Many have seen Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods  featured on such programs as Sekai Fushigi Hakken a well known documentary program in Japan. During the 49th Annual Merrie Monarch Festival, Teri Okita, news reporter for Hawaii News Now, visited Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods in Hilo and ran this segment. Click here to view full story: 

Four Seasons Hualalalai has incorporated new Eco-Crescent rooms which focuses on reducing guests carbon footprints by staying in the new King's Pond Eco-Crescent Rooms. Read their publication of these very Eco-friendly rooms.

This crescent of 65 rooms surrounding the King's Pond pool has been enhanced with a number of measures that promote environmental sustainability: the use of paper has been minimized, disposable plastic bottles have been replaced with ceramic cups and carafes, insulated water bottles are available for in-room purchase (with a portion of proceeds going towards the Resort's partnership with Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods), disposable bath amenity bottles have been replaced with refillable pump dispensers, disposable slippers have been replaced with reusable rubber spa sandals, bed linens will be changed only every third day, and incandescent light bulbs have been replaced with compact fluorescents. This package includes luxurious accommodations in our Eco-Crescent, daily breakfast, and more.  

 
 From the very start I would like to thank our hard working planting crews for the conclusion of a very successful planting season. We reached our target of 80,000 healthy trees planted. This is a double of last year's planting of 40,000 trees which was a double over the 20,000 trees planted the year before that. The weather has been very cooperative with soil moisture levels hovering near ideal with only a few days of rain too heavy to run our equipment. Initial fertilization of this year's trees is also complete. Soil testing of the last two plantings was completed and a fertilizer blend to augment limiting nutrients was applied to all of those trees. All that remains is for the longer days of spring to work its magic and trigger the tree's juvenile growth spurt. 

The nursery is almost empty having done its job of providing healthy koa seedlings for the field. It is now being stocked with sandalwood, ko'oko'olau, mamaki, kukainene and other natives for our continuing establishment of an intact native ecosystem. Up until this nursery effort we have been obtaining native understory stock from other nurseries. During the summer we will add to the contract plant purchases with a substantial native species program of our own. This effort is a key goal of the legacy tree program. When we first started HLH our intent was to move a progressively larger portion of our efforts into the legacy program. This year we have reached the 75% level with over 60,000 of this year's trees being earmarked for permanent reforestation. The native understory plants are a key component of this effort.

The next 30-45 days we will have a crew cataloging the GPS coordinates and the RFID numbers of this year's trees. Many new features are being added to our database development program to streamline the process and should only get better as time goes on. This cataloging also gives us a firsthand review of the planting and generates maps for future management practices. As much work as this process takes, the mapping crews draw a great deal of satisfaction form seeing the scope of the planting marathon.

Over the past week we have started developing GPS maps of our next planting area. This is in preparation for clearing obstacles and the building of fences. Access roads and staging areas have to be planed as well as establishing a timeline for the project. This data is now in the hands of our mapping department and should be turned into an action plan within the week. Once again, thanks to our Legacy Partners and tree owners formaking all of this possible.