More cash needed
to control harmful
miconia plant

By Gary Kubota
Star-Bulletin

WAILUKU -- A nonprofit group says a major population of an environmentally harmful plant has been confined to a 1,000-acre area in southeast Maui as a result of government help.

But Randal Bartlett, chairman of the Maui Invasive Species Committee, says that more government money is needed to halt the spread of miconia calvescens and that financial help is faltering.

The committee is seeking $674,000 for fiscal 1999-2000 to fight alien species, including miconia, a native of central America and southern Mexico.

Bartlett said the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation plans to give $206,200, but only if the project receives at least 2-1 in matching funds from the county and state.

"It'd be really a shame for us to lose this," he said.

Maui Mayor James "Kimo" Apana recently sent a letter, saying the administration would be unable to support the committee's funding request for the $175,000.

Environmentalists warn that, if left unchecked, miconia could spread as it did in Tahiti, where it has taken over 70 percent of the native forest.

The plant grows up to 40 feet tall and has large leaves that deprive sunlight to plants under it.

State officials said $235,000 in government funding for fiscal 1998-1999 enabled them to treat a dense area of miconia.

Robert Hobdy, state forestry manager for Maui County, said a five-person crew pulled out seedlings or cut and poisoned trees in a 950-acre area in the past 2-1/2 years.

Officials expect more seedlings to sprout after the initial eradication.

Hobdy said the plants flower and fruit more quickly once exposed to sunlight.

The Maui coalition is sharing information with counterparts on the Big Island, where miconia also has a presence.

Hobdy said the crew still has to pull out seedlings in the core area where mature plants have been killed and to destroy less dense populations of miconia spread across about 2,200 acres.