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20 years in the making: County purchases Honolulu property
Hawaii Tribune Herald – May 15, 2026 by Stephan Verbano
Hawaii County Mayor Kimo Alameda announced Thursday that after more than two decades of advocacy, the 364-acre coastal Puna property known as Honolulu Landing had been acquired by the county for preservation.
The $3.7 million deal was made possible by the County Council’s unanimous approval of Resolution 286-25 on Sept. 17 last year. It authorized the Department of Finance to negotiate the property’s purchase using funds from the Public Access, Open Space and Natural Resources Preservation Commission, also known as PONC — a county advisory body tasked with identifying lands for purchase based on their cultural, recreational and ecological value.
Money for PONC acquisitions comes from a fund comprised of 2% of annual property tax revenue.
Honolulu Landing is situated between Nanawale Forest Reserve and Waiakahiula, comprised of 4,000 feet of rocky, undeveloped shoreline and a broad swath of deep jungle, making up a traditional Hawaiian land division known as an ahupua‘a. It is scattered with village complexes, burial sites, temples known as heiau, house platforms and traditional farming terraces — an archaeological record of Puna district’s past and the result of centuries of human habitation.
Although vacant in modern times, the property — known as a “wahi pana” or sacred place by many — is home to endangered species like the io (Hawaiian hawk), opeapea (Hawaiian hoary bat) and pueo (Hawaiian owl), as well as native trees like hau, kukui and hala.
Alameda’s announcement was celebrated by cultural practitioners, scientists and conservation groups, and especially by some lineal descendants of the area. Among this latter group was Lehua Kaulukukui, who said her great-grandmother was born on the property in 1876. The land, she said in past testimony supporting the resolution, is a part of her genealogy, reminding her that humans are “not separate from the universe.”
“We are genealogically connected to it — we all descend from that same cosmic origin,” Kaulukukui told a County Council committee last year during discussions about the purchase. “Honolulu Landing is part of that genealogy. Its walls, heiau, house sites and burials are not relics. They are living testaments to our place in the universal order. To disturb them is to break the chain between past and future, between earth and sky, between people and the cosmos.”
In a prepared statement shared with the Tribune-Herald, she thanked various county officials for their “leadership and commitment” in advancing the resolution past the finish line.
”This pivotal moment represents more than policy,” she wrote. “It is an affirmation of the enduring relationship between our people and this beloved wahi pana. Honolulu Landing holds the legacy of our Tutu, Mary Kaui Moke Kuamo‘o Keli‘ipio, and generations of ohana before her who lived in deep alignment with this aina. We recognize this action as a meaningful step toward the protection and preservation of Honolulu Landing, ensuring that its cultural, historical, and spiritual significance remains intact for future generations.”
The land got its name in the early 20th century when it served as a hub for interisland commerce. From the early 1900s up until the 1940s, cattle were driven across the lava field shoreline and made to swim out to waiting steamships, which would hoist the animals onboard before beginning their journey back to Oahu. Before that, a black sand beach resulting from the 1840 Nanawale eruption and lava flow created an ideal spot for launching canoes along an otherwise rocky, treacherous coast. Honolulu means “sheltered harbor” or “calm port” in the Hawaiian language.
Local activists also celebrated the good news, like former County Council member Eileen O’Hara, who currently serves as the executive director of Pahoa-based environmental nonprofit Malama O Puna. O’Hara lives in the Hawaiian Shores subdivision right up the coast from the now-preserved land, and has been petitioning the county for its protection since it landed on the inaugural PONC list back in 2006.
“I’m just really, really happy,” she said. “I’m happy for future generations. I feel like I can point to this and say I did something meaningful — really meaningful — for my community. To me, it’s just thrilling to succeed in this long-term endeavor.”
The property was previously slated for development by Nani Kahuka Aina LLC, which had owned it since 2006, but these plans didn’t move forward. Then it was listed for sale in the summer of 2025. This could have resulted in the property being used for the construction of a new coastal subdivision along Old Government Beach Road, posing a threat to its archaeological sites and botanical wealth.
