Massive conservation partnership covers 25% of Hawai'i land area

Partnering is the new paradigm in conservation in Hawai'i, and a group of Big Island partners have announced a stupendous new camaraderie.It will join together for conservation a quarter of all the land in the state—a million acres that sweeps across the Big Island, covering 40 percent of that island's land area.The new Three Mountain Alliance watershed partnership covers the slopes of much of Mauna Loa, Kīlauea and Hualālai.

The Kamehameha Schools and The Nature Conservancy of Hawai'i; the state's Department of Land and Natural Resources and Department of Public Safety; and the federal government's U.S. National ParkService (Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center, USDA Forest Service and USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The Kamehameha Schools and The Nature Conservancy of Hawai'i; the state's Department of Land and Natural Resources and Department of Public Safety; and the federal government's U.S. National ParkService (Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center, USDA Forest Service and USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.

One of the early projects for the alliance is to involve students and teachers in an education and restoration project at the national park and adjacent Keauhou Ranch, using native plants grown by inmates at Kūlani Correctional Facility. The alliance also plans to control wild cattle in several state-owned forest reserves in the region, to fence dry forests of upland Kona to protect them, to conduct joint invasive weed control work and to develop a watershed management plan for the high country forests of Ka'ū and Kapāpala.