The Adopt-A-Tree program is brought to you by Ahu Lani Sanctuary, a forestry and community center located on the slopes of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and exude oxygen. The carbon dioxide that trees absorb is sequestered by them for many decades. Trees in upland areas form a symbiotic relationship with rain and clouds and hold water on the land, leading to be
tter water quality for everything downhill and better soil stability in the forests and stream beds. Trees act as habitat for birds, bats, and insects, and are part of a holistic native ecosystem. In addition, adopting a tree is a great gift idea. It's a gift that keeps on giving, and your adoption certificate and ten years of pictures will be a potent reminder of that gift. Adopting a tree is also a superb way to celebrate a birth, or to commemorate the passing of a loved one. We have been planting trees at Ahu Lani Sanctuary since our inception in 2002. In 2010 our tree-planting efforts got a boost through our participation in a joint Hawaii-Federal program called the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) which provided some cost-share funds for our planting efforts. With the assistance of CREP, we were able to renew the fence around our 24 acre property. We created a "pig proof" fence, which was very important because pigs can wreak havoc on native Hawaiian forests. Pigs especially like freshly dug earth, which is what we have a lot of when we are planting trees. Under CREP, we also cleared the land of many invasive species, such as strawberry guava, and planted 3800 native Hawaiian plants on 20 of our 24 acres (30 species total). Essentially we have two types of forest areas at Ahu Lani. About 10 acres is partly forested, mostly with ‘ohia lehua, a superb but very slow growing Hawaiian hardwood tree. We have about another 10 acres of land that was previously native forest but is now largely pasture land, due to the ravaging impact of cows on the land in previous times. Our goal under CREP is to turn all 20 acres back into a robust native Hawaiian forest. Now, within the existing native forest infrastructure, and on the pasture lands that used to be native forest, we are planting additional native koa trees under the Adopt-A-Tree program. We have room for thousands of additional koa trees, and we look forward to caring for these trees for many decades to come. OUR VISION
There is a saying in Hawaiian: Hahai no ka ua i ka ulula'au, which translates as "The Rain Follows the Forest". This ancient saying describes the symbiotic relationship between forests and rain: destroy the forests and the rain will cease falling and the streams will stop flowing. We have living proof of this at Ahu Lani Sanctuary. Elders from our area, called kapunas in Hawaiian, remember when the stream that borders Ahu Lani (called Kalopa Stream) flowed all the time. Today it only flows after heavy rainfall. The reason: the forests upland from Ahu Lani have been steadily destroyed over the past 150 years by cattle ranching. Cows like young plants of all sorts and will quickly devour them. What happened in our area was that cattle existed within the forest, the trees eventually got old, died, and fell down, but no new trees could regenerate because they were quickly eaten by the cattle. Only on steep banks, where cattle couldn't go, did parts of the native forest survive. Our larger vision is to assist in the re-forestation of these areas upland of Ahu Lani, so that one day the stream bordering our land will once again flow every day. We are dedicated to the reforestation and preservation of native Hawaiian forests.
