Natural Area Reserves were created to preserve the state’s most pristine natural areas, not to be playgrounds. Most NARs are remote and “safe” from humans. Lately, however, commercial tour operators have been targeting the more accessible NARs, adding yet another burden to the Natural Area Reserve System’s already taxed staff.
At the NARS commission meeting last September, commissioners and NARS staff discussed the growing pressure of ecotourism.
‘Ahihi-Kina’u is already being inundated by tourists and is by far the NAR most affected by commercial use. On a recent visit, Maui NAR manager Bill Evanson found dozens of parked cars at the reserve and even more kayakers in the water before 8 a.m. He adds that two kayak vendors have already gotten into a fight over the area, landing one of them in jail.
‘Ahihi-Kina’u is the system’s first reserve, and unlike other NARs, it includes a marine area. The terrain is dry, mostly a’a lava, but toward the sea, there are anchialine pools and coastal lava tubes.
There are five or six commercial tour companies using the area, Division of Forestry and Wildlife administrator Mike Buck told the NARS commission at its meeting last September. Sixty to 80 people a day are kayaking there, he said, and tour companies are charging people $75 for a half-day of kayaking.
It’s “almost, but not quite, out of control,” he told the commission, adding that the volunteer group Friends of Keonio’io have counted 300 cars a day visiting the area.
‘Ahihi-Kina’u needs an ambassador, Buck said, someone part traffic cop, part naturalist/educator.
Managing commercial activity in natural areas is something the Department of Land and Natural Resources has grappled with for years, the banning of commercial boats from Kaua’i’s Hanalei River being perhaps the most contentious and publicized example. Kane’ohe Bay, state hiking trails, and Hanauma Bay have also been places where commercial use, public access and resource protection have clashed.
About two years ago, the Land Board adopted a policy on management of public resources: The resource came first, followed by the public, then commercial interests. That hierarchy is used by the Land Board and the DLNR’s trails program, but until now, the NARS commission has never dealt with commercial use head on.
Last November, the DLNR revised its rules, including those covering NARs, on commercial use to improve enforcement against commercial operators that sell tours of state-owned areas off site. In the past, “court rulings have required that the State prove that money be exchanged on the state property,” states a staff report by former DLNR deputy director Linnel Nishioka.
The new rules prohibit commercial activity on forest reserves, parks, NARs, and unencumbered state lands without a written permit from the Board of Land and Natural Resources, regardless of where those activities were sold.
Over the last year, the NARS has received only a couple of permit requests for commercial acclimatization hikes on the Big Island, and no permits have been issued to date. And at ‘Ahihi-Kina’u, Evanson says DLNR staff is still trying to assess how to deal with the commercial operators that have proliferated in the area.
Because ‘Ahihi-Kina’u’s natural resources (coral, marine life, etc.) don’t appear to be affected by the tourists, Buck and Evanson think some commercial use could be allowed at ‘Ahihi-Kina’u. But the level it’s at now is crowding out the public, and Buck said, “We let the operators know that the status quo is going to change.”
NARS commissioner Pat Conant asked if the DLNR’s Division of Conservation and Resource Enforcement was capable of policing commercial users.
Buck said that on Maui, DOCARE officers were eager to control commercial activity, so much so that, “If they had it their way, they’d want to ban all commercial use.” But, he added, “Yes, it would be easier, but how realistic is it…If I run through the hierarchy, the issue is more a public access one, not so much a resource issue.”
Buck said the money NARS might collect from commercial permits could be used to help pay for the “ambassador” the area needs.
The National Parks have a major concession program that brings money in to help with management. NARS Commissioner Sheila Conant said that at the Hakalau National Wildlife Refuge, visitors aren’t charged much, “but it is very, very restrictive. Tourists must be accompanied by a guide.” NARS Commissioner Reggie David added that commercial operators are allowed four trips per year at Hakalau. The state’s own trails program, Na Ala Hele, took in $57,000 and spent $22,000 last year.
NARS program manager Randy Kennedy told the commission that monitoring of impacts will start as soon as NARS issues its first permit. Without proper monitoring, he said, “it will be like Hanalei where they question the effects” when the time comes to limiting use of the resource.
Pat Conant, who has expressed aversion to commercial uses in NARS in the past, said he didn’t want NARS staff “stuck with monitoring on top of everything else they do.”
NARS Commission chair Annette Kaohelauli’i then asked, “What would happen if we said no to commercial use? It would be worse than Hanauma Bay.”
To Evanson, Hanauma Bay’s efforts to stem the flood of visitors that were wrecking the bay could be implemented at ‘Ahihi-Kina’u. Limiting parking and regulating buses dropping people off are just some examples, he told Environment Hawai’i.
The commission is clearly still debating the issue. Kennedy reported that the NARS commercial use task force had had two meetings so far, and concluded that NARS rules allow commercial use.
