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We must boost protection
of life-giving watershed

The mountains that grace our islands provide not only verdant landscapes -- they also make up the watersheds that ensure the reliability and quality of our water and the health of our reefs and marine life.

Recognizing the economic value and biological wealth and fragility of the upland forests, private and public landowners began creating voluntary partnerships in the 1990s to protect these precious resources from the destruction wrought by non-native weeds and feral animals like goats, deer and pigs. Nine watershed partnerships now protect nearly 1 million acres of our most important forested lands.

The success of the watershed partnerships depends largely on the state Department of Land and Natural Resources' Natural Area Reserve Fund.

The NAR Fund supports the watershed partnerships and offers 2-to-1 matching funds for landowners who agree to protect their important forested lands in perpetuity. This reinforces companies' continued allocation of monies and man hours to watershed protection. Because the development, sale and improvement of real estate puts increased pressure on natural areas, water resources and watershed recharge areas, the NAR Fund is drawn from 25 percent of the conveyance tax, which is levied on real estate transactions (25 percent goes to the state Rental Housing Trust Fund and 50 percent goes to the General Fund).

The NAR Fund needs our support now. The state Legislature is debating several bills that could dramatically enhance the NAR Fund's ability to support conservation of our key upland forests. Two issues are of particular importance:

In traditional Hawaiian society, the connection between wai and wai wai was literal; in current-day deliberations, we must remember that the water that provides us with life, green mountains, a blue ocean and healthy reefs is also the source of our economic wealth.

Today, the DLNR receives only nine-tenths of 1 percent of the state budget. This is despite the fact that the DLNR manages 1.3 million acres of state land, all beaches, near shore waters and 750 miles of coastline (the fourth longest in the country). This does not compare well to other states such as Florida, which devoted 3.74 percent of its 2004-'05 state budget to the Department of Environmental Protection -- four times more than our state commits to DLNR. Nor are we fulfilling Article XI of our state Constitution, which stipulates, "(f)or the benefit of present and future generations, the state and its political subdivisions shall conserve and protect Hawaii's natural beauty and all natural resources, including land, water, air, minerals and energy sources ..."

Hawaii's ecosystems are linked to the condition of our watersheds, which in turn are rooted in our upland forests. The Legislature must enable us to take advantage of the current strong real estate market and the conveyance tax allocation to the NAR Fund to make significant investments in our watershed conservation and management programs. Future residents of Hawaii -- our descendants -- will measure our generation's wisdom by the degree of foresight we exercise during such times of abundance.

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