By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
The area around Pali Highway is now filled with trees, but it wasn't
always that way. A new agreement will help protect the forest.

Groups unite for
Koolau watershed

A total of 23 partners will work
for Oahu's environmental health

By Susan Kreifels
Star-Bulletin

In the 1920s there was hardly a tree along the Pali Highway.

The islands had lost a lot of their forests to wild cattle, fires and "people not paying attention" to Hawaii's water supply, said Michael Buck, administrator of the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife.

That spurred the private sector and territorial government to push laws for animal control, fencing and reforestation, including the heavy forests that now make the Pali one of Oahu's most scenic drives.

Last week, seven private and government organizations signed a memorandum of understanding to manage the watershed in 100,000 acres of Oahu's Koolau Mountains, an agreement that Buck called a new version of environmental efforts started in Hawaii a century ago.

A total of 23 partners, most of them private landowners, will work together to protect the watershed in a consortium similar to East and West Maui Partnerships, which already are at work preserving forested watersheds on the Valley Isle.

The memorandum was signed at a ceremony at Ho'omaluhia Botanical Gardens in Kaneohe.

The major landowners were the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate, the city, the Army, the Queen Emma Foundation, Agribusiness Development Corp. and Bishop Museum.

Two-thirds of the Koolaus is under private ownership, Buck said. "Approaching this with voluntary incentive-type programs and having a common value for the protection of the watershed seems the best way to work."

The Koolau Mountains Watershed Partnership will develop a management plan including access development, noxious weed and animal control, and volunteer work programs.

The Army will provide funds and management for the Kawailoa Training Area within the watershed.

The partnership does not involve water allocation, Buck said.

He said such a partnership focuses public attention on the importance of watershed management.

"We can't take this for granted," Buck said. "It won't take a lot of resources compared to the value of what flows out of the watershed. We need to work together."

Buck said the forestry division is the oldest such organization west of the Mississippi River. "I don't think any other state is as far along in trying to deal with these issues on such a large-scale cooperative nature," Buck said about the partnerships.