Findings:  Present land and property use patterns in Hawaii result from the American legal system, yet there are specific unique aspects in Hawaii in regard to public lands and customary and traditional rights of indigenous people. The property rights relevant to the sustainability of forests and other natural resources include: the ability to exclude or control access; dispose, alienate, or transfer; manage or manipulate; use, withdraw, consume, transform; and enjoy. Property rights in the United States are protected by due process (the administration of law in the courts of justice) and restricted by police powers of the state. In addition, each level of government maintains powers of taxation, eminent domain, and escheat. The most important sources of definition and clarification on property rights are contained in the judicial case law and its interpretations.

One category of property rights which deserves special attention is land held in trust for Native Hawaiian people. When Hawaii was annexed in 1898, the republic of Hawaii ceded approximately 1.75 million acres of Government and Crown land to the United States. The Government lands had been set aside by Kamehameha III in 1848 for the benefit of the chiefs and people. The Crown lands, reserved to the sovereign, provided a source of income and support for the crown and, pursuant to an 1865 act, were made inalienable. While the fee simple ownership system instituted by the Mahele and the laws that followed drastically changed Hawaiian land tenure, the Government and Crown lands were held for the benefit of all the Hawaiian people.

At the time of annexation, the United States, large tracts of these lands were set aside by the federal government for military purposes during the territorial period and continue under federal control to this day. In 1921, the United States passed the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, which withdrew @ 188,000 acres of ceded lands and brought them under the jurisdiction of the Hawaiian Homes Commission to be leased to native Hawaiians at a nominal fee for 99 years. A native Hawaiian was defined in the act as "any descendant of not less than one-half part of blood of the races inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands previous to 1778".

The trust nature of the Government and Crown lands were clearly articulated in the 1959 Hawaii Admissions Act transferring the lands from U.S. control to the State of Hawaii. These lands (which now include over 80% of the public forest lands) are now commonly referred as "ceded lands", because they were ceded to the United States and back to the State of Hawaii. The State’s primary responsibility with regard to the Government and Crown lands are section 5 of the Admission Act which provides that these lands and the income and proceeds derived from them are to be held by the state as a public trust:

1. for the support of the public schools and other public educational institutions;
2. for the betterment of the conditions of native Hawaiians, as defined in the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920;
3. for the development of farm and home ownership on as widespread a basis as possible;
4. for the making of public improvements; and
5. for the provision of lands for public use.

At the 1978 Constitutional Convention, the Admissions Act’s trust language as it relates to native Hawaiians was examined and new sections were added to the state’s constitution to implement the trust provisions. The first new section stated that the lands granted to the State by the Admissions Act (with the exception of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act’s available lands) were to be held by the state as a public trust for Native Hawaiian and the general public. The second section established on Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) to be governed by a nine-member elected board of trustees, which would hold title to all real or personal property set aside or conveyed to it as a trust for Native Hawaiians. It also clarified that OHA was to hold in trust the pro rata income and proceeds received from ceded lands. The State Legislature later set OHA’s pro rata share at 20 percent.

Political and legal debates continue to this day on the appropriate management and disposition on the ceded land trust. This issue is especially relevant for public forest land management as the majority of state-owned forest reserves and natural area reserves are within the ceded land trust. There is a call from some in the Hawaiian community to place a moratorium on disbursement, reclassification, and development of ceded lands. The 1994 Hawaiian Tropical Forestry Task Force recommended that native Hawaiian cultural values and sensitivities be incorporated into all discussions and decision-making regarding ceded lands.

In 1978, Hawaii's State Constitution was amended by Hawaii's voters, who approved Article XII, Section 7: "The State reaffirms and shall protect all rights customarily and traditionally exercised for subsistence, cultural and religious purposes and possessed by ahupua'a tenants who are descendants of native Hawaiians who inhabited the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1778, subject to the right of the State to regulate such rights". This amendment affected both public and private lands.

In 1995, the Hawaii Supreme Court affirmed earlier decisions that mandated a state agency to take actions to protect native Hawaiian traditional and customary (T&C) rights. The broad guidance from the Court:

1. rejected the argument that T&C rights were limited to those in Article XII, Section 7;
2. rejected the 50% blood quantum definition for Native Hawaiian;
3. expanded the scope of T&C rights in regard to eligibility, geographic location, and duration of use;
4. directed all State and county agencies to give T&C rights "full consideration" and to "preserve and protect" such rights "to the extent feasible" when ever permits are issued that may infringe on those rights; and
5. affirmed the State's rights to make "appropriate regulation" of T&C rights, but not to extinguish such rights.

