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GATEWAY COMMUNITY TO THE NATIONAL PARK <br /> Volcano provides a scenic rural Gateway Community to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, while <br /> also providing needed services to park visitors. Approximately one mile from the Park's Kilauea <br /> Visitor Center, Volcano Village is the nearest community to the main entrance of the National <br /> Park. Volcano residential areas are located along six miles of Highway 11, the approach to the <br /> National Park from Hilo. Few residences are visible from this approach to the Park because of a <br /> forested buffer along the State Highway and undeveloped lots. As a result, Park visitors <br /> approaching from Hilo become immersed in native forest as they pass through the Volcano <br /> community on the way to the Park entrance. <br /> Further, the Highway 11 approach to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in the Ka'u District passes <br /> through a pastoral and native woodland environment for many miles, allowing adjacent <br /> communities to provide uncluttered, non-commercial gateways to the Park. <br /> This highway, with such a landscape gradient, presents an unusually long and gradual <br /> transition, over many miles of travel, from an entirely natural wilderness through pastoral and <br /> agricultural landscapes merging into rural, then suburban, and eventually high density urban, <br /> commercial, and industrial environments. Such travel corridors are rare in Hawaii, where <br /> tourism is such an important component of economic life. Indeed, such a corridor is rare <br /> anywhere in the modern USA. <br /> 17 <br />