Pelekane Bay Watershed Restoration Project

Two resourceful Scout Troop leaders were not content to let their cubs sit idle on mandated “Furlough Fridays” when our public schools were forced to close their doors due to budget constraints. These Scout leaders have been taking their cubs all over this beautiful island of ours in search of good deeds to do. These good deeds include service learning projects such as cleaning lo‘i (terraces of taro) in Waipi‘o Valley, making thatching for Ahu ‘ena Heiau by the King Kamehameha Hotel, and clearing out anchialine ponds along the Kona coast. If furloughs continue into the next school year, these two leaders will continue to expose their cubs to great, educational experiences while making valuable contributions along the way.

The cubs most recent “free” Friday was spent with me at the Koai‘a Sanctuary on Kohala Mountain. Some had never even been on the Kohala  Mountain road, much less in this forest. On this particular day, the entire area was shrouded with thick, blowing mist, making it both cool and cozy while lending a mystical quality to the stream bed where we were working.

The focus of the morning was to clear the three of the four invasive species that are the most pervasive: ginger, prickly pear cactus, and lantana.  I gave them appropriate tools of destruction, and if you want to imagine 12 totally enthusiastic boys and girls hurling themselves into the job, complete with shouts of glee at pulling ginger tubers up by the roots, you will have the right picture. Two hours later, they were wet, muddy, and not wanting to stop.

And here are the pictures to prove it:

After that, two visiting Kohala Center interns from Cornell University led a tutorial on GPS and GIS. They had GPS units and explained how they work and how we use them. The cubs had hands-on experience. But, I think, the cubs secretly just wanted to get back to killing invasive species.

As Shari Jumalon, the den leader for the Bears, said: “The kids of Troop 12 had so much fun in Kohala. It was beautiful! They wanted me to extend a BIG mahalo for hosting us for the day. The boys and the two girls enjoyed attacking the ginger and cactus and we would love to return to do more service learning.”

They really were a joy. I’ve encouraged them to return next year if the furloughs continue.

On one of our recent volunteer work days, a young woman showed up. She is a senior at Kanu o ka ‘Āina, a New Century Public Charter School that is Hawaiian-focused and bilingual. It serves 220 students in grades K-12.

The school’s Web site says: “Our name kanu o ka ‘āina literally means ‘plants of the land’ and figuratively refers to ‘natives of the land from generations back.’”

This student has chosen “reforestation” as her senior project, and this is a topic that has sparked her intellectual and cultural passion for conservation work.

She has started an e-mail dialogue with the coordinator of our project, asking deep questions about the interactions between people and nature. Here is how the most recent exchange went:

Student: What did the native forest look like? What plants contributed to the forest being so in sync? How did the plants all live together without taking from one another?

Coordinator: The key thing to understand is that any system, including an ecosystem, eventually finds a state of equilibrium.  The forces are in balance. There is enough sunlight, food, and water for everyone.  The nutrients and water are recycled through the system, and are never used up. If something changes, then equilibrium can be re-established, but in order to do that, everything changes a little to make up for it. So if a new plant entered the ecosystem, everything will eventually find a new balance in competing with and interacting with that new plant.

What humans have done is to create an imbalance in the system that is never allowed to rebalance. We haven’t just changed one thing, we are constantly changing everything. When we turned forest into pasture, we changed not only the plants, but also the soil, the humidity, the blasting wind, the trampling from animals, the amount of nutrients, etc. What we are doing in reforestation is trying to reintroduce the key elements that are needed to rebalance the system ( native plants) and remove the key elements that are keeping it out of balance (feral animals.) We then must depend on the system to find its new equilibrium, because we cannot do it without the amazing forces of nature at work. We just set it up for success and stand back and watch it work. Makes one humble.