The court ruling prompted the State legislature to form a multi-stakeholder study group looking at the ramifications of the ruling, which is commonly referred to as the PASH case. They recommended that legislative policy level clarification or guidance on some of the basic elements of the PASH decision may not be the best way to resolve these issues on the ground. Because there is no existing process to identify and adjudicate PASH rights on a particular property, each agency is left to figure out their own process in light of their respective responsibilities. While the study group supported and respected the legal gathering rights of native Hawaiians, there was also the strong belief that these rights should come with a responsibility to manage and harvest the resource in a sustainable way.

Specifically pertaining to forests, the earliest promulgation of laws in the Hawaiian kingdom reflected the value of the public trust natural resources and the importance of management. Building upon the ahupuaa land system, the laws of the Kingdom of Hawaii (May 31, 1841) tabooed certain articles on the mountains, set up criteria for harvesting forest products, (especially large trees), prohibited certain practices, and set up penalties as incentives for people to obey those laws. This was followed by the creation of the oldest forest management agency in the western United States, originating in 1903 with a mandate to protect and enhance forested watersheds.

In 1991, the State Legislature established the innovative Forest Stewardship (HRS 195F) and Natural Area Partnership (HRS 195-6.5) programs which provided cost-sharing assistance to private landowners who manage their land in a manner that provide public benefits. Both of these programs have been successful and the demand for participation exceeds available funding. In 1994, the legislature passed one of the first "right to harvest" laws (HRS 186- 16.5) in the nation. This restored a measure of certainty for private landowner and potential investors to harvest trees they generated according to a management plan approved by the department on lands within the agricultural district or on degraded forest and pasture lands within the conservation district.

In 1998, the legislature made some comprehensive changes to HRS 183- Forest Reserves which specifically stated said that "All harvesting of trees on public lands shall be done in accordance with a management plan approved by the board, and in accordance with the provisions regarding conservation of aquatic life, wildlife, and land plants, and the provisions regarding environmental impact statements. For any harvesting of native trees from public lands, the department shall use existing fire prevention and management programs and ensure that silvicultural practices are used to encourage native biodiversity and ecosystem processes. No native forests on public lands shall be converted to introduced plantations".

In 1999, Act 144 was enacted which directed that moneys received from harvesting of forest products from state lands and sale of tree seedlings from state nurseries would be used for reforestation and management of harvested areas; the enhanced management of forest reserves; and environmental education and training programs.

Relevance to Hawaii: This indicator examines how a society plans for the use of forest resources, founded upon the specific value assigned to alternative uses. Without planning and assessment, sustainable management is less likely feasible.

Findings: In Hawaii, data gathering has been less consistent and comprehensive for the distribution of forest land than that for agricultural land. However, there are periodic surveys and censuses which provide quantitative data on the trends in forest land ownership. Most of the data are found in government documents and databases, and from private sources. Although considerable data is available in raw form, analysis of it has not always been uniform.

Planning is a central component of land and forest management. Each statute and administrative strategy governing land management incorporates planning. The planning guides individual discretionary decisions guided by explicit plan goals. All statutory schemes that govern any aspect of a forest, such as habitat and species protection, restrictions on use and silivicultural schemes, best management practices, and water protection laws, are plans to some extent. The schemes include analysis of forest health and use and prescribe actions to promote sustainable practices. Because the schemes govern a dynamic system, affecting federal, state and local governments, regions and private citizens, they are subject to periodic review and revision in the political and agency arenas.

Historically, federal land management agencies planned a general strategy for their programs. Now, however, federal laws mandate and govern federal land use planning, resulting in more formal planning which is more extensive in process and substance than at any time in history. Individual managers have less discretion in deciding whether and how to plan.

Over the past 10 years, 48 states have developed and implemented statewide forest resource plans, prompted by the Federal Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act of 1978. The forest resource plans are intended to be a state forestry organization's principal guiding document, providing long range direction, operation objectives or targets, and a budget framework that will assure coordinated and balanced implementation. Programs designed to address the use and management of forest and range resources on the country's 800 million plus acres of non-federal land have several goals. They are to: encourage the efficient transfer of new technology and forest resource information to private forestry interests and state forestry organizations; increase the management efficiency of state forestry programs; and to assure that information from non-federal forest and range lands is effectively represented in federal and state natural resource planning. To achieve these goals, the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to provide federal technical and financial assistance to the states. As a result, significant federal and state investments have been made in the programs.

Unfortunately, Hawaii has not had a overall inventory on its forest lands in the past 30 years. Yet, there has been numerous forest inventories conducted for a variety of forest-based resource over those years, but the data have not been coordinated, compiled in a centralized location, and lacks a common framework to present those data to the public in a meaning manner. As an interim measure, the State is in the process of a compilation of existing data on relevant Criteria and Indicators for sustainable forest management that would be reported in a "State of Forests" publication in late 2000.

