We are pleased to share this article recently published in HI Luxury Magazine full copy available on news stands island wide.  

Since its establishment in 2008, Hawaiian Legacy

Hardwoods (HLH) has been implementing an aggressive

reforestation project that calls for the replanting of hundreds

of acres of Acacia koa on the Island of Hawai'i.

"Most businesses in the world today have a tendency to

consume resources; our objective was to create a sustainable

business that would actually leave behind more resources

than it used, not less," says HLH CEO Jeffery Dunster.

Koa, considered by many as the "mother tree" of

Hawaiian forests, is the world's most valuable tropical

hardwood. Found only in Hawai'i, koa also is one of the

scarcest hardwoods around, as land clearing, unsustainable

harvesting, feral cattle and other invasive pests have depleted

nearly 90 percent of the world's supply.

According to Dunster, HLH operates on both a

conservation and a commercial model designed to restore

Hawai'i's endangered tropical hardwood forests using

sustainable practices and proprietary technology.

"Planting trees is sustainable development in its simplest

form," says Dunster, who first envisioned this business plan

more than 15 years ago with longtime business partner,

friend and HLH COO, Darrell Cox [sic]. "This system will

provide resources, carbon sequestration and ecosystem

diversity all while enhancing the societal well-being of the

local community."

For full article Click Here. 

From the Field

Darrell Fox, COO

This tree is known as the Lone Koa, probably the most photographed koa in the world. (Located: HLH field 16-B)

The HLH Nursery is now fully stocked for the December planting. The native species mix including sandalwood, naio, ko'oko'olau, kukaenene, and several of the scentless Hawaiian mints are doing very well. Most of the ground cover and shrub natives have been paired up with sandalwood in the nursery. These will be outplanted into legacy tree locations along with over 10,000 koa trees being grown in large treepots. This establishes two native plants for every sandalwood introduced to the field. This is a very exciting step in the progress of the legacy program as it represents the establishment of a true ecosystem with species that were historically present in forests on the windward slopes of Mauna Kea. Sandalwood may never have been as prevalent on the windward slopes of Mauna Kea as it was on the leeward side of Hawaii Island, but a climatic shift seems to be creating drier conditions on the upper slopes of the windward side of Mauna Kea creating what may be ideal conditions for Santalum paniculatum, the sandalwood species that was an important part of leeward forests.This will be an ongoing process with more species being added as the canopy starts to fill in.

Our fencing crew has shifted focus to clearing out deadfall and laying out interior roads in the 2012-2013 planting area. The fence is closed on three sides and the last of the gates are in place. Experience has taught us that leaving the downslope section open until the field clearing is complete has a tendency to encourage any stray feral pigs to leave the field without any effort being devoted to their direct removal. As soon as the field is cleared, the final run of fencing will be installed.

The benches for our nursery expansion are almost complete and the satellite facility is on schedule to handle the December overflow for our Legacy planting. This will free up the primary nursery to handle the full crop of seedlings for the Spring outplanting. This new facility will be a test bed for a number of new water collection and distribution techniques that should greatly improve the efficiency of water use. Once again it is designed to run entirely on catchment water with no dependency on the precious resource of island ground water.

I was fortunate to be able to attend a sandalwood conference at the University of Hawaii's East-West Center on Oahu this month. This conference brought together many of the top sandalwood researchers from all over the world. The aim was to create a dialogue between all components of the industry from geneticists to end users like the perfume industry. The one recurring theme in this conference was that the industry as it exists today is not sustainable. The extensive harvesting of sandalwood in Hawaii in the 19th century almost brought the island species to extinction. The efforts of a few dedicated individuals have located representatives of these species in the wild and have preserved their genetics by cultivating and outplanting them in protected areas. I was awed by the vast amount of human energy that has gone into this effort and most of all I am thankful to all of the participants for sharing their hard won information. The conference ended on Wednesday, October 24th. I am already utilizing the information to design new cultivation techniques. This is the first year that HLH will outplant sandalwood and it is in many ways like the first year we planted koa.   Our hard working nursery crew is treating each seedling like a valued guest. I'm sure that the learning curveis just beginning, but the restoration of the mauka forest is underway.

Thanks to all of our crew and all of our supporters. Without you this would just be an orphaned idea. You make the dream a reality.

Hawaii Pacific University's next generation of marketing, advertising and public relations majors are targeting HLH as their feature client in a semester-long Strategic Communications course. This is a capstone course for many advertising and PR students at HPU and involves in-depth analysis and multiple integrated marketing plans from the various teams within the class. Members of each team were represented at HLH and each got a chance to participate in the Legacy Tree experience directly by planting their own Legacy Trees.  

HLH would like to thank Ann Marie Manzulli for going those extra miles to support the creative minds of her students.

A group of talented students get to know the koa forest first hand.

From left to right Ariale Montgomery, AnnMarie Manzulli (instructor), Ariana Masuoka , (beautiful baby koa tree), Courtney Curran, Avery Kremer, Thomas Obungen