You're tuned to a new show called Mostly Maui.
We are going through the Akaku vaults to find gems from Maui's past.
But we also want to see the videos that you send in.
So if you'd like to contribute to Mostly Maui, please call 8-7-1-5-5-4 because it's your
show.
Mostly Maui.
Maui, just the sound of the word, soft and gentle and lyrical, seems to suggest what
the islands are like.
For here are islands of paradise, blessed by nature as few lands are blessed.
With proud towering cliffs looking down over deep fertile valleys, all basking in a climate
described by one word, perfect.
Whenever you turn in Hawaii, beauty bathes your eye in nature's wonders.
It may be the manicured green of a formal garden.
It may be the gleaming whiteness of a sandy beach.
Whatever it is, people enjoy themselves in Hawaii.
Yes, it's fun, even if you taste salt water along the way.
Thousands of tourists come to Hawaii each year.
At Honolulu, they are met in the traditional Hawaiian fashion.
It doesn't take long for the visitor to Hawaii to understand why people leave the islands
with hearts as heavy as the strings of fragrant lays around their necks.
There is another side to the Hawaiian story, business and industry.
Honolulu is constantly expanding with impressive buildings reflecting a forward-looking community.
In tune with this alert spirit, good roads and a network of highways and throughways
afford islanders swift transportation from one place to another.
Huge sugar plantations sprawl over the four principal Hawaiian islands.
The sugar industry is the source of more than 25% of the territory's income.
One doesn't usually think of Hawaii as a place for cowboys, but there are familiar
sight on the islands where there are many thriving cattle ranches.
But when one thinks of Hawaii, one does think of pineapple.
About 80% of the world's supply comes from the islands.
The pineapple industry returns over $108 million annually to the Hawaiian economy.
Yes, the white-flexed seas rolling in on the islands and the very salt-sprayed air have
always conveyed the feel of peace and plenty and pleasure.
I'm Danielle.
And I'm Lauren.
We're the Bee Girls for Bee Facts.
Hi, I'm Lauren Russert with your Bee Facts.
Did you know that one in every three bites of food comes from a honeybee?
With no honeybees, there would be very little nutrition.
Hawaii's bee-pollinated produce is valued at $212 million annually.
Some crops pollinated by bees include macnuts, avocado, lychee, longan, rambutan, coffee,
citrus, ohia lehua, and koa.
Because of the great weather conditions, year-round, Hawaii's honey production per colony is ranked
third in the country.
I'm Lauren Russert with Bee Facts.
Until next time, be well.
We're the Bee Girls for Bee Facts.
Bzzzzz.
Bzzzzz.
Numerous Maui scientists
are gravely concerned with the future survival of Oluwalu Reef. A new major urban development
is slated to be built directly above this biologically unique reef whose ancient corals
seed and give life to all of Maui County. Many question the wisdom and motivation behind
putting a city of well over 4,000 people right uphill from this gem as scientists cite
numerous studies and point to local construction disasters that have wasted away many of Maui's
reefs. As Oluwalu is an established home to many species of already endangered ocean
creatures, the stakes are high and the fate of this reef precariously hangs in the balance.
One of the most amazing places in Hawaii, in fact on the planet, and that's because
right here at Oluwalu we have a really large aggregate coral structure which means that
the base of this reef is dead coral, coral skeleton, that new coral has grown on top
of. We've got at least something like 60 feet of depth in some places of coral skeleton
which is very unusual because in most other places in Hawaii we have lava flow, substrate
that's from our volcanic islands and coral growing on top of the lava. So it's younger,
newer, geologically speaking. This place is much older. In fact some of our corals here
we think have been growing for more than 500 years. Now we need some comparison to time
when we talk about an animal that's 500 years old. That's older than Kamehameha, the first
uniting the islands. That's older than George Washington. That's older than Christopher
Columbus crossing and discovering the Americas. The corals serve a lot of purposes for the
fish. First they create the homes and the space for them to hide and live and hunt and
everything they need. Also there are a number of species that actually eat coral which is
important as a food source. They really provide the protection. It's a city, right? You live
in a city, you live in your condos, your space is for protection and then you go out and
get your food. When you come back to your little space we have fishes that actually
grow gardens out here. What we do know from science here in the past decade or two is
that the more complexity or the more reef structure you have, the more fish you have.