Relevance to Hawaii: Public involvement is a democratic, dynamic, interactive process of bargaining, negotiating, and mediation among and between constituents and managers. All steps in the management decision process--problem identification, data collection, analysis, alternative formulation, and choice--are open to participation. Forests may be managed in a more sustainable manner if people have a chance to influence and support plans for forest management actively. Public participation can foster political support for sustainable management.

Public participation is today a routine and integral part of land management and other agency activities. Requirements for public participation have, to an extent, changed the work of many natural resource professionals. Managers must not only understand the current scientific and technical issues in their fields but also understand the role of public interests in resource management. Furthermore, managers find ways to encourage and facilitate public involvement, which involve a different set of skills than those taught in most natural resource management training.

Findings: The Hawaii Tropical Forest Recovery Act was proposed by Senator Daniel Akaka and passed by Congress in September 1992. It called for a joint effort between the Governor of Hawaii and the U.S. Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to address the problems and opportunities facing Hawaii's forests. It created the Hawaii Tropical Forest Recovery Task Force to study the current issues related to Hawaii's forests and to submit findings and recommendations for rejuvenating those forests in the form of an Action Plan, no later than one year from the first Task Force meeting. The Hawaii Tropical Forest Recovery Task Force had twelve members, representing a broad cross section of entities involved with Hawaii's forests, including state and federal agencies, private landowners, forestry experts, and conservation organizations.

The Task Force saw its role as consulting with the broadest possible range of community members to solicit ideas and recommendations about the current situation and future opportunities for Hawaii's forests and the people that use and value the forests. The Task Force turned to many of those who know about Hawaii's forest and wildlife and invited them to participate in six working groups. Over a hundred people across Hawaii, including community members, resource managers, researchers, native Hawaiians, conservation organizations, and forest industry representatives actively participated in the working groups and contributed to position papers on the following topics:

1. Training, Inventory and Research;
2. Natural Resource Management and Applied Research;
3. Traditional/Public Uses and Participation;
4. Economic Development;
5. Institutions, Planning, Legal, and Legislative Support; and
6. Hawaii's International Role.

Each working group met an average of four times between November 1993 and February 1994; a total of over thirteen hundred hours were spent by working group members on the position papers. Those working group papers were distributed to over two hundred people and made available to the public at libraries throughout the state. The Task Force recognizes the working group papers as documents that stand on their own and have included them in their entirety as an appendix to this Action Plan.

The Task Force continued in its efforts to solicit the broadest possible range of ideas and recommendations about Hawaii's forests by conducting a series of evening open houses and day field trips on the islands of Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Maui, and Hawaii in March 1994. Over 150 community members attended those sessions to share their thoughts with the Task Force on the management, protection, and use of Hawaii's forests.

Over eight hundred copies of the draft Hawaii Tropical Forest Recovery Action Plan were distributed in May and June 1994 throughout the state for public review and comment. Public comment meetings on the draft Action Plan were held in June on the islands of Oahu, Maui, and Hawaii. In addition to the comments from the public meetings, approximately forty written comments were received on the draft Action Plan. This Action Plan was developed by the Task Force after careful consideration and extensive discussion of information from the working group papers, public meetings, and written comments on the draft. In response to comments made on the draft, the plan was revised to include additional information and new recommendations.

Relevance to Hawaii: "Best practices" management codes are designed to encourage appropriate forest management practices, which are ultimately the key factor in forest sustainability. The codes are written guidelines that prescribe specific forest management actions, and may be regulatory, quasi-regulatory, or voluntary. In all cases, the intent of "best practices" codes is to ensure forest sustainability.

Findings:  In Hawaii, private forest owners are not legally required to follow best practices codes in managing their forest lands. DOFAW develops these codes and encourages private forest owners to follow them and responsibly manage the forests with their soil, air, water, and wildlife resources. The state has no power to enforce the guidelines, the latter being voluntary.

Relevance to Hawaii: In order to participate in forest planning and support sustainable forest management, citizens must be well informed and knowledgeable about forestry issues and activities. This indicator discusses the institutional framework that provides for education and public participation. This framework includes environmental groups, government agencies and services, nonprofit conservation and educational foundations, and forestry associations.

Findings:  DOFAW has one Public Information Officer who manages the information programs of the Division, including public education, development and dissemination of informational materials, and maintenance of the Division’s web site.

Findings:  The Division of Forestry and Wildlife undertakes planning and cross-sectorial planning on a regular basis. Most recently, DOFAW in connection with the USDA Forest Service Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry coordinated the Hawaii Tropical Forest Recovery Task Force which provided the most comprehensive evaluation of forest-related issues undertaken to date. DOFAW has been instrumental in establishing Watershed Partnerships in West Maui, East Maui, Molokai and in the Ko’olau Mountains of Oahu. New partnerships are being developed throughout the islands in a concerted effort to facilitate the planning and management of Hawaii’s forest and water resources. This First Approximation Report represents a continuation of DOFAW’s’ commitment to cross-sectorial planning and coordination.

