Miconia fighters face funding cut

By BRIAN PERRY, Assistant City Editor

MAKAWAO – Already reeling from a $550,000 loss in miconia-control money from the National Park Service, the Maui Invasive Species Committee faces another cut in federal funding, committee manager Teya Penniman said Tuesday.

She said she anticipates a 25 percent cutback in funding from the U.S. Forest Service, a loss of $50,000 from the service’s $200,000 annual contribution to the eradication program.

MISC is receiving $1.3 million from county, state and federal sources, not including the national parks support that ran out in October, Penniman said.

The money keeps MISC employees out in a large field, approximately 37,000 acres of the East Maui watershed.

Penniman said some carryover funding has allowed helicopters to continue ferrying crews into remote forest sites, but 40 flying hours a month have been reduced to 30 hours, she said. With funds dwindling, by early summer, helicopter flying time likely will be reduced to 20 hours a month, or half the optimal amount.

Federal money has supported MISC’s half-dozen Hana crew members.

“They’re literally the backbone of the operation,” Penniman said. “They’re the ones slogging through the forest, looking for and controlling miconia.”

Penniman said she’s hoping to replace the lost federal funding with appeals to three sources: Maui County for an additional $300,000 (in addition to $650,000 currently granted to MISC) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Resource Conservation Council for $200,000.

County Budget Director Fred Pablo said Tuesday that he has not seen MISC’s request for more money, but the 2007-08 budget proposal for Mayor Charmaine Tavares is not due to the County Council until March 15.

The fight to eradicate miconia from Maui forests will go on for decades. Penniman said a mature miconia produces millions of seeds as small as a grain of sand, which can remain dormant in soil for 10 years or more. The seeds are spread by birds who eat the fruits, or are picked up by feral animals, hunters, hikers and vehicles that take them to uninfested areas.

Eradication efforts have focused on killing the plants before they reach maturity in four to five years, which requires crews to continually conduct operations in infested areas to kill seedlings.

“We need more dedicated funding to keep this work going,” Penniman said. “We’re going to be at this for a long time.”

An ornamental plant with large green and maroon leaves, the miconia was introduced to Hawaii in the 1960s where it spread into forests around the Big Island and in Hana.

The plants were scattered through an estimated 2,000 acres in East Maui by 1993. As of 2004, the infestation was estimated to involve 7,500 acres.

MISC surveys 37,000 acres from Huelo to Hana. The core miconia population is above Hana High and Elementary School, said Joylynn Paman, MISC public relations and education specialist.

Only one miconia plant has been discovered in West Maui, and it was pulled out, she said. That area continues to be monitored for other infestations.

In the early 1990s, the Melastome Action Committee was formed to attack the problem of rapidly spreading miconia. In 1999, the committee broadened its scope, becoming the Maui Invasive Species Committee to deal with other alien species.

This year, MISC is seeking an additional $750,000 from the state (on top of the current $230,000) for projects to eradicate coqui frogs, a quarter-sized amphibian native to Puerto Rico that apparently was introduced to the islands in a shipment of tropical plants from the Caribbean.

Penniman said MISC already has had success with a 16 percent citric acid solution in killing the noisy frogs in a dozen areas on Maui. However, the additional funding would be used to “take on” coqui frogs on 76 acres in Maliko Gulch, she said.

The citric acid “works really well . . . with persistence,” she said.

Brian Perry can be reached at bperry@mauinews.com.