Objective 1. CES staff, natural resource professionals, and growers will learn about re-establishing native forests, including koa forests, and managing these forests for both conservation and economic benefits.

The extension forester, Dr. J. B. Friday, organized a special session at the annual Hawaii Conservation Conference on Restoration Forestry. The session included three contrasting case studies and an overall presentation on the philosophy of forest restoration. Dr. Friday presented the session on koa restoration. The session was attended by over 300 people and evaluations were overwhelmingly positive. The RREA project sponsored five CTAHR staff to attend the Conference, where they met with scientists and natural resource professionals throughout the state.

Objective 2. CES staff, natural resource professionals, and growers will learn about koa silviculture, including natural regeneration, planting, provenance and superior tree selection, timber stand management, and economic evaluation.

Along with research foresters Nick Dudley from the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center and Paul Scowcroft from the USDA Forest Service Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry, the extension forester worked to develop and maintain a demonstration site for koa silviculture on private land held by Kamehameha Schools. Management of the demonstration site included two rounds of fertilization and periodic re-measurement of trees. A full-time intern on the project was paid for by the landowner. Data from the demonstration site will be used in developing extension materials and field visits for forest landowners. The extension forester participated in a koa field day hosted by Dr. Patrick Baker of The Nature Conservancy and the USDA Forest Service and two planning sessions hosted by Kamehameha Schools.

Dr. Friday co-authored a leaflet on koa along with Craig Elevitch and Kim Wilkinson as part of the Traditional Trees for Pacific Islands project of Permanent Agriculture Resources of Hawaii.

Objective 3. CES staff, natural resource professionals, and growers will learn about plantation forestry technology, including tree seed technology, forest mensuration, thinning and pruning of forest plantations, and silviculture of native/Polynesian introduced tree species.

The extension forester taught a 3 day workshop in plantation establishment as part of a “Forestry Short Course” organized by the USDA Forest Service Institute of Pacific Island Forestry. The audience included technical forestry staff from Hawaii, Guam, the northern Marianas, Micronesia, Palau, and Samoa. Part of the workshop was held at a one-acre demonstration forestry site maintained by the RREA program.

The RREA program funded the creation of a website on Forestry and Agroforestry Trees for Hawaii, to be published as part of the Hawaii Forestry Extension website (http://www2.ctahr.hawaii.edu/forestry/). The new website includes photographs and information on 55 popular forestry species in Hawaii. The forestry extension website includes an additional 30 pages of forestry information. The website was accessed 1785 times in the year, including 365 “hits” from University of Hawaii addresses.

The program published the first electronic version of the newsletter “Hawaii Forestry News.” The newsletter is available on the website. Two hundred ninety copies of the newsletter were sent out electronically to local forestry clients while another 180 copies were sent to local clients and state forestry leaders around the US.

The proceedings of the 2001 Hawaii Forest Industry Symposium, Growing Working Forests for Hawaii’s Future, were printed and distributed to the 140 symposium participants. The proceedings have become popular as an extension manual and 85 copies have been requested by foresters and landowners since its publication.

The extension program continues to modify and use the forestry financial evaluation model developed by the RREA program in 1999 and 2000. Distribution of the leaflet is well into a second printing of 250 copies, while more copies were downloaded from the website.