Counting the Acres in Forest Reserves

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By the 1930s, more than a million acres of land in Hawai`i had been placed in designated forest reserves. At the end of the 20th century, however, just 564,598 acres were included, according to the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife, part of the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

What happened?

Actually, no dramatic reduction in forest reserves was at work. Instead, according to DOFAW chief Mike Buck, the reduced numbers reflect only the state-owned lands in forest reserves. The 1930 figures included private lands as well, and today, most of these remain technically in the forest reserves, a fact reflected in their inclusion as part of the state Conservation District.

In fact, DOFAW’s statistics may be an underestimate of even what is in state-owned forest reserves. According to the <i.State of Hawai`i Data Book 2001, state forest reserve land covers 643,134 acres, while there are 328,742 acres of private forest land, most of which “were previously in the forest reserve system.” The state’s Natural Area Reserves account for another 109,164 acres. Altogether, then, the number of acres of “forest reserve,” “private forest land,” and “natural areas,” according to the Department of Business, Economic Development,and Tourism, came to roughly 1.08 million in 2001 – not that different from what it was seventy years ago.

But do private lands belong in the total today? Buck justified his exclusion of them by noting that at the time of the initial set-asides, the private lands were placed under a surrender agreement, with their owners consenting to their management as forest reserves in return for substantial tax considerations.

Yet at no time did the territorial government, responsible for nearly all of the forest reserve set-asides, require either the surrender agreement or even the consent of the landowners as a condition to including their lands in forest reserve designations. While this occurred most of the time, there were significant exceptions to the rule.

The process of set-aside was long and deliberative. First the superintendent of forestry recommended an area for reserve status to the Board of Agriculture and Forestry. This process itself was often arduous and took sometimes years, since the forester sought to achieve the consent of all the private interests who had a stake in the land to be set aside.

The Board of Agriculture and Forestry would then vote on the proposal. If it was approved, it would be forwarded to the governor. After a public hearing, the governor would then decide whether the proposed reserve should be added to the list of territorial forest reserves.

After designation, government lands were managed as forest reserves by the Forestry Division of the Bureau of Agriculture and Forestry. Private lands were managed in much the same way, usually – but not always — by their owners. If the lands were surrendered, the government would assume their management for the duration of the surrender.

On occasion, private land was included in the designated reserves without the consent of the landowner. Such action was done in the hope that the landowner would eventually come around and realize the benefit of protecting the forests on his property. In these cases, the parcels that were privately owned were usually small and were included in the reserve boundaries for practical reasons. Excluding them might make the boundaries irregular or cause difficulties in fencing, for example.

But private lands were never required to be placed in surrender agreements as a condition of being included in forest reserves. And, in any event, some surrender agreements still exist, such as that for Wainiha, Kaua`i, made by McBryde Sugar Company in 1989 and which runs for 20 years.

After the passage of Chapter 183, Hawai`i Revised Statutes, lands within the forest reserves, both public and private, became included in the category of Conservation District. The Board of Land and Natural Resources continues to have the power, inherited from the Bureau of Agriculture and Forestry, to place lands into forest reserves. In the forty-plus years of its existence, however, it has not added so much as an acre to the system.

— Patricia Tummons

Volume 13, Number 4 October 2002

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