Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 33, Number 3, 1 Malaki 2016 — 20,000 seedlings being planted at Kōkeʻe [ARTICLE]

20,000 seedlings being planted at Kōkeʻe

The Kōke'e area of Kaua'i, whieh was scorched in a series of wildfires in 2012, is the new home for 20,000

hand-planted koa seedlings. The foot-tall seedlings cover 5,000 acres. They were grown from seeds collected at Kōke'e, whieh were then flown to Maui to be grown and tended before being shipped by barge back to Kaua'i. Hawai'i Island-based Forest solutions, Ine., excavated the site and planted the seedlings by hand, covering two or three acres a day. The koa seedlings are the third part of the Kōke'e Area Restoration and Reforestation Project. The first phase involved improving access roads and clearing hazardous trees and grass seed was applied to the burned areas in the second phase. Suzanne Case, chairwoman of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, said, "Hawai'i has never experienced fires quite like these, followed by this type of recovery and restoration. We hope in not too many years the scars left by this series of wildfires will no longer be evident, thanks to the replanting efforts and everything that led up to it."