UH Forest Stewards hits milestone protecting Hawaii Island private forests
Nine landowners graduated from UH’s Forest Stewards in Pāhoa, pushing the program past 100 graduates since 2012. The milestone lands on private forests that hold more than 100,000 acres on Hawaii Island.
Nine forest landowners from Hawaii Island and Oahu graduated from the 10th annual Forest Stewards program after a three-day workshop in Pāhoa. The private forests on Hawaii Island cover more than 100,000 acres.
The University of Hawaii program began in 2012 and has now graduated more than 100 landowners. The program runs through the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience and is led by James Boyd Friday, known as JB Friday, a professor in Natural Resources and Environmental Management. The workshop curriculum covered Hawaiian forest ecology, threats to forests and practical management skills for private landowners.
Well-managed private forests help protect watersheds, native species habitat and slopes that can erode into streams, communities, farms and coastal areas when they are neglected. On an island with sharply different conditions from wet windward forests to dry leeward lands, the work also strengthens resilience against wildfire, invasive species and long-term climate pressure.
The Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Wildlife, administers Hawaii’s Forest Stewardship Program to protect environmentally important forest lands from conversion to non-forest uses. The program was created under Act 195, Session Laws of Hawaii in 1993, and a U.S. Forest Service and state forestry fact sheet puts Forest Stewardship at $100,000 in fiscal year 2025, within $4 million in total cooperative forestry funding for Hawaii.
In South Kona, a 1,000-acre conservation easement and another 10,000 acres of native Hawaiian forest were protected from development, and in Kohala the state planned protection for 1,200 acres of the Puu o Umi Natural Area Reserve and adjacent private lands near Puu Ahia.
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