“It’s very important — we don’t want to see more development down here,” O’Hara said. “Just imagine 200 one-acre lots being developed on that property, and the additional traffic that would cause. It would not be something that would be a benefit to anybody.”
The land’s potential for archaeological study, she said, is a critical reason why it should be left as open space.
“That is why it’s so important to preserve it, because it’s very much still an intact village up there,” she said. “I mean, it’s grown over and there’s a lot of new vegetation, but you can uncover a lot as you get further away from the road. It’s pretty exciting to think of what we might find.”
She said the lessons that the property’s “living record of the past” could teach contemporary Hawaii Island residents about self-sufficiency and “malama aina” are most important.
“This takes us back and allows us to look at how the host culture dealt with these lands,” she said. “They lived here for centuries, and they had a population that may have exceeded what we currently have on the Big Island by some estimates. And they were self-sufficient and lived off the land, and we’ve rolled backwards.”
Pahoa Agricultural Park eyed for piggeries
Monday, April 06, 2026 12:05 am – Hawaii Tribune Herald
By STEFAN VERBANO
Farmers at the Pahoa Agricultural Park would be allowed to raise pigs for food under a state House bill making its way through the Legislature.
House Bill 1616 amends state laws to allow for greater “specialized commercial activities” at the nine agricultural parks across the islands operated by the Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity’s Agricultural Resource Management Division. Specifically, it permits up to two lots within each park to be used for the “processing, marketing and displaying of agricultural crops or commodities,” including value-added products.
Supporters of the measure hope it will bolster local food security and help grow micro-enterprises, creating jobs and reducing the state’s reliance on imports.
The legislation also lets DAB authorize commercial activities on agriculture park lots without the approval of the respective county council where the parks are located.
Pig raising and slaughtering is permitted under very narrow rules — only at agriculture parks containing more than 50 lots and located in counties with populations of more than 200,000 but less than 300,000 residents.
This is a deliberate carve-out by the bill’s authors to limit swine production to Pahoa Agricultural Park — a 553-acre, state-run facility situated just outside of Pahoa town, which is divided into 56 individual lots leased out to local farmers. The bill also requires incorporating Korean natural farming practices in raising the animals, such as using bedding inoculated with microbes that rapidly decompose manure and eliminate the need for “slurry pits” or frequent pen cleaning.
By siting a mobile slaughterhouse in the park that could process trapped wild pigs in addition to farm-raised pigs, state officials are hoping to turn a perennial nuisance into a food source and small business opportunity.
State Rep. Greggor Ilagan represents Puna and co-introduced the measure in the House at the beginning of the year. He was inspired to draft the bill after hearing testimony at a town hall meeting in 2024 in the Hawaiian Shores subdivision from residents frustrated by out-of-control feral pig populations.
“The idea came from the community being concerned with wild pigs damaging their property,” Ilagan said. “And as more interest grew, we tried to figure out a way to turn it into some sort of solution on the economic development side, and this was what came out of those discussions.”
He said proposing to site a pig farm and slaughterhouse in the Pahoa Agriculture Park was in response to the facility’s large number of undeveloped lots due to local farmers’ lack of interest in leasing them.
“I was inventorying the state assets that we had in Puna,” Ilagan said, “and one of those that I identified was the Pahoa Ag Park, and when I reached out to the Department of Agriculture and asked what is the plan … there wasn’t much growth happening in the Pahoa Ag park. I wanted to see if we can get more farmers, and one of those ideas was having a piggery.”
When asked why this provision of the bill has such specific rules that it only applies to the Pahoa park, he said it was in order to keep the measure alive — and because he knew the community desire was already there.
“I wanted to pursue legislation that could affect areas that already warrant the change,” he said. “If it’s so broad that it’s gonna impact all these different stakeholders, then the bill’s success rate would really be drastically lowered. So, I wanted to focus on an area that I knew and understood the need, so the challenges and problems could be resolved.”
