave of 183-planes (43-fighters, 49-high-level bombers, 51-dive bombers and 40-torpedo planes) struck its targets at 7:55 am. The second wave of 167-Japanese planes (35-fighters, 54-horizontal bombers and 78-dive bombers) struck Oʻahu beginning at 8:40 am.

By 9:45 am, the Japanese attack on Oʻahu was over.

(Today, Niitakayama is known as Mount Yushan (Jade Mountain) and is part of Yushan National Park, the largest national park in Taiwan.)

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Mt Jade Park Monument-Yushan

A crowd of hikers gathers on Jade Mountain Main Peak to view the sunrise.

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Mt Jade Park trail

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November 28, 2015 by Peter T Young 9 Comments

The Pali

In the early nineteenth century there were three routes from Honolulu to Windward Oʻahu: around the island by canoe; through Kalihi Valley and over the pali by ropes and ladders; and over Nuʻuanu Pali, the easiest, quickest and most direct route.

The first foreigner to descend the Pali and record his trip was Hiram Bingham (my great-great-great grandfather.) His zeal for spreading the word of God led him to take a group of missionaries over the Pali to the Koʻolaupoko area in 1821.

The current Pali Highway is actually the third roadway to be built there. A large portion of the highway was built over the ancient Hawaiian foot paths that traversed the famous Pali pass.

In 1845 the first road was built over the Nuʻuanu Pali to connect Windward Oʻahu with Honolulu. It was jointly financed by the government and sugar planters who wanted easy access to the fertile lands on the windward side of Oʻahu. Kamehameha III and two of his attendants were the first to cross on horseback.

A legislative appropriation in 1857 facilitated road improvements that allowed the passage of carriages. The Rev. E. Corwin and Dr. G. P. Judd were the first to descend in this manner on September 12, 1861.

In 1897, Johnny Wilson and fellow Stanford student Louis Whitehouse won the bid to expand and construct a ‘carriage road’ over the Pali. Ground was broken on May 26, 1897 and the road was opened for carriages on January 19, 1898.

When the current Pali Highway and its tunnels opened (1959,) the original roadway up and over the Pali was closed and is now used by hikers.

I am old enough to have traveled (and young enough to still remember traveling) on the Old Pali Road over the Pali before the tunnels were built.

Living on the windward side and initially going to school and then in later years working in Honolulu, there was always a satisfaction of going through the tunnels and heading home, leaving the rest of the world behind you.

Folklore holds that you should never carry pork over Old Pali Highway, especially at night. Motorists reported that their cars mysteriously stopped and would not start until the pork was removed from the car.

The stories vary, but are rooted in the legendary relationship between fire goddess Pele and the demigod Kamapuaʻa (a half-man, half-pig.) The two agreed not to visit each other.

If one takes pork over the Pali, you are bringing a physical form of Kamapuaʻa into Pele’s territory and breaking their agreement. Some versions note a white dog appears when your car stalls.

The Pali was the site of the Battle of Nuʻuanu, one of the bloodiest battles in Hawaiian history, in which Kamehameha I conquered Kalanikupule of Oʻahu, bringing it under his rule.

In 1795 Kamehameha sailed from his home island of Hawaiʻi with an army of thousands of warriors, including a handful of non-Hawaiian foreigners.

The war apparently ends with some of Kalanikupule’s warriors pushed/jumping off the Pali. When the Pali Highway was being built, excavators counted approximately 800-skulls, believed to be the remains of the warriors who were defeated by Kamehameha.

If you’re driving up the Pali Highway from town you can see two notches cut in the narrow ridgeline. The notches are man-made. Many believe they were cannon emplacements, used especially during the Battle of Nuʻuanu between Oʻahu’s Kalanikupule and Hawaiʻi Island’s Kamehameha.

However, per Herb Kane, “Kalanikupule had some arms bigger than muskets, but they were probably just swivel guns. Besides, the Battle of Nu‘uanu Pali started as a skirmish by Diamond Head, and no one knew where the battle would end up. Kalanikupule could not have planned it that way.”

“Hawaiians, like everyone else, understood the value of high ground. These are certainly (pre-Cook) lookout stations, and that’s why you see them all over the islands – if you look out for them.”

Lili‘uokalani used to visit friends at their estate in Maunawili. She and her brother King David Kalākaua were regular guests and attended parties or simply came there to rest.

Guests, when leaving the home, would walk between two parallel rows of royal palms, farewells would be exchanged; then they would ride away on horseback or in their carriages.

On one trip, when leaving, Liliʻu witnessed a particularly affectionate farewell between a gentleman in her party and a lovely young girl from Maunawili.

As they rode up the Pali and into the swirling winds, she started to hum a melody weaving words into a romantic song. The Queen continued to hum and completed her song as they rode the winding trail down the valley back to Honolulu.

She put her words to music and as a result of that 1878 visit, she wrote “Aloha ‘Oe.”

The melody may have been derived from Croatian folk song (Subotika region) Sedi Mara Na Kamen Studencu (Girl On The Rock,) in 1857 published in Philadelphia by Charles Crozat Converse as The Rock Beside The Sea.

Aloha ʻOe was first introduced in America in 1883 by the Royal Hawaiian Band with Heinrich (Henry) Berger conducting.

(When Liliʻuokalani was imprisoned, Johnny Wilson’s mother Eveline (Townsend) Wilson was her lady in waiting. During her imprisonment, Queen Liliʻuokalani was denied any visitors – but Johnny would bring newspapers hidden in flowers from the Queen’s garden.)

(Reportedly, Liliʻuokalani’s famous song Kuʻu Pua I Paoakalani (written while imprisoned,) was dedicated to Wilson (it speaks of the flowers at her Waikiki home, Paoakalani.))

(The other early set of Koʻolau tunnels, first known as the Kalihi Tunnel (competed in 1960) were named in honor of Johnny Wilson. The H-3 tunnels are named after Tetsuo (Tets) Harano, a former DOT Highways administrator.)