Mauna Kea Oral History Appendix - Office of Mauna Kea Management

KM: So, 6.7 was where we cut up to go to the little quarry
RH: Right here. That’s marked pretty well, and then 5.4 was right here, that’s where the other
one is.
KM: Right at Wai‘a‘ama Gulch.
RH: It’s right here and right there.
KM: Okay.
RH: Now we’re going to go makai.
KM: Your mana‘o about the gorse though, got to clean it up or…
TB: Get it to a point of control.
KM: Got to control it. Otherwise the land is useless right
TB: Yes. At one time this was all good pasture lands. If it was good in the past, should be
good in the future.
KM: That’s right.
TB: The only thing is, you got to get into it.
RH: What about goats
TB: Goats only eat high. Sheep will eat like a lawn mower.
KM: That’s right, they go down to the ground, don’t they
TB: Yes. You got to use both, and then cattle can go in, break through. If you had sheep and
goats inside here, this would be hard. When the cows, pipi, go inside make it all open.
Then the sheep go after the young gorse…
RH: Maori lands used to be just inundated with gorse, and they started going into forestry and
today they raise a lot of timber, and it not only generates income for their tribe, but it
gives jobs for the people and it’s become a real positive thing for their whole situation.
They like to plant in areas that have gorse. Because of course, it’s a legume. And it
actually helps the trees grow. You really want to scrounge and find out something good
about gorse, it could be used to help grow some trees.
ES: See that concept is contrary to the other theory of shading them out, the trees. They’re
saying, “Keep them in harmony…”
RH: This is another plot that we, but this is, let me see, here’s where we are. This one here…
KM: Is on the fence line
RH: Yes.
KM: The boundary
RH: The boundary. The fence line really went right through, probably right here, where Teddy
is. You see the old post over there, it went through. Really, we’re looking for gorse that
was healthy for nine hundred feet by three hundred feet and literally, we have no more of
that mauka. It’s not, you know we’ve burned and sprayed and to find a contiguous piece
of gorse, we’ve actually had to put two plots below the fence. That’s what this one is. It
kind of rides the fence, this is not a… I’m just trying to see where this thing goes down.
You guys want to get out, we can just jump out for a minute, take a look. Here, this single
strip is just this right here. See this little strip that runs nine hundred That’s Number 2…
KM: Okay, so this is Number 3
RH: And you can see the narrow strip above.
Mauna Kea– “Ka Piko Kaulana o ka ‘Äina”
Kumu Pono Associates LLC
A Collection of Oral History Interviews (HiMK67-050606) A:161