Former County Council member Eileen O’Hara, now the executive director of Puna nonprofit Malama O Puna, was at the town hall meeting in Hawaiian Shores two years ago and has been one of the major advocates of HB 1616.
“For a slaughter unit to be brought to East Hawaii we have to have appropriate land,” O’Hara said. “It has to be a bit removed from other uses. You know you don’t want to be near residential neighborhoods. It’s also preferred that it has utilities — electric and county water for USDA food laws. So, we’ve been eyeing the lots that are in the ag park … for awhile but found out that they’re restricted. The Department of Ag had, when they formed those lots, which was decades ago, restricted them, and they’re not allowed to have any livestock, including swine.”
These restrictions, she said, are outdated and don’t take into account modern innovations like the Korean natural farming methods stipulated in the bill, which can greatly reduce odor, flies, groundwater contamination and the need for vaccines.
“I see Bill 1616 as a starting point to break down some of these obsolete, older ag laws because technology has advanced,” she said. “The whole idea of Korean natural farming, the stink-less piggery, it has made raising swine a lot more reasonable as a farming operation. So, as long as we’re not trying to do a concentrated feeding operation — what they call a CAFO — it seems like it would be reasonable to have use of these properties for that type of farming.”
Another local proponent of the bill is Amedeo Markoff, board member of the Mainstreet Pahoa Association and Pahoa Lava Zone Museum director.
“I think there is a real movement to build agricultural processing hubs,” Markoff said. “It would be nice to have some smaller agricultural plants in Puna that local folks could take advantage of and the community could use.”
Producing value-added farm products in Pahoa, he said, could be an important part of ongoing efforts to revitalize the town’s long-suffering economy.
“Let’s do it locally,” he said. “Let’s make sure that everybody is following the right regulations and rules so that we have a product that is safe, that doesn’t have a negative impact on the environment, and provides real career pathways for residents and kids that wanna stay and thrive right here in Puna. It’s a passion project for a lot of folks that I know, and we are trying to put tools in place for the community to take advantage of. A lot of this stuff is going to be years in the making. It’s not something that happens overnight, but putting the right policies in place so that it can happen is the broader discussion.”
HB 1616 passed the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Environment with amendments on March 20 and was referred to the Ways and Means Committee.
Email Stefan Verbano at stefan.verbano@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
Council awards Kilauea recovery grants to Puna nonprofits
Sunday, March 08, 2026 12:05 am - Hawaii Tribune Herald
By STEFAN VERBANO
The Hawaii County Council unanimously approved a resolution Wednesday awarding nearly $6 million from the Kilauea Recovery Grant Program to a variety of local nonprofit organizations providing relief to communities impacted by the 2018 lower Puna eruption.
This third round of recovery funding, which the council has authorized the Planning Department to distribute, will be divvied up among projects involving capital improvements like road and infrastructure restoration, economic revitalization work such as workforce development and agriculture reconstruction, and resilience efforts like emergency preparedness, veterinary care and invasive species removal.
Grant applications were accepted from Sept. 15, 2025, to Nov. 15, 2025. Fifteen organizations were selected for funding comprising two-dozen different projects, with some groups approved for multiple projects.
The mood was jubilant Wednesday in the council chamber leading up to the vote as lower Puna community members offered testimony about how the funds would help them rebuild their lives.
Deb Smith is the Vacationland Hawaii Community Association Board of Directors president, and passionately recounted how she and her husband, Stan, have spent years hiking across 700 feet of lava-field multiple times a week to get to their still-standing house in Kapoho.
The 70-year-old despaired at the slow pace of road restoration, and she expressed a profound relief at the $500,000 of grant funds for the organization Malama O Puna and its “Vacationland Road Restoration” project. With this assistance, the Smiths will finally after eight years be able to drive home.
Another attendee at the meeting, Smiley Burrows, identified herself as the “caretaker of Kapoho Crater,” otherwise known as Green Mountain, and is the founder of the community group Lower Puna Rising.