So they really like that structure. It's known as complexity. This reef here at Oluwalu
has a lot of complexity. It's a very old reef. It's down to a well-developed spur and groove
reef. This isn't like some of the reefs on the Big Island which are quite good as well.
Those are generally grown over lava flows. This reef is not. This reef is grown up from
itself. So it's a very special reef. It's coral all the way down to the sand. Reproductive
coral. It's causing new coral to spawn and grow and these drift to other areas around
the Maui coastlines and within the Maui New Area in general. Some of these corals began
to grow after the first Polynesians arrived 1800 years ago and they actually got to watch
these corals when they first dropped down onto the reef in their larval stage and began
to grow. So it's really a sacred place in some ways because what we're looking at here
is the legacy and the history of the formation of this special coral reef and the special
part of the Hawaiian Islands. And because of this point here, Hakeeli Point, we've got
this very protected area and it's relatively shallow. It's called Reef Flat or Back Reef
and so this area is exposed at really low tide. This reef survived Hurricane Iniki.
In 1992 Iniki slammed into Hawaii and it devastated Kaua'i and even north shore of Oahu and here
on Maui we experienced 30 foot waves crashing into the west side of Maui and 30 to 40 boats
were lost on the west side and the Heiner Road's dead. It was a devastating time and
it was quite heartbreaking and poignant and quite a bit of reef was destroyed on the west
side but not this reef. This reef survived. This reef wasn't even damaged. So this place
is especially important because its geological formation and structure is conducive to long
term life. So it's a nursery area. It's shallow and it's got this history. Even sea level,
geological sea level changes can be measured in our micro-atol structures. So it's super
important for so many reasons, not just for the animals that live there, but for telling
us something about the history of sea level on our planet. So special. So this place has
some especially important protected species. We have sea turtles coming here. Green sea
turtles like to inhabit this area and hide and rest in the caverns and pucas in the coral.
They'll find a place to spend most of their day and just hang out and then they'll go
out and forage in the rocky habitat where there's limo to feed on. And we have monk seals.
In our endemic and endangered monk seal is found in this area. So we see the monk seal
on a regular basis, at least one individual. It's an important habitat for that animal.
So it can fish and it can hide out from predators. The tiger shark might be one of its predators.
And so it can hide out in this area and be protected. So super important for all of the
life that's evolved in this area. It's adapted for being here. And if we change the shoreline,
if we create more impervious surfaces, if we build more close to the coast and we create
more of a possibility of nutrient runoff and sediment runoff, then we change this place.
And all of the life that's dependent on it may shift or it may begin to degrade. And
that's what we've seen. We've seen this unfortunately all around Hawaii and on Maui and we're really
concerned about this place because it is so precious, not just for us here in Hawaii,
but really for the world.
So a lot of people don't know Manta rays are actually Hawaii's largest marine resident
here. They're here all year round and there's a few places in the world that they'll aggregate.
And you can, you know, you have reliable sightings, you can study them, you can swim with them.
And Oluwala Reef is this one of these renowned places.
For studying reproductive behavior, this is probably the only place in the world. We often
refer to as the crown jewel of Maui. If we lose this reef, we lose the fish, we lose
the, the revenue this place generates. And then the habitat. And of course that affects
the Manta rays. There's a sea wall that went up in Ukemaami, very close to the cleaning
stations. For a month, there was a mud plume that persisted there. And just like putting
a plant in a closet for a month, a plant needs light to survive, the coals will die.
We don't fully know what, why they need this area, but it is a special area. It's one
of the few places in the world. And we need to protect that habitat. Without that habitat,
the Manta rays won't come here anymore.
