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<\/a><\/a>Invasive species and bombs<\/h2>\n
For centuries, Kaho\u2018olawe was a center of navigational learning, where young sailors would go to memorize the stars they needed to guide them home. It was also a site for religious ceremonies, a launching point for fishing expeditions, and home to a small population. But in the 1700s, everything changed. Intertribal conflict on Kaho\u2018olawe killed most of the island\u2019s residents, leaving it depopulated. When haole (non-Native Hawaiians) began arriving at the end of the century, they introduced goats, cows and sheep \u2014 and cats, which were used to control rodents.<\/p>\n
Kaho\u2018olawe had always been dry, and with no native mammals, its vegetation fell victim to the invasive grazers. As the animals ate, the island began to erode away, such that passing ships would avoid Kaho\u2018olawe to prevent being coated by a persistent cloud of iron-tinged red dust that blew from its surface.<\/p>\n
Then, in 1941, Japanese warplanes dropped bombs on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. military declared martial law across Hawai\u2018i, and took over the dusty red hillocks of Kaho\u2018olawe as a training ground for war. Ships practiced peppering the shoreline with gunfire, and submarines developed attack plans by firing torpedoes at its looming cliffs. Warplanes ran bombing runs from above, while on land, the military exploded grenades and mortars, fired rockets, and even burned napalm.<\/p>\n
By some accounts, locals believed that Kaho\u2018olawe would be returned to them after the war ended, but the military occupation continued for decades. So, in 1976, inspired in part by Native American protests and occupations in the continental US, a group of Indigenous Hawaiians sailed across the channel from Maui and occupied the island. The group, called Protect Kaho\u2018olawe \u2018Ohana (PKO), simultaneously filed a suit in federal court asking for an end to bombing on the island, in line with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.<\/p>\n
It would take years of labor, negotiation and personal loss, including the deaths of two PKO members who disappeared on a boat ride to the island, before the restoration of Kaho\u2018olawe finally began: first through an agreement that the Navy would clean up the island after each test, and by 1994, a bill that stopped military action altogether and started the process of returning the island to its people.<\/p>\n Between 1994 and 2004, the U.S. military went to work removing unexploded ordnances, what it calls UXO, from Kaho\u2018olawe. This work utterly transformed access to the island. Today, there\u2019s a shoreline base camp where volunteers and visitors can spend the weekend, and several sites on the island that regularly host ceremonies. But access isn\u2019t unlimited. The military cleanup removed surface ordnance from 68% of the island. Only 9% of the island was cleaned down to a depth of 1.2 meters (4 feet), and 30% \u2014 mainly dangerous and difficult-to-access places like gullies and cliffs \u2014 hasn\u2019t been cleared at all. There are places where bombs are still emerging from the blowing red dirt.<\/p>\n This remaining UXO is a barrier to completing the restoration of Kaho\u2018olawe, especially because the same restrictions don\u2019t apply to the island\u2019s invaders.<\/p>\n As on much of the Hawaiian Islands today, invasive species run rampant on Kaho\u2018olawe. In addition to cats, introduced buffelgrass (Cenchrus ciliaris) and fireweed (Senecio madagascariensis) still outcompete native grasslands. Thorny kiawe (Prosopis pallida), a type of mesquite, sucks up already-limited freshwater. Mice like to chow down on native seeds, and along with a small population of rats, are known to snack on seabird eggs. The military removed the goats during their cleanup in the \u201990s.<\/p>\n Still, it\u2019s primarily cats that are keeping native Hawaiian seabirds away. But removing them has proved a nearly impossible task in landscapes peppered with bombs.<\/p>\n That\u2019s where Sentinel could come in. There\u2019s no cell service on Kaho\u2018olawe, so previously a person would need to physically hike to reach camera traps, which required hiring a UXO expert for any trip to uncleared areas. Enter Conservation X Labs, which developed a drone payload that can act as a \u201cdata mule,\u201d flying out to the camera trap to download any images and bring them back, knocking human labor down to a single trip to place the camera traps.<\/p>\n Next, Conservation X Labs created an onboard computer system that uses AI to recognize cats in the camera trap\u2019s motion-triggered images. When the drone returns with the downloaded data, the humans on the other end are saved the trouble of having to sort through \u201c8,000 photos of grass moving\u201d to find a cat, as Sullivan puts it.<\/p>\n With a network of camera traps arranged on the island, the Kaho\u2018olawe Island Reserve Commission (KIRC), which manages the island\u2019s restoration, will be able to more accurately estimate the cats\u2019 abundance and where they\u2019re most densely situated \u2014 data that can guide efforts to trap them. And when the eradication effort begins, the camera traps will be especially helpful in the excruciating and often costly process of what\u2019s called \u201cconfirming zero,\u201d i.e. that there really are no more cats left.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s obscene how much money it costs to prove you did your job correctly,\u201d Sullivan laughs.