Fight for the trees
Please, someone tell me it’s not true.
Ok, I admit I stopped going to that sacred beach a couple of years ago when the dust fence appeared and we all knew it was just a matter of time before a four-story obscenity replaced that open coastal field between the Courtyard Marriot and the Beach Boy resorts in Waipouli. I couldn’t bear to witness those humongous hundred-year-old trees there be axed to pulp.
Where’s the joy in taking a walk when one’s thoughts are so sad? But there was a fight going on for the age-old Ironwood trees along the shoreline — the trees that hold the beach in place, the trees that shade people, the trees the fisherman sit under, the trees that define so many of Kauai’s shorelines, the trees we love.
Someone please tell me it’s not true that they were felled yesterday. Please tell me we aren’t completely out of our minds. Please say these resort owners and builders don’t have the right to butcher everything right down to the breaking waves. Please, someone, tell me those beloved Ironwoods aren’t gone forever.
What is wrong with the decision-makers on this island?
Sick at heart, I loved those trees,
Wendy Raebeck, Kealia
It’s a Football Fever miracle!
Kauai is truly wondrous. What are the chances that I would find myself in a place where the beauty is stupefying, the residents are even warmer than the weather, the food is mouthwatering, and “Paradise” is almost a belittling description?
Well, speaking of chance, ponder the Football Fever Results in Wednesday’s paper. Truly amazing.
Eleven groups pick winners or losers, with plus or minus points in the game’s score, in fifteen college and NFL games; the set up reflects bettors’ early predictions of an approximately even likelihood. In theory, some expertise would enable the savvy to beat the odds and make some money. The Kauai results?
Kauaians, don’t wager on football at the Ninth Island! Every single Football Fever entrant has a losing record, with only MCS Grill and Poipu Bay Golf Club near even. Overall, sad sacks who bet all the contestants’ recommendations, at $25/bet, would be out just shy of $5,500. Ouch.
But Puakea Golf breaks the bank. Its record so far is 0-75; right, five weeks of a steady 0-15. To get even one week all wrong is statistically near impossible; one chance in 32,768. To do this five times in a row is, well, incomprehensibly weird: one chance in about 38 followed by 21 zeros, an amount several hundred times the number of grains of sand on Earth (estimated: I lost count). Tom Stoppard’s farce play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, opens with “heads” flipped 77 times in a row, to which Guildenstern comments: “A weaker man might be moved to re-examine his faith, if in nothing else at least in the law of probability.”
A unrivaled remarkable feat.
Jed Somit, Kapaa
Ironwood trees are an invasive species they are NOT Hawaiian. They also drop very acidic needles which hinders any growth of native species. The owners of the land have said they will replace the invasive iron wood trees with native species which actually belong on the shoreline restoring it to what it was before men planted ironwood
Oh paaleeease! You obviously are representing the resorts and their investors. Ironwoods have been around since 1882, clearly way before the NON NATIVE, NON Hawaiian, INVASIVE resorts and the millions of tourists. So what “native” tree would you be planting that would be so much better? To eliminate a local area where an atmosphere had been created for decades is just wrong. Wendy the best sentence in your letter is “What is wrong with the decision makers of this island?” They have sold their souls to tourism, The Kaua’i Tourism Authority, the Hawaii Tourism Authority. These are our unqualified politicians. It’s all wrong. We ALL should be moving towards sustainability. Look that up. Poor Kaua’i. It’s just all wrong.!
Resort builders are now determining what are invasive species and where they need to be replaced, and they’re being given the go-ahead to save us from the deadly Ironwoods? Haven’t ever heard much complaint before about this species—people seem to appreciate their resilience and shade, and that they keep our beaches in place. I love it when people who know nothing, but are salaried by huge off-shore corporations, come and enlighten us about what’s best here. (Then they line their pockets, build mansions on our pristine land, sell them, and leave. That’s invasive.)
Wendy, the property owner obtained all the permits necessary to cut down the trees. So many people are upset and I invite all of you to hui together, purchase the property (probably over $10 million) and keep it a park. Or whatever. Just be advised that the RR-20 property taxes will NOT go away and they run about $2000/acre/year. There’s about 12 acres in there.
Hightide. Most people that have been in Hawai’i for a while know that the ironwood trees are very invasive and not native. While they do provide shade, there are many other trees that would serve the same purpose with added benefits. Ironwood needles are highly acidic and keep anything from growing near or under them. This limits the additional root systems of other plants/trees that would help with the soil erosion.
Other options would include the Milo, Ulu, Kamane and others that would allow grass or other ground cover to flourish in their shade.