It can be hard to part with tradition, but sometimes the alternative can be disastrous.
It can be hard to part with tradition, but sometimes the alternative can be disastrous.
That’s the basic concept behind a proposal that some kumu hula have floated to put a kapu on the harvest of ohia heading into Merrie Monarch season. The liko, or new leaves, of the rugged signature tree have graced many a lei and been part of the visual feast that helps make Merrie Monarch what it is. And countless halau have hiked into the ohia forest over the years to bring back the cherished green bounty.
But the tree is in big trouble, with rapid ohia death laying waste to tens of thousands of acres and spreading more quickly than researchers originally thought.
“Everyone will be on the island for a week, they may go into an infected area, it could be on their boots,” said hula and cultural practitioner Sam Ohu Gon III, who also serves as a senior scientist and cultural advisor to the Nature Conservancy of Hawaii.
“If they don’t know to clean their boots, they could be spreading it when they go back home,” Gon said.
Gathering the liko is a long-standing tradition and is an integral part of some hula, Gon said. For the greenery to be missing from the most significant hula event in the world would be a shame, cultural practitioners say. But to further spread the disease by gathering the liko and possibly transporting the virus to other islands would be tragic.
“This year more than ever the danger is in bringing (the virus) back to their own islands,” Gon said. “It would be an ecological revolution if ohia were to disappear from the landscape.”
The necessity to malama the tree is not lost on Merrie Monarch, its president and director Luana Kawelu said. The organization has held several meetings with kumu and the contest judges, and will allow competing halau to substitute other material for ohia. Merrie Monarch has also sent out a brochure to the halau on proper practices to prevent the spread of the rapid death virus, should they choose to harvest the material.
“It’s up to them but we do hope they will make an effort to save the ohia forest,” Kawelu said. ‘We are all worried that we won’t have it if we don’t take care of what we have now.”
The word has gotten out to the kumu, and Merrie Monarch is also trying to reach out to the pa‘u riders in the festival parade and to the crafters, she said.
James Friday, an extension forester with the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources in Hilo, said the disease could indeed be spread by people going into an infected forest to collect liko.
“We discussed this with DOFAW and we all thought that an islandwide ban on going into the forest to pick ohia or to hunt would be impractical and unenforceable,” Friday said in an email. “We do not think that the fungus is very likely to be in the green shoots or the leaves or flowers of the tree. I think it would more likely be spread on the clippers people use, or their shoes or clothes if they are in infected forests and then come home to other islands. It would be important for people to sterilize tools with rubbing alcohol, wash clothes after being in the forest, clean boots and shoes with brush then squirt with rubbing alcohol. We are also suggesting that people leave their ohia lei on the Big Island and not bring them back to other islands.”
Beginning with the new year, the state Department of Agriculture banned the off-island export of most ohia products in an effort to keep the virus in check. An estimated 34,000 acres of forest in Puna, Hilo and recently Kona have been infected by the virus, more than double the acreage measured in 2014.
“It’s one thing to have the DOA establish rules,” Gon said. “It’s another thing to have people voluntarily comply. We know that none of the agencies are sufficiently staffed to enforce this.”
Email Bret Yager at byager@westhawaiitoday.com.