During the 2018 eruption, Burrows lost 100 acres of orchards, livestock pasture and forest land on the mountain’s summit and slopes. She is also affiliated with the group Puna Rising Ohana, which will receive $500,000 in grant funds to restore a 3,000-foot section of Kahukai Street in Leilani Estates, where she owns another property.
The full list of grant recipients, and their associated projects and funding, include:
— Malama O Puna: Vacationland Road Restoration ($500,000), Kapoho Kai water system restoration ($140,940), Hawaiian Shores water resiliency project ($215,600), Shared Use Kitchen ($202,000).
— Hawaii’s Volcano Circus: Post-Kilauea eruption restoration of Seaview Performing Arts Center ($500,000), Red Road resilience outreach ($100,000), Red Road all communities disaster initiative ($42,000).
— Puna Rising Ohana: Leilani road restoration ($500,000), Iolani farm restoration ($69,606).
— Hooulu Lahui: Noho Pa‘a, subdivision phase of campus site acquisition ($475,000).
— Arts and Sciences Center: Campus expansion grading and site preparation ($434,000)
— Pahoa Lava Zone Museum: Railroad Avenue restoration ($203,887), Holo Lio Road restoration, Part 2 ($81,991), Malama Road restoration ($32,000), Hale Halewai O Puna, Phase 2 ($200,000).
— Synergistic Hawaii Agriculture Council: Infrastructure for floriculture workforce development ($123,626), orchid floriculture workforce development ($376,373).
— O Makuu Ke Kahua: O Makuu Mala and farm to market program and community center ($400,000).
— Neighborhood Place of Puna: Puna Opio hub ($352,007).
— Kupu: Kupu Aina Corps ($300,000).
— Hawaii Environmental Restoration: Puna Perfect Project ($236,438)
— The Food Basket: Kokua Harvest ($220,416).
— Hawaii Volcano Education and Resilience Institute: Community resilience through youth development, AI, social media and volcano education ($146,889).
— Aloha Ilio Rescue: Puna pet support for community recovery ($125,000).
Email Stefan Verbano at stefan.verbano@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
How to solve the wild pig problem in Puna? Leaders promote eating them in local cuisine
How to solve the wild pig problem in Puna? Leaders promote eating them in local cuisine
January 11, 2026 · 5:00 AM HST - Big Island Now
For years on the Big Island, Amedeo Markoff and his son, Jacob, have trapped wild pigs for the tasty meat, which is eaten by their family.
But Amedeo Markoff has always questioned why there isn’t more interest from restaurants or grocery stores in the abundantly available wild pig meat.
Wild pigs
Markoff, director of the Pāhoa Lava Zone Museum, and other community leaders have been investigating the potential of using feral pig meat in local cuisine and working to change the landscape of wild pig management in Puna.
In April 2022, the nonprofit organization Mālama O Puna began efforts to control the growing feral pig population, which is prevalent in some Puna subdivisions. The animals have caused significant damage to farms and gardens while in search of food.
With funding from the County of Hawaiʻi’s Department of Research and Development, the nonprofit constructed individual traps and acquired a pig brig for capturing multiple pigs. It also developed a list of hunters specific to the Puna area, and contributed to best hunting practices, a hunter’s code of conduct, and an educational video on the Mālama O Puna website.
Mālama O Puna has successfully lobbied the state Department of Land and Natural Resources to change hunting rules in the Lower Puna forest reserves — Keauʻohana, Nanawale and Mālama Kī — to allow hunting seven days a week and to increase the bag limit from one to two pigs.
Despite these efforts, challenges remain in utilizing trapped pigs.
To address this, Mālama O Puna Director Eileen OʻHara, Markoff and County Councilmember Ashley Kierkiewicz created the 4-Point Feral Pig Control Project to develop a plan to promote consumption.
