Maui Lands Donated to be held in Open Space Forever

Ulupalakua Ranch's owners Pardee and his son Sumner have taken nearly 12,000 acres of their existing 18,000 acre ranch lands and donated them through an easement to the Maui Coastal Land Trust.

The land that the Erdmans of Ulupalakua Ranch have now preserved for future generation are very much a visible part of Maui.

Part of the land was an Awapuahi. In the older days of Hawaii as land was considered "divided", it normally consisted of parcels that ran from the ocean to the mountain, sort of pie slice shape. This allowed the people that lived on that land to make full use of all it's various resources.
They could live along the beaches or in the mountain areas or choose to move to one or the other throughout the year.
Fishing, medicines from plants and various types of crops, not to mention just fresh drinking water were available for everyone's use. A concept that modern land ownership took away.

Much of the property donated in an historic lease agreement allow for the Ulupalakua Ranch to still use the property for much of their normal ranching, which presently consists of about 5000 cows, but also includes goats, Elks, Lambs. In addition they grow grapes and operate a Winery, small store and leases to operations like horseback riding and clay shooting.

The parcel includes the very sensitive Auwahi Habitat Restoration Project area that has been successfully removing invasive plants and replacing them with native species.

With so much development encroaching on the lands around Ulupalakua, including Oprah Winfrey purchasing a 1,000 acre parcel next door, the Erdmans felt it was time to make a move like this.

In the past, the site of Ulupalakua Ranch has a very rich history. Founded as far back as 1865 by Linton Torbet. The ranch had various owners over the years, with Captain James Makee probably one of the most notable.

The Ranch was a favorite stopping off and vacation spot by many famous people in it's early years. Hawaii kings and many notable Authors were among it's large and varied list of guests.

Here we are 150 years later and the land that once was the home to many forests and plants like the very much valued Sandal wood trees that were all either harvested or removed to make room for pasture land, will now see from 12 to 15 Wind Turbines sprout along the ridge line
Adding nearly 20 Million Watts of power to Maui's Electrical grid. Sempra Energy recently of San Diego recently bought the project and acquired the lease within the Auwahi portion of the Ranch.

So with the exception of possibly viewing a few Wind Turbines, the southern ridge of Haleakala on Maui in Hawaii will continue to hold it's present beauty and view.

Of course, adjacent land owner's are not restricted beyond the normal existing laws and development will no doubt continue on around the Ranch, but maybe the government and public will take the Erdman's act into consideration when considering future proposals for development, at least within that area of Maui.

Having been privileged in the past, during a time when I worked on the two-way radios for the ranch and took many a trip to the top of this region, stopping off to taste some freshly picked Strawberries at the newly started Ulupalakua grown Strawberry farm, being raised on Maui it was my first time to taste what an actual plant ripened Strawberry, as opposed to the green ones picked on the mainland and forced ripened for sale in our stores. I never imagined a Strawberry being eaten without sugar sprinkled on them. The experience and the views from the top of the ranch where their water tank and radio repeater were breath taking. I just wish they had digitable cameras back then.

I hope to see more of this take place, especially after having just been working above the pineapple fields located on the slopes of the West Maui Mountains above the resorts and development.

With the new of Maui Land and Pine apple closing all it's Pineapple operation this is a huge area that could quite easily be either developed or mismanaged and through erosion devastate the slopes and further add to the loss of our ocean's reefs.

Through proper cover cropping and similiar trusts or leases, these lands could also be held for the future.

Black Friday Continues

Judging from the full mall with people from 4am walking away with small packages, I'm guessing the deals weren't so great or very limited.

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Living on a farm, she has quite a need for Energy in many ways. I hope this will help her to produce some extra Energy and help her to also lower her cost she already paying. Take a look at her website at www.pikevalleyfarm.com and see how beautiful it looks and the amazing things she and her family have done with it.

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Sustainabability on Maui Featured on Akaku and with the SustainableGirl

I just came from the AKAKU studios where the President of the Nonprofit Maui Aloha Aina Association, a 501c3 nonprofit Organization was on the Show Christi Anna Christensen, also known just as Tia has a show on Akaku and her website www.Sustainablegirl.tv. Also on the show was Maui County Councilman Sol Kahoohalahala.

