Laserfiche WebLink
<br /> A. Kuleana Act of 1850 -August 6, 1850 the legislature of rIawai'I enacted a <br /> statute, now known as the Kuleana Act, which was designed to insuc and <br /> provide the tenant farmers residing within an ahupua'a the opportunity to <br /> obtain fee simple title to the lands upon which they resided and cultivated <br /> their crops. Over the years every section of the Kuleana Act was repealed <br /> with the exception of section 7, which survives today in the form of <br /> I-Iawai' I Revised Statutes, section?-1: <br /> ~JVhere the landlords have obtained, or may hereafter obtain allodial tales <br /> to their lands, the people on each of their lands shall not be deprived of the <br /> right to take firewood, house timber, aho cord, thatch, or ki leaf, from the <br /> land on which they live, for their own private use, but they shall not have a <br /> right to take such articles to sell for profit. The people shall also have a <br /> right to drinking water, and running water, and the right of way. The <br /> springs of water, running water, and roads shall be free to all, on all Sands <br /> granted in fee simple; provided that this shall not be applicable to wells <br /> and watercourses, which individuals have made for their own use. <br /> The legislative history of-the Kuleana Act indicates that this particular <br /> section was included at the insistence of King Kamehameha III. The privy <br /> council minutes re#lect the king's concern that a "little bit of land even <br /> with allodial title, if-they (the people) be cut off from all other privileges <br /> would be of very little value." The privy council thus adopted the king's <br /> suggestion: <br /> (The) proposition of the King, which he inserted as the seventh clause of <br /> the law, as a rule for the claims of common people to go to the mountains, <br /> .and the seas attached to their own particular lands exclusively, is <br /> agreed...." <br /> Therefore, the Kuleana Act provided native tenants a statutory right of <br /> access to their kuleana, as well as unobstructed access within the ah~:pua'a <br /> to obtain items necessary to make the kueana productive. Subsequent <br /> common law defines custom, implied dedication of public right-of-way, <br /> and public trust doctrine. <br /> Highway Act of 1892 <br /> Hawai'I Revised Statute, chapter 264, section I, formerly known as the <br /> Ilighways Act of 1892, was amended in 1988 to specifically define public <br /> trails within the state. Section 264-1(b) provides: <br /> All trails, and other nonvehicular rights-of--way in the State declared to be <br /> public rights-of--ways, by the highways act of 1892, or opened, laid gut, or <br /> built by the government or otherwise created or vested as nonvehicular <br /> public rights-of--way at any time thereafter, or in the future, are declared to <br /> <br />