Hunter concerns stall Army effort to protect rare plants at Pohakuloa

Author:

n/a

Title:

Hunter concerns stall Army effort to protect rare plants at Pohakuloa

Periodical:

Environment Hawaii

Year:

1997

Volume:

7

Pages:

1, 3-4

Subject:

Endangered species Fences Mauna Kea Feral ungulates Hunting Kipuka Kalawamauna Pohakuloa Pōhakuloa Training Area (PTA)

Summary:

This document describes a U.S. Army plan to protect three botanically-rich and rare-plant habitats that exists on the saddle of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, on the island of Hawaiʻi, as these habitats sit within the Army's Pōhakuloa Training Area. While the plan called for the fencing of these areas that would prevent feral ungulates from browsing and trampling on the rare plants, the plan was stalled as it met with opposition from hunters who regarded the plan as an infringement of the gathering rights they claimed to possess. However, members of the conservation community were also unhappy with the initial plan would have left 20,000-plus acres of tropical dry forest communities unprotected. Therefore, the conservationists believed that the Army should fence most of the western third of the Pōhakuloa Training Area that would protect most of the remaining dry forest, as well as other extremely rare and intact plant communities, habitat for dozens of rare, threatened, and endangered Hawaiian plants, caves, and archaeological sites. As a result, this group was outraged that most of these resources, which are site specific, would be sacrificed through the Army's plan so that hunters would have the use of the land, for non-native goats and sheep, which could be relocated and are found in abundance elsewhere on the island. With these issues in mind, the Army was expected to come to an agreement with the hunters over the fencing plan and was expected to make a final decision on their plan by early 1997.

Label:

Pohakuloa

Collection:

Periodicals