2013-07-15 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – July 15, 2013 where we do it and at what point we do it – but I agree with you – the time is now to start exploring that and obviously our sheep management project is the foot in the door to see if we can make it happen and that’s one strategy we’ll learn from which hopefully can expand into gorse control someday. Cost varies at $225,000 and high has been $300,000 to manage the whole 56,000 acres. That includes everything, not just gorse control. So if you compare our budget with DLNR, Kamehameha Schools, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service National Park, we’re like 2 cents an acre and these guys are spending $10 an acre. Again, our mission is to put homesteaders on the land and for the last decade DHHL has expanded their planned management to let us take care of our natural resources as well – which is a very culturally appropriate thing to do – but it’s not a traditional – it’s not a historic thing, I should say, ever since DHHL has been established. So letting our beneficiaries know that there’s this big chunk of land up there that needs some management – that was under Parker Ranch management for 100 years – Parker Ranch 1902 – 2002 – there’s some issues we have to deal with – and, of course, as you know, you’ve got a lot of people on a wait list for their homes, their homesteads – so when we tell them – they don’t know – you have a choice to spend money on my homestead versus the gorse eradication on a different island – sometimes it’s hard to make that connection – so I feel, I’m pleased that DHHL has given the support to this project as they have – they’ve been very, very supportive – but the money’s not quite there yet. So one of the things we’re trying to do is create income above and beyond homesteading monies – like you say maybe a goat operation, sheep operation, some self-funding thing to help pay for the gorse eradication. Gorse burns well as fuel. Gorse comes back like gangbusters with fire. We gave one of our beneficiaries 1,000 acre lease in 2006. I think the issue is harvesting it. It’s not an easy plant to harvest on rocky land and therefore very expensive to turn it into fuel. The goal in the 100 year plan is to turn the area into a native forest – native being commercial koa – mamani on the mauka side – ohia on the makai side. We estimate that 22,000 acres of that land used to be in koa. Based on soils, elevation, rainfall – we estimate 22,000 acres of that land can support koa, either commercially or conservationally. And koa we’ve demonstrated – I didn’t mention we’ve been doing koa salvage up there for almost the last decade and we demonstrated that mature koa forest will generate 100 acres – or let me put it this way – an acre of koa will produce 8x the income that an acre of ranch will produce. So when we presented that to our commission – pre Aina Mauna agreement – they zeroed – well why are we growing cows when we can grow koa? But we do have pasture up there too, because you can’t eat koa, so it’s the balance that we’re trying to achieve in our legacy plan. 7