Relevance to Hawaii: The management practices that determine forest sustainability depend largely upon human skill and ingenuity. A wide range of disciplines and skills is necessary to achieve the goals of sustainable forest management, including not only the traditional scientific disciplines of forestry, botany, wildlife biology, and ecology, but also the social sciences of economics, anthropology, and conflict resolution.

Findings: The Division of Forestry and Wildlife employs approximately 150 people in the following categories.

Table 55.1. DOFAW employees

Source: DOFAW, 2000.

Relevance to Hawaii: Forests are more likely to be managed on a sustainable basis if an adequate physical infrastructure exists.

Findings:  The Division of Forestry and Wildlife maintains resources necessary for supporting forest management. Such resources include a workforce trained in forest management, vehicles (including fire fighting equipment) and a statewide radio system. The Division is in the process of developing the infrastructure and institutional capability to facilitate the supply of forest products. Timber inventory crews have been trained and the information processing capability required for providing forest products has been developed.

Relevance to Hawaii: Laws and regulations must be enforced in order to be effective. The greater the extent of enforcement for laws and regulations related to forest conservation and sustainable management, the more likely it is that forests will be managed sustainably.

Findings: The Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE) is responsible for enforcement activities of the State of Hawaii's Department of Land and Natural Resources. The division, with full police powers, enforces all State laws and rules involving State lands, State Parks, historical sites, forest reserves, aquatic life and wildlife areas, coastal zones, Conservation districts, State shores, as well as county ordinances involving county parks. The division also enforces laws relating to firearms, ammunition, and dangerous weapons.

Relevance to Hawaii: Sustainable forest management necessitates very long-term (compared to other types of investments) investments. If investment, taxation, and regulatory policies do not provide stability, investors will be reluctant to commit the capital needed for sustainable forest management.

Findings:  Programs that promote Conservation and Sustainable Management of Forests include:

The Hawaii Tropical Forest Recovery Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1992. This Act directed the establishment of a Task Force that, in August of 1994, made recommendations to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for support and action for Hawai`i forests, including a national experimental forest. The Act encompasses all forms of forestry, including production, restoration, conservation and agroforestry.

This Act of Congress ultimately resulted in the establishment of the Hawaii Forestry and Communities Initiative (HFCI). The HFCI works to build coalitions of landowners, government agencies, forest industry representatives, environmental groups, native Hawaiian organizations, educators to achieve the following goals: to maintain healthy sustainable forests; to build economic development and diversity through forestry; to develop land stewardship that is responsive to community values; and to create community partnerships and educational opportunities.

The State Forest Stewardship Program offers financial and technical assistance to landowners who wish to restore, manage and/or protect important natural resources on Hawaii's forested and formerly forested lands. Through this Program, more than thirty landowners have developed long-term, comprehensive forest management plans that are currently being applied to approximately 2600 acres statewide.

Concern about Hawaii's natural ecosystems led to the establishment of a statewide Natural Area Reserve System in 1970. A commission was established with members appointed by the Governor. Its duties include recommending specific land and water communities of unique flora and fauna, as well as geological sites, to be managed by DLNR in their natural state as Natural Area Reserves. Funding was then made available in 1990 for partnerships with private landowners who dedicate their forested properties to conservation in perpetuity through the Natural Area Partnership Program.

Real Property Taxation and Forestry:

Until recently, forested properties throughout Hawaii were assessed, for tax purposes, according to highest and best use. This sometimes resulted in the clearing of land for pasture use in order to get a lower tax rate. Oahu and Maui Counties still have virtually no property tax laws regarding either native forests or plantation forests.

On Kauai, landowners are awarded an exemption from property taxation for the duration of a timber producing rotation if: the property is at least 10 acres in size; a timber crop can be produced within six to twenty-five years; and the landowner possesses a forest management plan, that includes a planting and harvesting schedule and an estimate of the value of trees at harvest. This is the lowest property tax rate in the state for a commercial venture of any comparable land size. Although many landowners and investors are currently benefiting from this tax exemption, it is likely that Kauai County will soon amend the code so as to provide for some tax revenues from these "tree farms".

Hawaii County has added forestry operation categories to its agricultural crop tax rates and a landowner can receive a fifty percent tax break if willing and able to dedicate for at least 20 years. There is a distinction between fast and slow rotation forestry. Fast rotation, such as a Eucalyptus plantation intended for wood chip production, is assessed at $500 per acre. If dedicated, it’s assessed at $250 per acre.