“We have excess supply on this island, and we need to ramp up demand,” OʻHara said. “A lot of meat is being wasted, and we have many food-insecure communities. Newcomers do not value feral pigs for eating, yet it is valuable and nutritious. While some are not okay to eat, many of them are excellent.”
Kierkiewicz, OʻHara and Markoff are ultimately working together to streamline inspection processes for wild animals, including feral pigs. To combat the perception that wild animals are not fit to eat, they organized the first annual Smoke It Up Festival in October, which brought together local chefs representing 13 kitchens to create dishes using feral pig meat.
“Everyone loves a competition, especially with a cook-off,” said Kierkiewicz, who conceived the festival to encourage people to create a value-added product from the abundant but problematic feral pigs.
“The festival showed us that we can strengthen food security and use our problems as opportunities,” she said.
Recipes included smoked meat carnitas tacos with homemade ʻulu tortillas and mole rojo from Chef Jess Devedorf of the Temple Bar, wild pork pastele with ʻulu and keawe smoked ash salt by Chef Jayson Kanekoa from Waikoloa Beach Marriott, and smoked meat/smoked sausage mac and cheese bites, smoked meat dip and ʻulu smoked meat/smoked sausage croquettes by the competition winners – Big Island Smokehouse.
The Hawaiʻi Community College’s Culinary Arts program also participated and created three dishes — ʻono smoked pork with Portuguese pickled onions, pork mustard cabbage soup featuring mustard cabbage grown and harvested by the college’s agriculture program, and Hawaiʻi homemade Scottish bangers.
“The Smoke It Up Festival demonstrated the potential of the cuisine, and the dishes were outstanding,” OʻHara said. “Now, we are in the process of publishing a cookbook with all the recipes.”
The festival, funded by a Hawaiʻi Community Foundation grant and funds from Kierkiewicz, showcased how the meat can be used and the current limitations of processing feral pig meat in the county.
Pigs are ready to be cut, cooked and served at Pāhoa Lava Zone Community Kitchen. (Photo credit: Amedeo Markoff)
Markoff participated as a chef during the Smoke It Up Festival. He represented the Pāhoa Lava Zone’s mobile kitchen, Pōhaku Cafe. The menu often includes USDA-inspected wild pork that was trapped on the Big Island by him or local trappers.
“This kind of head-to-head tasting is a fantastic way to highlight wild pork as a solution to the invasive problem in Hawaiʻi, especially if marketed as unique, premium and ecologically responsible,” Markoff said. “Every chef elevated our local meats. Participating inspired me to experiment further with wild pork meat at Pōhaku.”
For the festival, each chef used wild pig meat inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and processed by a USDA-certified butchery. But the only available facility open to working with the program is a mobile slaughter unit in West Hawaiʻi operated by the Hawaiʻi Island Meat Cooperative.
This required Markoff to transport pigs over the Daniel K. Inouye Highway to the west side and back with processed meat. OʻHara said more processing facilities are needed for a larger-scale wild pork industry.
“One of the takeaways from the Smoke It Up Festival was that it is not cost-effective to travel back and forth from Puna to Kona,” OʻHara said. “To be economically viable, there must be a mobile slaughter unit in Puna that can be set up at sites in other districts as well. In addition, the unit needs to process all types of domestically raised livestock.”
But she said it is difficult to find locations that meet all the criteria of being on the electric grid, having access to county water and following all USDA food laws.
Another big hurdle for opening a mobile slaughter facility is meeting the requirements for wastewater and nutrient management by the state Department of Health. Changes need to be made at the state level before it is possible to use land to set up a slaughter unit or other value-added processing facilities.
OʻHara said state Rep. Gregor Ilagan plans to address easing requirements for the use of state lands for agricultural processes in the upcoming legislative session.
Eileen OʻHara and Amedeo Markoff are outside the Pāhoa Lava Zone Museum Community Kitchen in Pāhoa on Jan. 6, 2026. (Kelsey Walling/Big Island Now)
For now, the Pāhoa Lava Zone Museum and Mālama O Puna are working together to expand a current facility to include a USDA-certified processing hub that would work like a cut-and-wrap facility, where food producers can break down animal carcasses into specific retail cuts and package them.
