2021-12-14 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

Home

limits – that was never what the legislators intended for that land. I’ll show you another picture from my – this is where the strawberry guava is – the red on this map shows this map is now about 15 years old – it shows where the strawberry guava was 15 years ago – identified. AA: Excuse me Mr. Bryan… Sorry to interrupt you but your second screen – do you have a picture on that screen cause we just have a black screen. DB: Thank you for letting me know that – the answer is yes – I have but obviously you don’t on yours – let me try again if I might. As you can tell – AA: Well we got the Big Island with all the different colors but your last screen didn’t share – DB: Yeah, you got that. PS: While Don’s doing that I can maybe show in a little bit – I was talking to David Okita – helicopter owner and operator about the waiwi and he just described it as you know right at the sugar line and then going about a mile up it’s like thick and a little above that it starts to thin out and you see some koa and Ohia coming through and then as it gets higher up closer to 3,000 feet it thins out a lot but it’s still there and it’s not going away. DB: Well, I’m, I’m not gonna use up your time while I’m rehearsing how to make my presentation here – but to add to what Peter is saying – the current number that is being used by the University and the US Forest Service people is 600,000 acres of Hawaii Island is now infested with strawberry guava and according to the US Forest Service researchers this is not slowing down and is not going to slow down for quite a while – think of those numbers – big numbers like 600,000 acres can be kind of confusing but that’s a quarter of our Island – one fourth – a quarter of the entire Island is taken over by this invasive so – and providing no service either environmentally or commercially as was intended by the legislature – what we would like to do as Hawaii Forest Industry Assn is pave the way for two things that we are working on right now – one is we are developing the methodologies to substantially reduce the strawberry guava – the first method and primary method is bio control – bio control methods have been tried out – they’ve been proved –they’ve proved safe they do not go to other species that’s an insect – you know, what the insect – when released does is reduce the \[unclear\] of the strawberry guava by 80% - that’s for both growth and for fruit production – while that doesn’t take it out that makes it possible to control and to bring back our native species on these lands that we are intended to enjoy both for commercial forestry and for picnicking, hunting and other uses so we see returning those lands to commercial use which will pay for rebuilding the roads \[unclear\] land to get access or gain control and for hunters and for harvesting and for management of the land. So that’s what we’re attempting to do now… PS: So that’s why we came to you guys – Peter Simmons – that’s why we came to this group because the recreational potential of those lands as you know – knowing those lands – you know that that’s a big deal and if we’re able to get access that would be a big plus too – one of the issues that’s been brought up to us in the past is that initially when the Forest Service was going through their – the same as going through their EA process there was some push back from a lot of people but hunters in particular had issues and so when Don and I brought this up that, oh, we would like to harvest some of that waiwi and take it down to the Honua Ola plant when they’re operating and they agreed that that would be a fairly good thing to do just out of, 3