In Hawaii County, there is also fairly new section of the county’s real property tax law that deals with native forests. Any property of five acres or more in agriculture, open or unplanned districts and covered with at least five contiguous acres of native forest can be dedicated as such for a minimum 20-year period and be assessed, each year at a $30 value per acre. To qualify as a native forest there must be at least 60 percent "native forest cover" which is not well defined in the law. The law reads: "The forest cover requirement may be met by native species in either the tree layer or the understory layer, or a combination of the two; provided a minimum of 25 percent of the forest cover shall contain tree cover." A landowner can lose the favored tax status by failing to maintain the forest, or through actions such as subdivision, requesting rezoning or sale without a provision from the buyer to maintain the forest. Few landowners in Hawaii County have taken advantage of this tax incentive. It is suggested that the 20-year dedication requirement and the vagueness in the native forest definition may be factors.

Relevance to Hawaii:  Trade policies such as import and export laws, tariffs, and other regulations can affect the forest products industry, and therefore the sustainable management of forests. Non-discriminatory trade policies for forest products can limit artificial deterrents to sustainability and promote efficiencies among producers by providing equal opportunities in the marketplace. This indicator is most relevant on the national level.

Findings: Under the U.S. Constitution, states cannot levy export taxes. Hawaii has no duties or other taxes on forest products exported to or import from other states. The U.S. is member of the World Trade Organization, which promotes free trade between countries, and import taxes on forest products are equal to zero or are close to zero. The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service regulates importation of logs, lumber, and other non-manufactured wood articles. The APHIS restrictions are aimed at protecting the U.S. forests from the introduction of unwanted pests. The implementing rules and regulations describe in detail the acceptable treatments and handling procedures for imported logs or wood products. These rules applicable to Hawai`i are not different from rules applicable to other U.S. states.

Findings:  The table below details data availability for the 67 indicators of the present report.

Table 60.1. Data availability (Av) for Hawaii's Criteria and Indicators First Approximation Report (dark green - data available; light green - incomplete data or qualitative data available; red - data not available). Availability color codes are split in cases where indicators have two components, or there are two aspects of data availability for this indicator.

Note: Av=data availability

Typical problems associated with data gathering for this report included:

• data missing. These data have never been collected for the variety of reasons: perceived irrelevance for Hawaii (e.g., "negative" effects of volcano vog on the forests), difficulties associated with data collection (e.g., visitor days per year to Hawaii's forests), lack of resources of missing capacity for data collection (e.g., no forest health monitoring system), low priority of the problem (e.g., non-timber forest products removal), or confidentiality concerns (e.g., volume of forest products production);
• qualitative data available only. For some indicators quantitative data was not available. In some cases it is due to perceived irrelevance of the problem to Hawaii (e.g., air pollution in forest areas, compaction of forest soils, accumulation of persistent toxic chemicals in forests;
• rough estimates available only;
• confidentiality of data. This is especially true for the data concerning private forest lands and forest processing industry (e.g., timber harvest, return on investment, value and volume of forest products production). The small size of the industry prevents reporting on these indicators even on the aggregate level.

Relevance to Hawaii: Better quality forest information increases the likelihood that forests will be managed on a sustainable basis. Without adequate data, trends cannot be detected nor impacts estimated.

Findings:  Hawaii's capacity to measure and monitor changes in the conservation and sustainable management of forests is moderate.

Table 61.1. Forest inventories and produced forest type maps sets in Hawaii

Source: DOFAW, 2000.

Hawaii has no forest health monitoring system.

Data on the state of Hawaii's soils is gathered by Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Data on the state of Hawaii's streams is gathered by the Hawaii Stream Research Center, University of Hawaii.

Data on rare and endangered species is gathered by Hawaii Natural Heritage Program.

TNC and private landowners (e.g., Kamehameha Schools) monitor the state of their forest lands.

Relevance to Hawaii: This indicator is relevant for national and international level of sustainable forest management data. The criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management used in this report were developed through consensus, and reflect a global sense of the meaning of forest conservation and sustainable forest management. Data are reported on the aggregate level and should be comparable on the international level. On the regional and state levels there may by difficulties in directly comparing data, due to possible large differences in the forest ecosystems and ecological processes, as well as social and economic dimensions of the forest across regions.

Findings:  Hawaii is an outstanding example of evolution by infrequent colonizing organisms on remote, oceanic islands. The result is a unique biota, one that is almost entirely endemic. Furthermore, the islands themselves represent different geologic ages, and the intervening sea facilitates genetic isolation. This too facilitated speciation among forms on different members of the archipelago. Because of its uniqueness and clear-cut demonstration of evolution, Hawaii has served for more than a century as the world’s premier natural laboratory for evolution. It is Hawaii’s forests that house those unique products of the most important process in biology.