The cut-and-wrap facility would be a component within the Pāhoa Lava Zone Museum Commercial Shared-Use Kitchen, a community kitchen that has open availability for aspiring chefs, existing food business owners, as well as nonprofits and charitable organizations.
The certified kitchen provides the public with a professional food preparation space that meets strict health and safety codes, where they can prepare and package their locally sourced and produced food products to go to market. It includes facilities for locally sourced and produced food products to market.
The eventual expansion of the kitchen would allow cooks and entrepreneurs to prepare USDA-inspected meats and other locally produced products to sell to retail stores, restaurants or individuals.
“We need to upgrade the current kitchen to make it a certified cut-and-wrap facility,” Markoff said. “This includes add-ons like a walk-in freezer and modifications to the kitchen. However, non-meat processors are also encouraged to use it for their businesses. It’s the first of its kind in Pāhoa.”
Equipment is available to use in the Pāhoa Lava Zone Museum Community Kitchen in Pāhoa. Jan. 6, 2026. (Kelsey Walling/Big Island Now)
Pāhoa Lava Zone Museum uses the commercial space for everything on the Pōhaku Cafe menu. While wild pigs may not be processed for wholesale, Pōhaku Cafe can prepare and cook the meat they sell from the food trailer as long as they used the Hawaiʻi Island Meat Cooperative slaughter unit.
“We understand some folks may be apprehensive about eating invasives, and we still include farm-raised pork on the menu,” Markoff said. “But we want to promote invasive species management and to encourage people to try it if it sounds like something they would eat normally.”
Recently, Mālama O Puna received a $200,000 Kīlauea Recovery grant to help upgrade the kitchen and provide funding for critical programs needed by aspiring and current local food producers and additional equipment used for cut-and-wrap applications and value-added production.
“Developing this project with Mālama O Puna and Ashley (Kierkiewicz) has been an incredible experience,” Markoff said. “We’ve made strides as a team, and we’re excited to maintain momentum. It will benefit food sovereignty, keep forests healthy, and sustain agriculture.”
The beer garden is lit up at the Pāhoa Friday Night Market. (Photo credit: Amedeo Markoff)
The public can try wild pig meat, as well as other local favorites, at the Pōhaku Cafe.
The Pāhoa Lava Zone Museum recently launched the Pāhoa Friday Night Market with the goal of bringing the community together to showcase local artists, musicians, food producers and craft vendors. The market, located at the old Akebono Theater lot, will feature live entertainment and a beer garden from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. every Friday.
Honolulu Landing in Puna eyed for preservation
Sunday, August 31, 2025 12:05 am - Hawaii Tribune Herald
By Daniel Farr
The Hawaii County Council is renewing its push to acquire a historic stretch of coastal land in Puna, urging the Department of Finance to proceed with the purchase of a 364-acre property in Pahoa using dedicated conservation funds.
Known as Honolulu Landing, the property includes about 4,000 feet of shoreline and lies between Waiakahi‘ula and the Nanawale Forest Reserve. The coastal area has cultural, archaeological and ecological value and has been on the county’s priority list for preservation since 2007, when former council member Emily Naeole first introduced legislation to pursue its acquisition.
The name “Honolulu Landing” dates back to the early 1900s through the 1940s, when cattle were driven over the 1840 lava flow to the bay. The bay was deep enough to allow a barge to anchor offshore, where workers would push cows into the water, make them swim out, and then hoist them aboard using canvas slings before shipping them to slaughter in Honolulu.
The land — listed for $3.89 million by Brent Wenner of KW Commercial — is a mauka piece with a narrow coastline. The coastal section, currently in conservation, covers about 30 acres with nearly a mile of oceanfront. The remaining 334 acres extend inland in a triangular shape, ending at Manalo Street in Hawaiian Shores. Details about the listing are available online at commercialsearch.com.
