Paradise for UH? A site that once attracted tourists to Manoa Valley with tropical birds and botanical gardens may soon be a center for conservation biologists and archaeologists who would like to use the rainforest setting for ecosystem science.
The university negotiates to buy
the former Paradise Park for an
environmental study centerBy Treena Shapiro
tshapiro@starbulletin.comThe center would sit on land that includes the former Paradise Park in upper Manoa Valley.
The University of Hawaii is trying to buy 150 acres owned by the Roman Catholic Church, including 47.5 acres that used to be the park.
"We have signed a purchase agreement and we have a 90-day due diligence," said university spokesman Paul Costello.
The price will not be disclosed until the negotiations have been completed, he said.
With the purchase in the works, UH is now trying to determine how to best use the land, which neighbors UH's Lyon Arboretum, the state's Manoa Falls hiking trails and city Board of Water Supply land.
A bill under consideration by the Legislature would turn the site into the Pacific Ecosystem Science Center, providing office and research space for UH, federal and state land management and research agencies and private elements interested in land stewardship and conservation efforts.
The center would be funded with federal and state money.
Kenneth Kaneshiro, director for the UH Center for Conservation Research and Training, said the concept of the shared site came up more than 10 years ago.
Bringing all the conservation groups together could be a more effective way to meet Hawaii's environmental priorities, he said.
Hawaii has the highest number of endangered species in the country, due to habitat degradation and invasive species like miconia and coqui frogs. "We are really faced with an extinction crisis," Kaneshiro said.
In addition, the center would provide a site for the medical school to study linkages between ecosystem health and human health, addressing such problems as dengue fever, he said.
According to Kaneshiro, Hawaii is the best place in the world to study evolutionary biology.
He has studied the Drosphilia fruit fly since he was a sophomore at UH in 1963.
Already 550 fruit flies unique to Hawaii have been identified and another 250 to 300 are known to be in existence. The flies allow scientists to study morphology, mutation and DNA, as well as test some of the classical concepts of evolution, Kaneshiro explained.
Given a few decades, the Paradise Park site could become a model for restoration biology, he added, if the valley could be restored to its native ecosystem.
David Duffy, unit leader for the Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit, said that having a site five minutes away from the UH-Manoa campus gives researchers a place to survey vegetation and insects, look for frogs, sample streams and cultivate native species.
That kind of field work currently needs to be done on the North Shore, in Kaneohe or at the fish and wildlife reserve.
Duffy said that the university would want to involve the community in planning the research space.
One idea he had was working with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources to relieve some of the pressure on the Manoa Falls hiking trails, which recently closed because of a rock slide.
Due in part to the Sacred Falls closure in 1999, increased foot traffic at Manoa Falls has created a great deal of pressure in upper Manoa, Duffy said. He thinks there might be some way to help spread that pressure out.
"Right now there's no parking, there's no toilets and they don't have any land to solve this," he said. "Maybe we could be part of the solution for this. Maybe there's a way of routing trails so they don't all come to one little road."
University of Hawaii