Because of their importance to evolutionary biology, Hawaii’s organisms came under study relatively early. The biota is as well known as that of any tropical area of comparable size, although new species are still being described in some taxa. The main collections are held in the Bishop Museum, and data from those collections are now easily accessed by computer. Work on systematics is concentrated primarily at the Bishop Museum and the University of Hawaii.

One forest-dwelling group of organisms, Hawaii’s forest bird community, has come under particular scrutiny because of its evolutionary importance and because many species are conspicuous and culturally important. Introduced diseases to which the native birds offered little resistance have created an extinction crisis, and this had led to vigorous research programs by and government scientists from universities, government agencies, museums, and the private sector. Despite intensive research (and corresponding management efforts), the extinction crisis prevails.

During the years of the International Biological Program (IBP), a major effort to understand tropical island forest ecosystems, their structure and their function, was undertaken under the leadership of scholars from the University of Hawaii. This massive, multi-year effort led to great advances in understanding Hawaii’s native forests, including the dynamics of stand turnover mediated by cohort senescence of the dominant tree species.

The IBP work opened the way to better understanding of Hawaii’s vegetation types and the interrelationships among them. Thus, vegetation typing became more solidly grounded on an understanding of stand structure. Furthermore, intensive forest inventories produced good data on distribution, extent, species composition, and wood volume in Hawaii’s forests. The process of forest inventory has, nevertheless, fallen behind the times, the last complete inventory for the Hawaii islands having been published around 30 years ago. Up-to-date, comprehensive understanding of the composition and condition of Hawaii’s forests is a major gap in knowledge, one that impedes resource managers from doing the very best job possible. Some areas are very well known (e.g., some habitats of endangered forest birds; accessible ecosystems in parts of Hawaii’s National Parks; some privately held conservation reserves), but there is no statewide, comprehensive data set that quantitatively describes Hawaii’s forests today.

While much research on forests concentrated on Hawaii’s native ecosystems and the unique organisms contained therein, other scientists concerned themselves with forests as means of producing commodities, notably timber to help solve the State’s imbalance in raw materials imports. This motivated many trials of species, some native, but mostly introduced from other tropical areas where they had proved promising. Dozens of species were planted, primarily in areas that had been deforested by grazing, firewood cutting, and burning, and in some cases dominated by forest, either forest dominated by non-native species, or in forests deemed at the time to be of low value to society. Fortunately, good records were kept of these plantations, even preceding the 1930s when thousands of acres of trees were planted. The early plantings were followed, beginning in the late 1950s, by more detailed studies of forestry plantation species, involving nursery practices, spacing studies, fertilizer trials, and provenance studies of promising species. Much of that research was conducted by scientists of the U.S. Forest Service.

Forestry.

Capitalizing on the knowledge accumulated over the years, a research program was launched by scientists at Stanford University and collaborators in the mid-1980s to examine ecosystem processes, especially biogeochemical and biological processes, across various gradients of geologic age, substrate type, rainfall, and temperature. This program continues to be remarkably productive, and its findings have brought worldwide attention to the importance of Hawaii’s forests in understanding ecosystems everywhere.

Just as its isolation and infrequent natural colonization have may Hawaii a premier locale for evolutionary biology, those same factors have made it extremely vulnerable to invasive, non-native organisms. Growing research programs by university and government scientists include studies of the process of invasion, the impacts of invasive species on ecosystem processes, and the control and containment of invaders.

Other forest and forestry research areas where some efforts are underway but vastly more remains to be done include understanding fire, its role in Hawaii’s habitats, and its management; understanding the relationships between forest vegetation of different kinds in controlling processes (including hydrology) at the watershed level; and restoration of both native forests and of services valued by society. Despite the fact that Hawaii’s Acacia koa is one of the most valuable woods in the world, the silviculture of koa-dominated forests is poorly understood at best.

A major unknown is the socio-political context of Hawaii’s forests. Like societies everyone, the people of Hawaii value their forests for many reasons. Understanding those values and their implications for policy is a major void in almost all past and current research efforts.

Relevance to Hawaii: The development of methods allowing to measure environmental, social, and economic costs and benefits, results into decision-makers' better awareness of all the consequences of policies or actions affecting forests. Increased knowledge will make it more likely that forests are managed on a sustainable basis.

Findings: Under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), any federal agency's action having a significant impact on the environment must be preceded by the preparation of an Environmental Impact Assessment. The EIA guarantees that prior to the action ("action" also includes federally funded activities and federally granted permits) the agency takes a "hard look" on the environmental consequences. The EIA may include measurement of environmental costs. If the costs are not measured, they still must be taken into account by the agency, and environmental impact mitigation options must be evaluated. However, NEPA is a procedural act, and the agency may undertake an environmentally highly disruptive action if it finds that benefits outweigh costs.

In Hawai`i NEPA requirements are applicable to forest lands within the two national parks, other federally owned forest lands (e.g., military bases), and federally funded activities (e.g., construction of highways).

