The Pahole Natural Area Reserve, which sits on the northeastern face of the Waianae Mountains, has been a remote sanctuary for rare and endangered plants and animals since 1981.
Despite being an actively managed preserve for 35 years, however, its species have declined and their habitat has been lost due to invasive species and other threats.
Now the state Department of Land and Natural Resources is proposing a plan to better manage and protect the 658-acre natural area reserve.
A draft management plan, prepared by DLNR’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife, is available for public review and comment through Nov. 18.
The plan, which outlines proposed management activities in the reserve over the next 15 years, is part of an ongoing series of management plans being prepared for natural area reserves across the state.
The Pahole Natural Area Reserve was created to protect a prime example of lowland native dry to moist forest, a remote habitat home to rare and endangered plants and creatures.
Noted for their species diversity, these forests have become extremely rare in Hawaii.
“Drier Hawaiian forest types are particularly susceptible to disturbance,” Forestry and Wildlife Oahu Branch Manager Marigold Zoll said in a news release.
In the past at Pahole, there weren’t always enough resources to successfully combat forest threats such as rats and slugs, said Emma Yuen, acting manager of the Division of Forestry and Wildlife’s Native Ecosystems Protection and Management program.
But advancing science and technology have led to opportunities for using new management techniques and conservation tools, she said.
“We’re ready to take on the progress of increasing protection,” Yuen said.
The reserve has never had a formal management plan, although management activities have been taking place for years, primarily at the hands of Oahu Army Natural Resource Program and state Forestry and Wildlife staffers.
But the lack of a management plan and “extremely variable staffing levels and funding” resulted in inconsistencies in the fight against invasive species and contributed to the continued loss of pristine native forest, according to the draft plan.
“Many portions of the reserve are heavily degraded by weed invasion, and widespread control of weeds and restoration of those areas is not feasible with current methods, limited staffing and budget,” the plan says.
Under the proposed plan, managers will focus their most intensive management and restoration activities on the areas still dominated by native species and expand their work to other zones as additional resources become available. Efforts will be evaluated every five years.
Despite the management shortcomings over the years, there is at least one success story. The Cyanea superba is making a comeback after the native species was thought to have disappeared completely.
The flowering plant in the bellflower family hadn’t been seen in the Waianae Mountains for decades before it was found in Pahole in 1971. But by 1978 only 36 of the rare plants were known to exist, and by 2002 the plant was entirely extinct in the wild.
In the meantime the rare plant was successfully propagated in nurseries. Today more than 1,400 plants have been returned to managed sites in Pahole and elsewhere in the Waianae range, officials said.
The Natural Area Reserves System was created in 1971 by the state Legislature to protect and preserve Hawaii’s most pristine and wild places. There are 21 natural area reserves on five islands, encompassing more than 123,000 acres that range from high mountain forests to coral reefs.
After public review of the Pahole draft plan, it will eventually go before the state Board of Land and Natural Resources for final approval.
The draft management plan is online at dlnr.hawaii.gov/ecosystems/files/2016/10/PaholeDraftManagementPlan.pdf.
Written comments will be accepted by email or letter by Nov. 18. Send to Tanya Rubenstein, Natural Area Reserves Project coordinator, at Tanya.Rubenstein@hawaii.gov. The mailing address is 1151 Punchbowl St., Room 325, Honolulu, HI 96813.
