Hikers learn to love and conserve the land

Ted Clement’s first job after graduating from college in 1991 was working as an environmental educator for the Outward Bound School in Maine. A longtime outdoor enthusiast with a Bachelor of Science degree, he led high school and college students on expeditions ranging from about three weeks to three months.

Every course had an organized "solo," during which students would be left alone in a safe, albeit remote, wilderness area. Journaling was a big part of that experience. When the students completed their solo, which sometimes lasted a few days, there was a ceremony where they would read some of their journal entries.

"Time and time again, I saw students share profound thoughts about the natural world and their place in it," said Clement, now an attorney whose focus is land conservation law. "For many of the students, the solo was their first contemplative experience in nature, and the observations that came out of it were amazing."

Later, while working as the executive director of the Aquidneck Land Trust in Rhode Island, Clement used the insights he had gained at Outward Bound to launch a program called Land Matters Walk & Talk. It involved taking the public, free of charge, to places the organization was protecting and working to protect.

"The walks helped people connect with nature and learn about Aquidneck’s time-sensitive land conservation projects," Clement said. "Once they understood what we were trying to accomplish, they wholeheartedly supported it. When I became the executive director of the Hawaiian Islands Land Trust (HILT) in January 2013, I was confident the same concept could succeed here."

Clement created the framework for a Talk Story element of the Land Matters series, which is a key component of HILT’s 2014-2016 strategic plan. Staffers developed 16 hikes on Oahu, Maui, Kauai and Hawaii island that are being offered during this, the program’s inaugural year.

HILT is already protecting some of the resource-rich sites spotlighted on the hikes; it is conserving and identifying others as important for future protection. The series’ first two hikes, to Maui’s Nuu Refuge and Wai­hee Coastal Dunes and Wetlands Refuge last month, received an enthusiastic response.

"Land conservation is critical to Hawaii’s long-term sustainability and keeping it a desirable place to live, work, play and visit," Clement said. "Most of the places on our Talk Story on the Land schedule are not usually open to the public and are probably unfamiliar even to kama­aina who have lived in the islands all of their lives."

For example, Mau­na­wila is a 9-acre parcel near Hau­ula town on Oahu which Louise Aoe McGregor purchased Aug. 25, 1906, from the Territory of Hawaii. Her husband, Daniel Pama­waho McGregor Sr., was born and reared in Hau­ula. His grandfather Kalima­haa­lulu had been a kono­hiki (overseer) of an ancient land division there.

The couple and their young children lived at Mau­na­wila for about a decade. After a fire destroyed their home, they moved to Hono­lulu and then to Kalua­nui, a valley in Hau­ula. Subsequent generations of McGregor descendants inherited Mau­na­wila but chose not to live there. Thus, the property remained unoccupied from the 1920s to the present.

A heiau, which was described in a University of Hawaii survey as being "relatively intact," covers 2.5 hillside acres overlooking the sea. In recent years members of the McGregor family, the Hau­ula Community Association and the Koo­lau­loa Hawaiian Civic Club have cleared overgrown vegetation, revealing remnants of the heiau’s two terraces, some of the stones for which stand 7 feet high. Oral history indicates the heiau was likely a healing temple.

HILT expects to close its purchase of Mau­na­wila from the McGregor heirs sometime in March and restore the site over time.

A Talk Story on the Land hike to Mau­na­wila is set for June 21. After that, public access will be allowed but carefully managed, especially until protective infrastructure such as trails and signage is in place.

"That aligns with our belief that experiential education in a mindful, respectful manner is the most powerful form of environmental education," Clement said. "Direct experience with the land develops love for the land, and love for the land is the basis of good stewardship."

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.