State of Hawai`i has no system of environmental accounting. The significance of forest natural resources to the state's economy (tourism and recreation, watershed), while recognized by decision-makers, is rarely quantified and is not given sufficient economic weight in the decision-making process.

Two studies undertaken by the UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources in 1981 and 1991 were aimed to measure the impact of the forest industry on the economy of Hawaii. The CTAHR has conducted research in the economic valuation in arear other than forestry. The College has human resources that can be employed for economic valuation of forests.

References: Forest industry analysis. Submitted to Governor's Agriculture Coordinating Committee. Honolulu: University of Hawaii at Manoa. College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, 1981.

Forest industry analysis. Submitted to Governor's Agriculture Coordinating Committee. Honolulu: University of Hawaii at Manoa. College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, 1991.

Relevance to Hawaii: The introduction of new technologies is sometimes necessary for improving forest management and building up the capacity to manage forests in a sustainable manner. New technologies in forest conservation, growing, and processing may have significant consequences for the local communities and society as a whole.

Findings:  The University of Hawaii has a moderate capacity to predict the socioeconomic consequences of the introduction of new technologies. UH has economists and social scientists who have been working on the socio-economics of new technologies and shifts in types of agriculture and who would be capable of working on issues in forestry, although none of these experts currently does. Most of the economists and social scientists are in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management at CTAHR and also at CAFNRM.

Forecast of socioeconomic consequences of the introduction of new technologies may become very important in the near future, with the further development of Hawaii's forest industry. New saw mills with highly effective equipment would prevent very small mills which use an old equipment from operating. New complex machinery may necessitate bringing qualified workers from outside Hawaii. New forest plantations may create new employment opportunities, and utilize the skills of the sugarcane plantations workers (operators of heavy machinery).

Developing capacities to use new technologies in forest management are important. Geographic information systems are extensively used for forest management by public agencies (DOFAW, NRCS, NPS etc.), conservation organizations (TNC, Hawaii Natural Heritage Program), and private landowners (Kamehameha Schools). UH has capabilities in remote sensing and GIS, mainly at the UH Manoa geography department but also at CTAHR. CTAHR has computer assisted decision support systems for soil fertility management. The college has capabilities in genetic engineering and clonal propagation for agricultural crops but not specifically for forestry. The college also has some capabilities in forest genetics and soil erosion control. It does not have capabilities in developing harvesting and processing technologies.

Relevance to Hawaii: It is increasingly recognized that the main driving force behind the many critical natural resource and environmental issues (e.g., sustainable development, global environmental change, loss of biodiversity, ecosystem health, etc.) is the impact of human intervention in natural systems.

Findings: This capacity is estimated to be moderate. The University of Hawaii has a limited capacity to conduct and apply research to enhance our ability to predict human intervention on forests. The University has two colleges of agriculture (the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources at UH Manoa (CTAHR) and the College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Natural Resources Management at UH Hilo (CAFNRM)), and has agricultural scientists who can and do occasionally work with forestry issues on agroforestry, forest ecology, soil erosion, soil fertility, soil microbiology, and forest genetics. The University lacks specialists in silviculture, forest soils, forest pathology, forest economics, and most other forestry fields. The University has a new forestry extension program which brings scientific forestry information to landowners and managers. The University has a well-developed capacity to predict the effects of alien species, both invasive plants and animals, on native forests, and most of experts in the field are in biology or botany departments and are affiliated with conservation biology programs at UH Manoa and UH Hilo.

Relevance to Hawaii: Climate changes, such as global warming, could have immense effects on forests. If researchers can predict climate change and its impacts on forests, then forest managers would be able to take mitigating actions earlier. This capability would increase the likelihood that forests will be managed on a sustainable basis.

Findings: Tropical cloud forests in general and Hawaiian cloud forests in particular may be among the most sensitive of the earth's ecosystems to global climate change (Loope and Giambelluca 1998). The position of the North Pacific subtropical anticyclone and the altitude of the trade wind inversion (TWI) are fundamental drivers of local climate in Hawaii. The TWI is influenced by the strength of the Hadley cell circulation; stronger circulation should tend to locally depress the inversion. Relatively small shifts in patterns of atmospheric circulation are likely to trigger major local changes in rainfall, cloud cover and humidity, which in turn would provide additional stresses on island biota already disturbed by the invasion of non-native species.