A citizen’s initiative approved in 2006 led to the establishment of the Public Access Open Space and Natural Resources Preservation Commission, which directs the county to allocate 2% of property tax revenue toward land acquisitions.
The landowner’s death resulted in the property being placed into an LLC by the family, which now wishes to sell it, according to Eileen O’Hara, who served District 4 as a councilwoman from 2016 to 2018 and is the current executive director of Malama O Puna.
Under commission guidelines, the county cannot purchase the property for more than its assessed market value.
“I’ve been trying to get it into preservation since the 1990s, because it’s such a historic and important piece of real estate,” O’Hara told the Tribune-Herald on Thursday.
“We’re hopeful that everything aligns and that the market assessment allows them to go into negotiations with the owner, because the property is going to be listed separately — the coastal piece for $1.7 million and the mauka for $2.4 million,” O’Hara said.
“At that price … it could get snatched up really quickly,” O’Hara added. “This is really about keeping Hawaiian lands in Hawaiian hands.”
O’Hara said Mayor Kimo Alameda has “expressed interest” in the county buying the land, but would like to wait for the market assessment by the county.
A new council resolution to advance the purchase was introduced by Councilwoman Ashley Kierkiewicz and is listed as the first agenda item for Tuesday’s meeting of the council’s Committee on Legislative Approvals and Acquisitions, scheduled for 12 p.m.
According to the resolution, Honolulu Landing contains significant archaeological features first recorded by the Bishop Museum in 1932, including village complexes, heiau, ancient burial sites, house platforms and traditional agricultural areas. The site is considered eligible for inclusion in the Hawaii Register of Historic Places.
The area also is home to native flora and fauna, including freshwater springs and habitats for endangered species such as the Hawaiian hawk (‘io), the Hawaiian hoary bat (‘ope‘ape‘a) and the Hawaiian owl (pueo).
Council members emphasized restoring public access to the Puna coastline is especially urgent after the 2018 lower East Rift Zone eruption of Kilauea, which cut off many traditional pathways to the ocean.
The resolution calls for culturally informed land management and urges the county to work closely with lineal descendants, cultural practitioners, scientists and conservation groups. The legacy of Malama O Puna — a nonprofit credited with championing the preservation of the area — was acknowledged as instrumental in elevating Honolulu Landing to high-priority status.
Community support is evident in an online petition seeking to preserve the land, which has gathered about 1,000 signatures. The petition can be viewed at www.change.org/p/petition-from-honolulu-landing-hui.
Email Daniel Farr at dfarr@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
PONC FUNDS AWARDED TO NONPROFITS TO HELP PRESERVE MORE THAN 3,400 ACRES
Thursday, November 21, 2024 12:05 am Hawaii Tribune Herald
More than $1.2 million in Hawaii County grants was awarded to various Big Island nonprofits to maintain over 3,400 acres of conservation land.
The county’s Public Access, Open Space and Natural Resources Preservation Commission identifies lands around the county worthy of preservation and recommends grant funding to nonprofits to continue to steward those parcels.
The County Council on Wednesday approved 11 grants to eight nonprofits for a wide range of projects.
The single largest award went to the group Malama O Puna, which received $398,569 to steward over 150 acres of land in lower Puna stretching from Government Beach Road to the sea.
That grant will be used to develop a land stewardship plan and make security and access improvements to the parcel, called the Wai‘ele property.
Malama O Puna executive director Eileen O’Hara told the council on Wednesday that the Wai‘ele particularly needs anti-pig measures, as the ungulates are rampant in the area and tear apart vegetation.
“The property needs pig protection, and fencing an area this big is very expensive,” O’Hara said.
Read the full story @ https://www.westhawaiitoday.com/2024/11/21/hawaii-news/ponc-funds-awarded-to-nonprofits-to-help-preserve-more-than-3400-acres/
Article from one of Representative Greggor Ilagan's newsletter
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