Hawaiian Islands, The United States
Integrating Natural Capital into Decision-making
The Hawaiian islands hold a special place in the hearts of its 1.3 million residents and over 7 million tourists that visit each year. From its sandy beaches to rainbow-covered waterfalls to lush rainforest, people are drawn to the land and its bounty in this tropical paradise.
In Hawai'i, diverse leaders from across the public, private, and non-profit sectors are redefining our relationship to nature and the services it provides. Their vision and ours is one in which Hawai'i's people and institutions appreciate natural systems as vital assets and routinely incorporate their material and intangible values into decision-making.
Landowners Looking for New, Sustainable Business Models
Motivating this new vision are unprecedented threats to Hawai'i's ecosystems and local communities. Development pressure is leading to rising land prices and threatening the viability of the agricultural community. Farm, ranch, and forest landowners are looking for new business models that are financially sustainable and support good stewardship. Invasive species are disrupting native ecosystems, imposing escalating control costs on land managers. And climate change is sure to affect this island state through sea level rise, more severe storms, shifts in water availability, and other impacts.
These threats may have far-reaching consequences for the islands' unique natural heritage and its ability to provide the life-support systems that we rely on--productive agricultural land, fresh water, flood control, and cultural values.
Putting Ideas Into Practice
Natural Capital Project researchers are working with landowners and policy-makers to address these threats by developing creative new policy and finance mechanisms to manage land sustainably for current and future generations. We are working closely with key stakeholders including ranchers and forestland owners across the islands, Kamehameha Schools (a major educational trust and the state's largest private landowner), public agencies, The Nature Conservancy's Hawai'i program, and private investment companies with expertise in emerging environmental markets.
We have launched multiple concurrent efforts to support the pioneering efforts of Hawai'i's communities and leaders:
Forest restoration and groundwater recharge
We are working with private landowners to address the linked ecological and economic challenges of protecting and restoring biodiversity and ecosystem services on their lands. Specifically, we are investigating the ecological, economic and cultural dimensions of forest restoration with native koa trees, as well as determining which types of land use provide the greatest benefits for groundwater recharge, a critical policy question across the islands.
Mapping and valuing ecosystem services for land management scenarios
We are collaborating with Kamehameha Schools to apply the InVEST software tool on a key landholding on the north shore of O'ahu. This analysis is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the efficacy of InVEST in helping KS make real-world management decisions through its current land use planning efforts.
Working with policy-makers on new incentives for conservation
With county and state leaders we are helping to design new incentives and institutions that reward landowners for providing ecosystem services that benefit the public. Windows of policy opportunity include House Concurrent Resolution 200, requesting an analysis of incentives to promote conservation activities on private lands, and House Bill 226 mandating a reduction of the state's greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
Launching Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs
Building upon Hawai'i's recently passed climate bill, we are bringing together potential buyers and sellers for a pilot forest carbon offset project. We aim to build upon this carbon pilot to incorporate additional incentives for conservation of other critical ecosystem services, including water services, and biodiversity in Hawai'i.
Updates From the Field
InVEST Workshop with Kamehameha Schools Held in Honolulu October 8-11, 2007
The Natural Capital Project team and collaborators from the National Center for Ecological Assessment and Synthesis (NCEAS) met with Kamehameha Schools to launch on-the-ground ecosystem services mapping and modeling, using InVEST. We aim to illuminate the linkages, trade offs, and potential outcomes of 10 alternative land management scenarios on 26,000 acres for carbon sequestration, agricultural production, hydrological services, non-timber forest products, cultural and educational services, and biodiversity.
In The News
Land Conservation Efforts Offer Financial Rewards for Cattle Ranchers, Study Finds
Stanford Report, June 14, 2006
“Making conservation pay is a critical step toward encouraging restoration of private, working lands, the authors concluded. ‘Finding economically viable means of reforesting degraded pastureland is relevant far beyond Hawaii, particularly in the tropics.’”
Links
- Kamehameha Schools
- The Nature Conservancy's Hawai'i Program
- Hawai'i Cattleman’s Council (HCC)
- Hawai'i Department of Land and Natural Resources
- Government Incentive Programs for Tree-Planting or Forest Management on Private Lands in Hawai'i
- Hawai'i Association of Watershed Partnership