Unfortunately, the TV in the lobby of the studio has to have the volume kept down low because they are taping the show in the next room and the audio can carry into the studio, but they did bring up the volume enough to allow me to hear most of it.

The show will be available online, I believe on Akaku or on Sustainablegirls website for rebroadcast and can be watched on a computer at a later date.

The discussions were about a number of topics about health and sustainability of our islands and especially Maui county.

Vincent Mina of Ma'a spoke about his up coming Kipahulu Farm Tour going around the back-side direction through Kula and Ulupalakua to visit four Organic Farms on October 24, 2009 and also the upcoming annual Body and Soil Conference held on Maui in January and then it moves over to the Big Island of Hawaii and for the firtst time it will also be held for the first time on the Island of Kauai. The info on all these events is on the website at www.MauiGrown.org.

With the results of the Tsunami in Samoa, then Indonesia tonight and how similar a situation we have in Hawaii where we are lucky to have 10 days worth of food available in the event of a disaster, self sustainability of our islands is even more critical.

Living in Hawaii and trying to "sell" the culture of Hawaii to visitors, only to have them come and feel like they never left home with all the fast food joints and big box stores, just makes it that much more important that we develop and create the niche that Maui really can be.

A good friend of ours stopped in to talk story towards the end, Corey Rider is with Earth Foundation and had a lot to add to the conversation on making our islands sustainable through jobs that can support the local people in helping to move towards being sustainable and having jobs that aren't just centered around the tourism and development end of things. There are a lot of ways that people can be employed and make decent money when the model for sustainability is done right.

Well it's another early work day tomorrow and barring any Tsunamis, we have plans for camping at the beach this weekend, or at least my daughter and grand kids do. I'll probably make at least one night.
Well I was just reminded how late it;s getting and although I had another subject I wanted to write on, it will have to be for a later post.

Mahalo & Aloha from Maui

Jim

Tensions as high as a Samoan Tsunami or not

Aloha,
Today I was working on Maui about a mile above the Grand Wailea Resort on some electrical substation equipment and roasting in the relentless and windless heat.

Then it started, apparently Samoa had a large earthquake out at sea and my Tsunami Alerts started coming in to my phone.
Living on an island where Tsunamis, also known by some as tidal waves, is something to pay attention to, tsunamis wrap around an island like Maui and not just the side they come from. Most of the alerts don't amount to much. Quite a few have come out of the Malaysia to Japan region and seem to be in the area of at least a 7 on the Richter Scale, but again, at least for Hawaii, they don't amount to much.

About the time I got the 1st alert, I started getting a text from my daughter's Mom about my daughter thinking she should leave work and pick up my grand children from school.
Her Mom asked me "What was my Tsunami plan." My response was that "I would head for the Grand Wailea, order their most expensive drink and meal and hang out by the pool and hope it wasn't a false alarm and end up having to pay for it."

As the alerts continued to come in, it was apparent that Hawaii was not in any danger, but as a precaution the State and County closed the beaches until the next morning. I guess they weren't to confident in their forecasting.

Once again, the alerts turned out to be no threat to Hawaii and judging from all the tourist still at the beach, no one was too worried about it.

Hawaii has had a few Tsunamis over the last 100 years and some, including one on April Fools Day, did do quite a bit of damage.

The threat of a Tsunami in Hawaii is not something to take lightly, but with the technology and warning systems we have in place, we do generally have time to react if it looks like it will hit. In General, it seems like the ones that come from the Alaskan area are most feared.

Unfortunately, most of Maui's power generation, tourist resorts and commercial zones do fall within the range of a big Tsunami. So if one were to hit, the results could be pretty disastrous and being so far in the middle of the pacific makes moving towards a more Sustainable Maui even more important.

So in my opinion it's not so much an if, but when scenario and so our moving in the direction of becoming self Sustainable is an important issue we can't drop let the ball drop on.