6 projects funded to improve Lanai’s natural landscape

Six projects to improve the natural environment on Lanai have received grants totaling about $450,000 in the first year of a five-year program.

The projects, which include developing a reproductive success monitoring plan for endangered Hawaiian petrels, all involve matching funds that bring total funding to about $910,000.

The nonprofit National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the main owner of the island, Pulama Lanai, established and solicited applications for the grant program last year. Awardees were announced Monday.

A U.S. Geological Survey project received the biggest grant at $149,868, which will be combined with $155,000 in matching funds to map, model and monitor sources of fine-sediment pollution transported from ridgelines to the shoreline on the northeast side of the island.

USGS also won a grant to map native and non-native vegetation on Lanai.

The Hawaiian petrel reproductive study is to be done by the Zoological Society of San Diego.

Other awardees were The Nature Conservancy, which will assess the population of nearshore fish and quality of coral and water along Lanai’s northeast coast, and Pono Pacific Land Management, which will create an ungulate fencing plan.

The University of Hawaii Office of Research Services also received a grant to build, deploy and monitor real-time water quality sensors at two coastal sites.

Pulama and the Washington, D.C.-based wildlife foundation describe their Kuahiwi a Kai, meaning “mountain to ocean,” grant program as an unparalleled endeavor to assess and improve a vast natural area in Hawaii because Lanai has one dominant landowner and is relatively undeveloped.

Pulama was formed by billionaire Larry Ellison after he bought nearly 98% of Lanai in 2012 for a reported $300 million.

The program’s project area covers roughly a quarter of the island, or about 20,000 acres of Lanai’s northeast quadrant from the coast to inland areas up over Lanai Hale ridge.

“The first round of grants from the Lanai Watershed Conservation Program will coordinate a comprehensive effort to protect native ecosystems and provide improved ecosystem services such as clean water, resource gathering and recreation to the people who call Lanai home,” Jeff Trandahl, the foundation’s executive director and CEO, said in a statement. “Working closely with our partner, Pulama Lanai, we look forward to creating a lasting impact for the future of this beautiful island.”

Katie Ersbak, watershed planner for the Division of Forestry and Wildlife at the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, described the program as a valuable partnership between a private landowner and an organization.

“Partnerships are critical to any landscape-level initiative,” she said in a statement.

Kurt Matsumoto, Pulama CEO, said in a statement that the partnership allows the company to “live by our values” represented in its name, which means “to cherish” Lanai.

“We’re grateful for the opportunity to work closely with the grantees on conservation efforts that stretch from mauka to makai — from the highest point of Lanai Hale to the ocean,” he said in a statement.