Tree Farmer - July/August 2009 - (Page 22)

stock. Later more trees were cleared for pineapple and sugar plantations. More recently, residential and commercial development gobbled up real estate in Hawaii, where tourism is the number one industry. Even so, the Aloha State retains nearly half its 4.1 million acres in forests, although primarily at higher elevations and not usually for Tree Farms. “Watershed protection has always been the number one objective of foresters in Hawaii,” says Extension Forester Dr. J.B. Friday of the University of Hawaii in Hilo. “Timber production is a much smaller part of what they do. It was only in the 1990s that Tree Farming as a productive use of land came back, and it came in as sugar production was going out. What is very different now is that it’s going on in low-elevation former agricultural lands.” On the island of Kauai there are approximately 32 Tree Farms covering 3,200 acres. Na ’Aina Kai’s Kilohana Plantation was the first non-industrial Tree Farm in the islands and Friday praises their model, which combines tourism with Tree Farming. “There is an agro-tourism push here, plus, of course, eco-tourism,” Friday says. “Na ’Aina Kai, with the botanic garden and the sculptures, fits both these categories, as well as being a Tree Farm.” Smith also admires the family forest’s operation. “The multi-revenue, botanical-sculpture-visitor-oriented model at Na ’Aina Kai is pretty unique in many respects as a financial model,” he says, “and one could argue that the temperate Tree Farms on the mainland use similar techniques with hunting and recreational leases. As one of the older and most diversified Tree Farms in the state, Kilohana Plantation has been a leader and shining example in the conversion of former sugar land to Tree Farms. They have provided inspiration, information, and motivation for entrepreneurs in Hawaii’s expanding private forestry sector.” Laughing Pig Farm: Bari Green & Lou Russo Bari Green and Lou Russo’s 16-acre property meanders along the contours of steep hillside below Mauna Kea on the Big Island’s Hamakua Coast. The azure blue of the Pacific is visible in the distance, and a steady trade wind rustles the leaves of rows of hardwoods — teak, African and Honduras mahogany, pheasant wood, and rosewood. The couple moved to the area nine years ago with dreams of reforesting this sugar-cane-plantation-turned-cow-pasture. “When we got the land, it was barren,” says Green, of the plantation she and Russo facetiously named Laughing Pig Farm after the feral pigs that roamed there. “There wasn’t a single tree. It was wide open wasteland, and it was very depressing.” The couple interplanted a mix of other trees to lure beneficial insects and birds. They planted jacaranda to add splashes of color. Coconuts, breadfruit, avocados, mangos, ironwoods, clumping bamboos, and bananas serve as windbreaks. Green says they hope to harvest their hardwoods in 30 years, making the trees their retirement fund, and perhaps some day their children will be harvesting hardwoods from the land. To reduce maintenance and add free nitrogen, they planted a ground cover of leguminous perennial peanut (Arachis glabrata) beneath a test orchard. Now that their hardwood canopy is closing, the couple has begun selective thinning. They learned their Narra (Pterocarpus indicus) seed stock was poor, so those trees will have to go, but the teak, pheasant wood, and mahoganies are thriving. They plan to open up the last four acres of their land soon and plant coffee and acaci palms. —M.H. Lessons From a Hurricane Since they began planting trees in 1993, the folks at Na ’Aina Kai have come a Teak in full bloom. 22 Tree Farmer JULY/AUGUST 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Tree Farmer - July/August 2009

Tree Farmer - July/August 2009
Contents
Cover Story
Testing GPS Handhelds
No Child Left Inside
Tree Farming in Paradise
From Your Committees
Ties to the Land
Wildlife Matters

Tree Farmer - July/August 2009