No true consensus yet exists on whether montane cloud forests of Hawaii are indeed so vulnerable to global climate change or whether the zones will simply shift upward on the high mountains. Plausible scenarios of Hawaii's ecosystems' response to global warming are now emerging. The "Workshop on the Consequences of Climate Variability and Change: Hawaii-Pacific Region" (Water Resources Working Group) adopted a frequent/prolonged-El Niño regime as the best scenario for climate change impacts assessment in Hawaii and the Pacific (the workshop was organized under the auspices of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the U.S. Global Change Research Program, March 1998). Climate models and recent trends support this scenario (Sun and Trenberth 1998; Meehl 1996). In Hawaii, a trend toward more persistent El Niño-like conditions would have many negative consequences. Winter drought in Hawaii is highly associated with El Niño (Chu 1989); the ten driest years in the past century in Hawaii have all coincided with El Niño events (Schroeder 1993). Temporal rainfall variability in Hawaii is strongly correlated with fluctuations in the height and strength of the TWI (Tran 1995), and El Niño is associated with a lower level of the TWI (Tran, pers. comm., 1998). Lowering the TWI would reduce rainfall in Hawaii in general, but especially at high elevations, and almost certainly depress the forest-grassland ecotone and heavily impact endangered native forest birds. A scenario in which El Niño serves as an analog of Hawaii's climate under global warming portends serious hydrological, ecological, and human impacts. For the Pacific in general, such a scenario leads to collapse of sustainability for human populations of atolls, causing migration and increased urbanization, with all the attendant problems, on larger high islands (such as the Hawaiian Islands) with more stable water supplies (Meehl 1996).

On the other hand, some striking palynological evidence suggests the opposite of the above -- that warmer climate is associated with a higher TWI and upper forest limit (Selling 1948; Burney et al. 1995; Hotchkiss 1998). During the Holocene climatic optimum, the postglacial time when radiative forcing was maximum, the treeline increased in elevation in the area of Flattop Bog on East Maui, suggesting that warming results in a rise in the TWI with upward shifting of vegetation zones (Burney et al. 1995).

To address this controversy, a study is now conducted. It is entitled "Developing a Listening Post in the Tropical Pacific: Sensitivity of Hawaiian High-Elevation and Aquatic Ecosystems to Global Change." The project is headed by Lloyd L. Loope, USGS-BRD, Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center, Haleakala Field Station, Maui, and co-PIs are David Foote, USGS-BRD, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii, and Thomas Giambelluca, UH Manoa, Geography Department. The major biological components of this project are 1) developing and implementing a methodology to detect incipient change at treeline and in the montane rain forest, and 2) testing the use of a diverse Hawaiian complex of endemic and alien aquatic and semi-aquatic species as sensitive and reliable indicators of global change. Objectives of the project include:

• development of the microclimatological and hydrological basis for a model of the response of Hawaiian montane rain forests and aquatic ecosystems to global warming;
• determining how the level of the TWI and El Niño are related to precipitation and other microclimate parameters in the montane forest;
• determining the relationship between rainfall and streamflow in the most pristine watersheds of the island of Maui and secure sites for long-term comparisons of pre- and post-global warming streamflow;
• providing a basis for assessing effects of reduced annual rainfall and extreme drought on water production from the East Maui Watershed, which currently produces an average of 60 billion gallons of water per year for domestic use and agriculture.

Possible climate change already affects Hawaii's forestry. When planting forests, landowners take possible future dryer and hotter conditions into account and have incentives to give preference to forest species more suitable for dryer and hotter climate.

Burney, D.A., R.V. DeCandido, L.P. Burney, F.N. Kostel-Hughes, T.W. Stafford, and H.F. James. 1995. A Holocene record of climate change, fire ecology and human activity from montane Flat Top Bog, Maui. Jour. Paleolimnology 13:209-217.

Chu, P-S. 1989. Hawaiian drought and the Southern Oscillation. Intl. Jour. Climatology 9:619-631.

Hotchkiss, S.C. 1998. Late-Quaternary climate history from Hawaiian pollen records. Chapter 4, p. 146-188 in S.C. Hotchkiss, Quaternary Vegetation and Climate of Hawai'i. Ph.D. thesis, University of Minnesota.

Loope, L.L., and T.W. Giambelluca. 1998. Vulnerability of island tropical montane cloud forests to climate change, with special reference to East Maui, Hawaii. Climatic Change 39:503-517.

Meehl, G. A. 1996. Vulnerability of fresh water resources to climate change in the tropical Pacific region. J. Water, Air and Soil Pollution 92:203--213.

Selling, O.H. 1948. Studies in Hawaiian Pollen Statistics. Part III. On the Late Quaternary History of the Hawaiian Vegetation. Bernice P. Bishop Museum Special Publ. 39.

Sun, D.-Z., and K. E. Trenberth, 1998: Coordinated heat removal from the tropical Pacific during the 1986-87 El Nino. Geophysical Research Letters 25:2659-2662.

Tran, L.T. 1995. Relationship between the Inversion and Rainfall on the Island of Maui. M.S. thesis, Department of Geography, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, 115 p.