Hawaii forestry's best-kept secret - reforesting abandoned sugarcane fields - includes related articles

American Forests, Sept-Oct, 1994 by Norah Deakin Davis

Abandoned sugarcane plantations offer a chance to create a sustainable timber

Question: If you're a policymaker in Hawaii, what do you do when your state's No.1 industry--King Sugar--is in a nosedive? How do you replace the lost jobs and revenues? What do you do with thousands of acres of abandoned sugarcane fields?

In search of an answer, the state's Department of Land and Natural Resources hired a consulting firm last year to evaluate the potential of reforesting thos lands for commercial forestry. The firm predicted that growing trees in Hawaii could conceivably offer returns of 19 percent. In a followup, the state is mailing a prospectus to potential investors worldwide.

The pitch: Hawaii's forests grow year-round, meaning less time until harvest an payback of capital investment. What's more, they are under the American flag, which is true of less than one percent of the world's tropical forests.

"Hawaii has advantages such as political stability," says Mike Robinson, executive director of the Hawaii Forest Industry Association. "We can grow tree as fast as anyone in the world, and now we have the chance to create a forest industry as we would like it to be."

What he means is one that ensures a sustainable resource, as certified by a "greenseal" program. Robinson, who earned a forestry degree at Penn State in th early 1970s while "taking time off to participate in Earth Days," views Hawaii' strong environmental consciousness as another of the state's advantages.

His trade association has worked to build bridges to Hawaii's green groups. The association's newsletter describes a "well-managed" forest as one with mixed-age, mixed-species trees that are "in their harvestable prime at anywhere from 20 to 80 years of age . . . and harvested incidentally as opposed to clearcut."

The association, established in 1989, has 130 members ranging from the state's largest landowners to logging contractors and one-man cabinet shops. The member are far from unanimous about what to plant. Some favor long-rotation quality hardwoods, others short-rotation eucalyptus. And they don't all have credential as green as Robinson's. One member, for example, drew environmentalists' ire in 1982 for salvage logging after Hurricane Eva.

The association is only one of the forces working to foster a commercial timber industry. In 1992 U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka sponsored the Hawaii Tropical Fores Recovery Act with the goal of rejuvenating the state's threatened ecosystems. One objective is to identify compatible forest uses.

"If former cane acreage could be converted into the base for a high-value wood-products industry," says Akaka, "we could generate strong new employment opportunities for rural Hawaii."

A task force created under the new law has completed a two-inch-thick draft report. The main recommendation is to establish experimental forests for research. The document's most valuable contribution, however, may be the dialogue initiated among 100 representatives of various interest groups.

"The task force has received compliments on building consensus," says Michael Rains, a U.S. Forest Service associate deputy chief who is serving on the task force. "The cane fields create a real opportunity for a commercial venture. Sugar represents a way of life of making a living from the earth. People want t continue that legacy."

Hawaii's top four industries are sugar, military bases, pineapples, and tourism All four have their woes. Sugar and pineapples, because of high labor and transportation costs, have failed to stay price-competitive. The military is no a promising economic cornerstone in today's climate of defense cutbacks. And tourism, already suffering from the state's image of being over-priced, is feeling repercussions from the economic slumps in Japan and California.

The decline of sugar is dramatic. In 1976 the island of Oahu had more than 34,000 acres under cultivation but is expected to have zero by 1996. Hawaii (th "Big Island") will go from 94,000 acres to none. Kauai will also show a sharp decline. One of the state's two largest newspapers, The Honolulu Advertiser, wrote that "an unprecedented opportunity exists to redirect the course of Hawaiian agriculture."

Truck-farm crops for local markets could occupy 15,000 acres at most, so export crops are the key. But access to mainland markets is restricted by transportation costs and Hawaii's fruitfly problem. What is needed are high-value crops, perhaps for the gourmet market. Some candidates, such as taro and guava, would require extensive market development. Others (macadamia nuts, for example) face low-cost foreign competition. Another--using the land for cattle--offers a low property-tax assessment, but maybe not much profit. The on specialty crop that does bring Hawaii a high return--an estimated $1 billion a year--has zero chance of being legalized.

One alternative to agriculture is development. Land around Honolulu that was once in pineapples is now in subdivisions, hotels, and golf courses. Some acreage on the other islands has also gone to residential and resort developments, but environmental opposition and the present glut of hotel rooms is likely to discourage that option--for a while.