Residents and tourists alike share a love for Hawaii’s outdoor resources. But we could be loving them to death.

The sheer volume of footsteps on our islands has worn down too many precious sites, from isolated hiking trails to Hanauma Bay, beyond the point that county and state workers can keep up with maintenance. The time is long past for hard decisions on how to curb the damage.

The obvious option is to control access, plus charge a fee or otherwise generate funds for maintenance. How to manage this is less obvious. Short of an army of volunteers willing to work night and day, it’s going to take cash to make things happen.

A “green fee” — in formal language, “regenerative tourism fee” — has been floated, most recently in the Hawaii Tourism Authority’s new Destination Management Action Plan for Oahu, although everything from how much to collect, how to collect it and how to distribute it remains to be discussed.

The easiest answer, some suggest, is what amounts to a state entry fee, imposed as part of a hotel or airline levy. Palau, for example, charges a $100 Pristine Paradise Fee to all visitors. This would be a dicey proposition for Hawaii, where visitors already face sticker shock, and where all the counties just voted to impose their own transient accommodations taxes. A state Senate bill setting a $20 surcharge on hotel stays died in the 2021 session.

The key advantage to a single, upfront charge is that it is easier to collect than user fees at individual locations. It raises questions about fairness, though. Should every visitor have to pay to maintain every site, even if they do little venturing into the wild? Should local residents have some responsibility, particularly those who use the sites, beyond the taxes they already pay?

The flip side is the concept of site-specific fees, such as those already imposed at Hanauma Bay and Diamond Head Monument, but these are places with parking lots that can be monitored. Expanding entry fees to popular spots such as the Lanikai Pillbox Trail raises the issue of how to collect, short of funding a guard post. Payment via app has been suggested, as well as using pay stations — but without a gate, how would payment be enforced? Perhaps we need to collect fees where we can and share the proceeds among all needy properties.

No single proposal is going to work across the board, so we may as well throw out a few more: Let taxpayers choose to donate a dollar or two of their tax refunds to support outdoor public spaces, just as they now can support the libraries; collect donations through QR codes posted at sites; reward those who volunteer for trail maintenance with passes to other sites. These ideas would likely add a few thousand dollars to a bucket that needs millions, but they do give people a direct stake.

Although the idea of targeted “green” income is one that has been around for decades, we’re still at the stage of tossing around ideas. Once upon a time, back in the Lingle administration, the idea of a Recreation Renaissance was floated, largely based on upgrading resources through $240 million in loans to be repaid via rentals of state properties and admission fees to state parks. Much has changed in terms of technology since that 2009 proposal died that could inform solutions as we take up the issue anew. Smartphones, for example, allow for collection of fees or donations with relatively little cost on the government end. We do have options.

What hasn’t changed is the need — in fact it has deepened. The pandemic gave our natural resources a break; with tourism ramping up, this definitely is a concern that should move up the priority list.