“The task force is looking into whether the NARS should make money to defray costs of the use. It’s a big step to take. Once you start charging, liability issues surface. There are also cross-jurisdiction issues,” he said.
The task force has identified NARS areas where commercial uses can and can’t be allowed. Of the 21 reserves, the task force recommended that all commercial use be prohibited from the Oloku’i NAR on Moloka’i. The other 20 can accommodate commercial filming.
Areas where commercial uses other than filming need to be addressed are Hono O Na Pali and Ku’ia on Kaua’i; Ka’ena Point on O’ahu; ‘Ahihi-Kina’u on Maui, and Kahauale’a, Manuka, and Mauna Kea Ice Age NARs on the Big Island.
NARS Bills
In Maryland, homebuyers pay a real estate conveyance tax of $50 for every $1,000. In Hawai’i, on the other hand, the tax is only $1 per $1,000. That rate, the Trust for Public Land has found, is the lowest in the nation, and some local environmentalists are saying it should be increased to help protect the state’s most pristine forests and unique geologic and marine areas.
Hawai’i generates roughly $10 million a year in conveyance taxes, 25 percent of which goes into a Natural Area Reserve Fund, to help protect ecologically valuable, privately owned land. The best state-owned parcels, however, are not eligible for those funds.
This Legislative session, the state’s Natural Area Reserve System has a chance at receiving a set portion of conveyance tax revenue. House Bill 1271 and Senate Bill 1517, known as the Kokua bills, call for doubling the current conveyance tax from 10 to 20 cents per $100, and for increasing the amount that the Natural Area Reserves Fund gets to 35 percent. (Right now, half of the conveyance tax revenue goes into the general fund, and the other half is split equally between the Rental Housing Fund and the Natural Area Reserves Fund.)
In addition to raising the amount the NAR Fund receives, the bills would also add the NARS to the scope of eligible NAR Fund projects. The NARS has traditionally received its support from the general fund. And over the past decade or so, the NARS annual budget has shrunk from $2.5 million in 1991 to $1.2 million in 2002.
Working against the Kokua bills is Senate bill 871, which would cut the current NAR Fund allocation in half, from 25 percent of conveyance tax revenues to 12.5 percent. The remaining 12.5 percent would go to the Housing and Community Development Corporation of Hawai’i for programs for the homeless.
Conservation Council for Hawai’i submitted testimony on the bill asking that the homeless program appropriation come from the general fund’s portion instead of cutting into the NAR Fund.
Hunting Bill
While all bills dealing with invasive species control indirectly affect the NARS, Senate bill 1076 directly addresses the way ungulates are controlled in the reserves. NARS staff currently employs a host of control methods, such as snares, helicopter shooting trips, and public hunting.
Bill 1076, however, would have the Department of Land and Natural Resources designate public hunting as the primary means of controlling game animals in the NARS. It also seems to miss the point of the NARS, stating that the population of those destructive animals be at “an acceptable habitat-carrying capacity.”
NARS Accepts TNC Management Plans The NARS commission approved the Nature Conservancy Hawai’i’s request for another six years to manage reserves at Kanepu’u on Lana’i, Kapunakea in West Maui, and Pelekunu on Moloka’i.
TNC manages these areas with assistance from the state’s Natural Area Partnership Program, which provides matching funds ($2 state to $1 private) for management of special lands. All three reserves have received NAPP funds since 1992.
TNC’s FY 2004-2009 plan for the 590 acres it manages at Kanepu’u seeks $944,850 in state funds for ungulate, weed, small mammal, and fire control, as well as restoration, monitoring, research, community outreach, and watershed partnerships.
The conservancy plans to install stainless-steel wire fences at Kanepu’u. Standard at New Zealand deer farms, but never used here, the wire cost double what regular wire does, but it’s worth it not having to spend so much time rebuilding fences, a TNC representative told the NARS Commission.
For Kapunakea, home to a rare montane bog, TNC is seeking $883,813. The preserve was established in 1992 when sugar plantation Pioneer Mill Company gave the conservancy an easement for 1,264 acres. The Pu’u Kukui watershed management area and the Honokowai section of the West Maui NAR are adjacent to Kapunakea, and together, these areas include more than 13,000 acres.
The conservancy is seeking $882,705 for Pelekunu, which is one of three NAPP preserves that TNC manages on Moloka’i, the other two being Mo’omomi and Kamakou. Together, the areas total 10,000 acres. The Pelekunu preserve contains a rare “Hawaiian Continuous Perennial Stream community” which, according to a TNC report, is found in fewer than 20 sites worldwide.
TNC’s management plans still must go through an environmental assessment and receive approval from Board of Land and Natural Resources, processes that will likely take several months.
— Teresa Dawson
Volume 13, Number 9 March 2003
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