<\/p>\n Tests on Kaho\u2018olawe have proved that the Sentinel system would work. In fact, the tests were so successful that Island Conservation used the data from Hawai\u2018i to run another test on Floreana Island, in the Gal\u00e1pagos, which has developed into a full-fledged cat eradication program.<\/p>\n But on Kaho\u2018olawe, the plan is currently on hold. While there are still camera traps on the island gathering data, KIRC isn\u2019t currently utilizing Sentinel due to a lack of funding. Because it will take time to gather population data once this program is funded, actually removing the cats remains over the horizon.<\/p>\n \u201cWe always tell people the [return of] Kaho\u2018olawe [to Hawaiians] was due to the lucky confluence of the right political conditions in Hawai\u2018i and in the federal government,\u201d says Michael Nahoopii, the executive director of KIRC.<\/p>\n As a section of the state\u2019s Department of Land and Natural Resources, KIRC and its partners, like Island Conservation, must choose their activities based on the government funding that\u2019s available. For instance, right now the state is heavily funding coastal restoration, so KIRC is focusing on restoring wetlands and stabilizing sand dunes to face sea level rise.<\/p>\n When it comes to the cat project, it\u2019s just waiting for the wind to change.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of these days if [the funding is available] to eradicate cats and restore seabirds, we\u2019ll go for it,\u201d Nahoopii says.<\/p>\n Kaho\u2018olawe today looks very different from how it did the day that historian Davianna P\u014dmaika\u02bbi McGregor first set foot on its shores. On that day in 1985, the island was nearly barren; goats had grazed down any vegetation they could reach, leaving behind only thorny kiawe. No birds sang.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could feel the pain that the island was experiencing,\u201d McGregor remembers.<\/p>\n Today, the island\u2019s bare top is filling in with native waving golden pili grass (Heteropogon contortus) and yellow-flowered Hawaiian cotton (Gossypium tomentosum). There are more wiliwili trees (Erythrina sandwicensis) blooming orange in the spring, and \u2018a\u2018ali\u2018i shrubs (Dodonaea viscosa) along the coast drawing in native koa bugs (Coleotichus blackburniae) and Hawaiian blue butterflies (Udara blackburni). Native birds are beginning to find new roosts: McGregor has heard stories about nesting albatross (Phoebastria spp.) along the coast, and one fateful evening, Sullivan himself witnessed a group of some 20 pueo, Hawaiian short-eared owls (Asio flammeus sandwichensis), thronging in the sunset sky.<\/p>\n On many weekends, the island also once again hosts the sounds of chanting and laughter, music, and the swish of hula as Hawaiians themselves return.<\/p>\n \u201cYou get that feeling there of how our ancestors might have experienced the islands,\u201d McGregor says. \u201cYou can pattern your life on nature, with the rising and setting of the sun. You\u2019re in the elements, and there are the sites our kupuna [ancestors] left for us. It\u2019s like they just left yesterday \u2014 they\u2019re gonna come back, they just went to visit.\u201d<\/p>\n It is this final piece, the connection between people and ecosystem, that Kaho\u2018olawe advocates stress when they talk about restoration. Each part of the island\u2019s missing ecosystem supports not only its native ecology, but the cultural practices so important to Indigenous Hawaiians. For example, removing invasive kiawe would make more freshwater available to grow plants used to make traditional cloth and to farm taro (Colocasia esculenta), locally called kalo, to feed people. Likewise, removing cats and returning native seabirds, which are similarly dependent on native vegetation, would also mean the return of their guano, which provides nutrients to coastal habitats and nearby coral reefs, bolstering the rich traditions of fishing that for centuries launched from these shores.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a national park, it\u2019s a cultural park,\u201d Nahoopii says. \u201cWe want to create the habitat and the environmental conditions that support Native Hawaiian cultural practices, where they can be reintroduced and can thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n The final big step for Kaho\u2018olawe will be for the Hawaiian people to return it, legally. At present, the island is held in trust by the state, until a sovereign entity exists that can take over its ownership, as Indigenous Hawaiians don\u2019t have any state or federally recognized organized governance. However, Nahoopii says Hawaiians themselves disagree on the form that this should take, whether as tribal governments like Native American tribes in the continental U.S., corporations like Alaskan First Nations, or even a Hawaiian state within the state.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s up to the rest of the people of Hawai\u2018i, when they tell us they\u2019re ready,\u201d Nahoopii says.<\/p>\n There\u2019s still much to do. But Kaho\u2018olawe has always been a place of change. The island is also known as Kanaloa, the same name as the deity of the ocean and of long-distance voyaging, as well as Kohe Malamalama a Kanaloa, the shining birth canal of Kanaloa \u2014 a place where new things are born. When speaking of the island, a common refrain is K\u016bkulu Ke Ea A Kanaloa: the life and spirit of Kanaloa builds and takes form. In that mindset, the process of planting and planning, of seeking out funding, of finding agreement among a people, may feel less like delay and more like building: a process of becoming as the island finds its next form.<\/p>\nToward a full restoration<\/h2>\n
\u2018It\u2019s a cultural park\u2019<\/h2>\n