Officials want to stop weed in its tracks National environmental groups and state agencies are joining forces to eradicate a common enemy in Kauai’s jungle: Miconia. If left unchecked, the invasive weed can overrun the island’s natural areas and pose
Officials want to stop weed in its tracks
National environmental groups and state agencies are joining forces to eradicate a common enemy in Kauai’s jungle: Miconia.
If left unchecked, the invasive weed can overrun the island’s natural areas and pose a threat to rare and endangered indigenous plants.
The state Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Sierra Club are inviting volunteers to clear the weed from parts of Wailua.
“It outcompetes other plants and becomes a dominant plant that doesn’t allow anything else to grow,” said Kaua’i Sierra Club official Rob Culbertson. “It shades out other places, forest pasture and farmland.”
The state Department of Agriculture considers the noxious plant “its public enemy number one,” Culbertson said.
Miconia infestation has nearly gotten out of control elsewhere in Hawai’i and poses a significant “agricultural and financial” challenge to state programs and budgets, he said.
The problem is less severe on Kaua’i, but the situation could be different if not been for residents who found the weed and reported its locations to authorities, triggering stepped-up eradication efforts, Culbertson said.
The weed has found a home in Tahiti, where 70 percent of the rainforest is covered with the growth.
Miconia has deeply furrowed leaves and a distinctive purple underside. The weed can produce millions of tiny seeds which are transported from one spot to another by birds, the wind and the boots of people who hike in the jungle.
Once transported to a moist and shady environment, the seed can remain dormant for eight years before growing and spreading.
Miconia, aoriginally found in South America, was first introduced as an ornamental plant to Hawai’i 15 years ago, sparking efforts to prevent its importation to the state, Culbertson said.
In the early 1990s on Kaua’i, formal eradication efforts began in the Wailua area.
A new initiative to wipe out the weed has started. Working with the DLNR and the Department of Agriculture, staff from the Koke’e Resource Conservation Program, Sierra Club volunteers and others have been training and conducting sweeps on state park land along the Wailua River. Funding has been provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Hawai’i Community Foundation and the U.S. Forest Service, Culbertson said.
Other agencies and groups involved in the ongoing eradication are The Nature Conservancy and the state Department of Education.
The weed has made its way to private land, prompting action by a team of Miconia “weedbusters” who have gotten permission from Kaua’i Electric to send out informational leaflets on the threat of the weed in electricity bills. The goal, Culbertson said, is to get residents to call authorities if they suspect their land has been infested by the weed.
Supporters of the weed control program hope to set up an informal network of Miconia watchers in affected neighborhoods to kill the weed, Culbertson said.
Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net
