Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 31, Number 8, 1 August 2014 — Molokaʻi watershed project [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Molokaʻi watershed project

The East Moloka 'i Watershed Partnership was fonned in November 1999 to protect the native forest watershed areas of the East Moloka'i Mountains. The Nature Conser-

vancy's Moloka'i Program is the partnership coordinator. The partnership is made up of landowners, resource managers and agencies that work together to protect and preserve Moloka'i's watersheds. The East Moloka'i watershed encompasses the rainforested mountains of East Moloka'i and the remote valleys and sea cliffs along its northern coast. On the southern slopes, feral goats are damaging the landscape, resulting in massive erosion and sedimentation that is severely impacting the reefs below. Since the start of the partnership, they have

completed 8 miles of fencing to protect the remaining upper forest and have begun programs to reduce goat populations below the fence. The partnership uses the traditional Hawaiian land division, or ahupua'a, approach to protecting the East Moloka'i watershed, with the upper native forest systems as the highest priority. Such an approach tries to protect watershed areas from the mountaintop to the sea. Controlling threats of feral pigs, goats, deer and invasive weeds are key strategies to protecting the remaining native forest areas and to increase vegetation in the area that will reduce the sedimentation rate in the oeean below. After 13 years of watershed management, the East Moloka 'i Watershed Partnership is looking to expand eastward in an effort to preserve the intact native rainforest ecosystem found there. The Nature Conservancy's Moloka'i Program with the support of the Mana'e mauka landowners, the East Moloka'i Watershed Partnership, community members and the Mana'e Mauka Working Group are working on the East Slope Watershed Start-up Management Plan for the expansion, whieh is in the draft stages. The draft management plan proposes fencing off the area, controlling the feral pig, deer and goat populations, and eontrolling invasive plant species while restoring native plants to the area.

Currently the Office of Hawaiian Affairs is working with the Department of Natural Resources to review this draft management plan. With the help of the University of Hawai'i Law School's Ka Huli Ao program and a

contractor that OHA has hired, they will collectively work with the connnunity of the east end of Moloka 'i to gather their concerns of the current draft plan. This will then lead to a Traditional and Customary Practices Report, whieh shall include recommendations pertaining to the East Moloka'i Watershed Partnership draft East Slope Management Plan.

The purpose of this report is to accomplish the following goals: Recognize that the people of Moloka'i regularly exercise Native Hawaiian traditional and customary practices; and Incorporate the eoncerns of the East Moloka'i community into the draft East Slope Management Plan, whieh may be used by the East Moloka'i community to present to the State of Hawai'i Department of Land and Natural Resources. The report shall include: Integration of the East Moloka'i community into the East Moloka'i Watershed Partnership draft East Slope Management Plan; Identification of alternatives that achieve a balance between the protection of the watershed with the needs of subsistence hunters, as well as recommendations to mitigate adverse impacts; Consideration of the special role that subsistence plays in Moloka'i's economy; and Integration of input and recommendations by key stakeholders and other key community members. Our hope is that the recommendations shall balance the need for protection of the watershed, reduction of erosion and the correlated adverse impacts of the oeean, and propagation of native flora with the continuation of subsistence hunting, reintegration of traditional management practices and active mālama 'āina by the Native Hawaiian community. ■

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Cūlette Y. Machade

ChairpErsūn, TrustEE Muluka'i aud Lāua'i