HA‘ENA – The state Department of Land and Natural Resources held a press conference at Ha‘ena State Park, where it unveiled a 63-page handbook detailing how state and county representatives have worked with community members to manage the once “overcrowded, overtaxed, and over-loved” park.
In attendance at the event on June 8 were several government officials, including state Rep. Nadine Nakamura, state Board of Land and Natural Resources Chair Dawn Chang, DLNR Division of State Parks Administrator Curt Cottrell, Kaua‘i Visitors Bureau Executive Director Sue Kanoho, Hawai‘i Tourism Authority Public Affairs Officer Ilihia Gionson, and Chipper Wichman, a founding board member of community group Hui Maka‘ainana o Makana.
The 63-page document titled, “The Transformation of Ha‘ena State Park,” describes the 65-acre park as overrun and underregulated prior to 2018. The park is located at the end of the Kuhio Highway on Kauai’s North Shore.
It was previously the third-most visited state park, with over 700,000 visitors per year and 2,000 to 3,000 visitors per day. But its popularity as a tourist destination created a range of issues, including pushing locals out, lack of parking availability, trampling fragile resources, increasing waste along Napali Coast, and depleting fisheries, according to the document.
The state addressed those issues in 2019 with the approval of the Ha‘ena State Park Master Plan, which implemented an out-of-state visitor reservation requirement, a shuttle system, and a policy allowing only Hawai‘i residents to park in the main parking lot without a reservation.
The plan reduced the number of daily visitors to a targeted count of 900 per day, and made a commitment to “ensuring that there would always be room for residents to enjoy the park,” the document states.
As of 2020, the park’s rules for nonresidents include a $5 entry fee, a $10 parking fee, and a $35 shuttle fee. A percentage of the revenues generated by those fees goes toward managing the park’s landscape and cultural resources.
During the press conference, Chang called the document the “model” and “playbook” for “not only destination management, but true community economic self-sufficiency with cultural integrity.”
“You recognize what needed to be done, but you did it in the spirit of finding balance. And that’s what we’re trying to do at DLNR,” said Chang, adding that the department embraces the opportunity to utilize the Ha‘ena model for other areas.
Nakamura, who represents Kaua‘i’s North Shore and portions of the east side, said she hoped the handbook would serve as a springboard for future conversations surrounding scaling other hotspots throughout the state.
“And that’s the exciting discussion ahead of us that we all need to be a part of,” she said.
Gionson, who previously called Ha‘ena State Park “a model for destination management,” thanked Nakamura for her work on the project, and emphasized the importance of “regenerative tourism” in Hawai‘i.
“Yes, our economy is very dependent on the $211 million that visitors spent in April 2023 here on Kaua‘i. And, yes, that comes with the burden of hosting 27,000 visitors on any given day. But it’s not the 27,000 you see, it’s the 27 in front of you making the traffic,” he said.
Cottrell said the state is working toward a similar reservation and destination management system at 10 other state parks.
“There isn’t a timeline in mind,” said Cottrell. “We’re doing destination management pretty much one park at a time, methodically and slowly. And that’s why it’s working,” he said, adding the state has spent years collecting data on parking, transportation and other capacities.
Gov. Josh Green was also at Ha‘ena State Park just prior to the conference, where he held a signing ceremony for a bill that aims to reduce the impacts of over-tourism at popular state parks. The bill, now Act 72, went into effect upon Green’s signature.
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Emma Grunwald, reporter, can be reached 808-652-0638 or egrunwald@thegardenisland.com.
