Department of Land and Natural Resources

State and county wildfire fighting crews today continued to work to establish a control perimeter around a fire that is burning between the 800 to 1,500-foot elevation at the western edge of Waimea Canyon, amid grassland and haole koa shrubs.

The main parking lot at Ha‘ena State Park will be closed all day on Friday, May 19 to complete an ongoing maintenance project, as well as tree trimming and removal of ironwood trees adjacent to the parking lot.

The most recent aerial surveys of ohia forests on O‘ahu, Maui, Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i, Moloka‘i,and Lāna‘i paint a good-news, bad-news picture. The good news is there are no confirmed cases of this fast-spreading fungal infection in ʻōhiʻa forests on any island other than the Big Island. The bad news is, the area of mortality thought to be caused by ROD has increased 50% on Hawai‘i island compared to DLNR’s previous survey in 2016.

Seventeen people were arrested at the Kalalau Section of the Napali Coast State Wilderness Park, during a pair of law enforcement sweeps earlier this week. Officers from the DLNR Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE) arrested people without valid permits for being in a closed area. They believe among the 17, were three people who’d been illegally residing in Kalalau Valley for long periods of time.

The 25 winners of the 11th annual My Hawai‘i Story Contest were announced today. My Hawai‘i is an annual environmental writing contest for middle school students in Grades 6, 7, and 8, from across the state. The top 25 poems and short stories were selected from 305 submissions and will be published in an anthology that is distributed to schools, libraries statewide and online on Hawai'i Conservation Alliance (HCA) site.

(Honolulu) – Two successive summers of serious coral bleaching in waters around the main Hawaiian Islands and in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands has led to the development of the first-ever Hawai‘i Coral Bleaching Recovery Plan.

(Hilo) - Assistance provided by the Native Hawaiian community allowed officers from the Hawai‘i Branch of the DLNR Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE) to make contact with a suspect in the recent case of graffiti damage found at the Mauna Kea Ice Age Natural Area Reserve (NAR). As a result of this contact and investigation, Hope Cermelj of Kalapana, Hawai‘i was issued a citation for violating Rule 13-209-4 (3), Prohibited Activities within a Natural Area Reserve. Cermelj will be required to appear in Hilo District Court.

(Kahului, Mau‘i) - On one side of the Waihe‘e Ridge Trail, hikers look deep into the Waihe‘e Gorge. On the other, they look across Makamakaole Gulch and out into the shimmering Pacific Ocean. On a clear day, yet another view is across the entire central plain of Maui all the way to the top of Haleakala. This challenging, but scenic trail is considered the most popular path on Mau‘i in the State’s Nā Ala Hele Trail and Access Program.

(Hilo)--The Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE) is requesting the public's assistance in providing information related to a criminal investigation of Prohibited Activities in a Natural Area Reserve (NAR).

(Kailua-Kona) - Compared to large mainland wildfires, Hawai‘i’s are relatively small. Yet the percentage of land mass burned each year in the islands is equal to or exceeds the acreage burned in many western states.