Quite often, my name is Jason. I'm a videographer, a photographer. I frequent the area quite
often. I've been filming there for years. One of the reasons Oluwalu area is so important
to our shores here in Maui and preserving it is that it is home to a number of monk
seals. And we see them quite often. Why? Because basically it's a perfect habitat for female
monk seals that are looking for a place to give birth. One of the tremendous problems
with monk seal population is that they have a hard time breeding. They have a hard time
finding the right spot to do their thing. And population control and stuff like that
has been a problem basically because of breeding. They are looking for somewhere like Oluwalu.
It has a lot of little pucas, holes that they can hide in the coral with. They also are
looking for those places to be shallow, which Oluwalu, if you're familiar with the areas,
extremely shallow, has a lot of holes for them to hide in and sleep in during the day.
And also access to a nice sandy beach nearby. I know the water as well and we need to protect
that area, if only for the monk seals, but also for the extraordinary expanse of other
wildlife that lives there and relies on us to protect it for them.
What concerns us with putting a population of about 4,000 people and a town on the reef
here at Oluwalu is the fact that you're going to now increase the land-based pollution exponentially
to what it has been. I think that developers have a lot of good intentions and they have
some good plans, but they can't account for all of it. And I think it's a bad experiment
given the value of this reef. Corals need clean, clear, low-nutrient water so that they're
able to utilize the energy from the sun to photosynthesize, which feeds them up to 90%
of their nutrition, so they're able to produce and grow these great reefs that are the cities
for all the other critters out here. There was a study done by the folks at Scripps National
Geographic University of Hawaii who went out to the line islands and they looked at reefs
over a chain of islands where the population went from nobody to just a few people to a
lot of people. So they were able to actually look at the reef condition based on population.
And what they found was the more people you had, the less the reef recovered from stresses
and generally less fish, more degradation, and less resilience to stressors like bleaching
when it had the land-based or anthropogenic stressors to deal with. So that's really our
biggest concern because pretty much anywhere you look where you have a lot of people, you
have a degraded reef to some extent. This is one of the challenges. We want to protect
what we have. Trying to fix it after it's broken is something really difficult and not
necessarily achievable. I came out just to learn more about the reef, to see it firsthand
and get the first-hand experience. And I witnessed just the diversity and beauty and just the
intricacies of this particular reef in relation to others. I've been swimming a lot around
Kahikili, that area, and to see the difference between that and realizing what an actual
alive, thriving reef is supposed to look like is very eye-opening for me. And it'll be very
sad, and it's one of the main reasons why I completely oppose the project here, is because
of the development and the devastation and the negative impacts that can occur that
will damage this particular reef. My name is Donna Brown, and we just came up from an
awesome dive here at Oluwala. It's one of the last reefs on Maui that's still really
nice. We just can't let it die. The reef isn't growing, it's eroding, and what we do know
is when you put a lot of people near a reef, they tend to erode. This is a trend that we
see Pacific-wide. The more people you have near a reef, the more degradation you have.
So that's what we're concerned about. In the past few decades, our track record as
Ocean Stewards is dismal, as many once-thriving reefs are near collapse. Right down the Costa
Maalaya village, only 4% of coral cover remains, reminding us how building next to these complex
ecosystems can silt out and choke our reefs. This area is a critical habitat to many rare
and endangered animals, from the ancient Kapuna corals to turtles, mantas, and monk seals.
Will this project be pushed through, plowing over the warnings from scientists and the
concerns of citizens? A coalition has been formed to try to prevent the collapse of this
special place, and many have already gathered to voice their worries at the City Council
meetings. There is still time for comment as final approval is nearing but not yet guaranteed.
For more information on how you can be heard and help protect the reef, go to www.saveolowaluereef.org.
To voice your concerns, please email County Council members or call 270-7838.
With so much at stake for our entire offshore ecosystem, can we really afford to risk this
unique and highly productive reef and what it means for all of Maui?
Here in Hawaii, the ocean is all around us. It is where you play and even where we find
our food. Unfortunately, it is also where a lot of our trash ends up. This trash is called
marine debris. Marine debris comes from many sources. Some of it comes from ocean-based
resources like shipping, fishing, and even cruise ships. But a lot of it comes from
us on land and makes its way into the ocean in many different ways.
Thank you.
Thank you.
