Donated parcel to be gateway to park in Kipahulu
Nature Conservancy passes on land that was bequeathed to it in 2005Article Photos
KIPAHULU - A new gateway to Haleakala National Park's Kipahulu area will be created with the donation of 34 acres near Oheo Gulch by The Nature Conservancy, according to an announcement Thursday by the environmental group.
The parcel, known as "May's Mauka" after former owner Cordelia May, is on the mauka side of Hana Highway and the Hana side of Oheo Gulch. The property is mostly pastureland covered by non-native trees and grasses. The land was bequeathed to The Nature Conservancy in 2005 from May's estate.
"We owe a debt of gratitude to Cordelia May and to The Nature Conservancy for the donation of this land," said Haleakala National Park Superintendent M. Sarah Creachbaum. "With it, we will be able to greatly improve access to the park. It will enable us to create an official gateway to Kipahulu and showcase the park's entrance."
Now, the Kipahulu area of the national park has no formal entrance. Visitors driving along Hana Highway go around a bend at Oheo Gulch and suddenly find that they're in the park.
"Right now, the entrance to the park begins as you approach the bridge across the gulch," Creachbaum said. "This piece of land will provide an important buffer for the park. It gives us the opportunity to let people know they are entering the park."
Suzanne Case, Hawaii executive director for The Nature Conservancy, said the Conservancy's interest in the parcel dates to 1980, when the organization asked May to consider giving the property to the Conservancy with the understanding that it would donate the land to the national park.
"Knowing this history, we felt a special obligation to honor our commitment," Case said.
"That's why we are donating the property and not selling it. It is with deep gratitude that we remember the late Cordelia May," said Nature Conservancy of Hawaii board Chairman Duncan MacNaughton. "She was a caring and committed philanthropist and conservationist - an ardent birder who personally understood the need to protect Hawaiian forests."
According to the Conservancy, the donated property does not hold significant value for biodiversity as it is mostly pastureland covered with non-native trees and grasses, but it is valuable as open space, provides access to culturally significant sites and is contiguous with other national park lands.
According to Case, the Kipahulu portion of Haleakala National Park was the Conservancy's first project in Hawaii. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the group raised $1 million to purchase lands in Kipahulu Valley for addition to the park. The Conservancy donated the 3,717-acre upper valley with its native forest to the national park, which today forms much of the lands managed by the East Maui Watershed Partnership.
May's Mauka is the second parcel donated to the Conservancy by Cordelia May. The first, a 35-acre Kipahulu coastal property, was sold with conservation restrictions to Sue Wong in 2007.
Wong, a successful Los Angeles-based fashion designer with strong ties to the Kipahulu community, paid $3.6 million for the land. Those funds are now being used to protect the native forests of East Maui, as well as other important forestlands across the state, according to the Conservancy.
