One Maui Treestory

This is the story of ‘The Fragrant Isles’, as the whalers once called these islands.

The scent of the sandalwood forests would waft across the oceans to the ships before land was sighted so it is told. But then the  traders brought their fascinating wares to the ali'i (the island aristocracy) wanting riches in return.   By around the year1800, the ali’i were some $250,000 in debt. Entry into 'civilization' had a price then as now. There were no credit cards, only natural resources. Now sandalwood was and remains to this day one of the most highly prized woods on earth.

Until consumerism hit the islands, the trees had been cut only for sacred purposes - canoes and temple pillars - with songs and ceremony and great respect. But suddenly, the maka'aina (people of the soil) were sent up the mountains where for thirty years they toiled, until by 1830 virtually every last sandalwood tree had been cut down and fitted into the hulls of ships bound for China. The people stamped out the seedlings as they longed to return to their village lifestyle in the warmer lands by the coast and never again wanted to use their mana to raze forests.

They used up a lot of mana. Between 1830 and 1890 hundreds of thousands of islanders died from introduced diseases. In 1895 the US government overthrew the monarchy and illegally annexed the islands.  I am haunted by the words of one kumu on the Big Island when the last piece of native rainforest was fenced off for the building of a geothermal plant there in the 1990’s: "Death of a forest, death of a culture" he said. A man of wisdom, one who knew the healing plants. One who knew the wisdom of the ancestors.

Thirteen years ago, a woman came to the islands. A visionary who found herself sitting on a beach very quietly for several months. Not eating, not speaking, just watching the stars turn, the bombs fall on Kahoo'lawe and the waves crash on the sand.One day she found herself singing in a strange wild way , when suddenly a whole pod of humpback whales leapt out of the water all together in the light of the setting sun and appeared to dance madly for as long as she kept singing. She kept returning to the shore to sing and sure enough each time, the whales danced for her. She spent an entire winter this way, until the whales left for northern climes. The ocean seemed suddenly empty to her. She was drawn up to the mountain heights where, still living outdoors, she walked the dry crackly landscape by day, listening...Gradually she ‘heard’: "Give me back my forests." She stopped... forests? Surely this was lava and these spindly, prickly bushes were the first things to grow here..."Give me back my forests. Get the children to help. It will heal their spirits".

The woman went to the libraries and read the history. Armed with a vision, she returned slowly and with difficulty, to the world of humanity.

Years passed until she was once again by the shore where the whales had danced for her. She shared her tale at a long night fire and by dawn there was an inspired Johnny Appleseed up and ready to replant the sandalwoods that very day. He disappeared up the mountain and returned with the news that the rangers knew of a few old sandalwoods and he could get seeds.

It took some seven years for the 'Sandalwood Man ' to grow some thirty thousand baby trees. He gave them away on the road sides. He planted them on ranch lands safe from pigs and goats.  He got a few acres up  in Poli Poli state forest fenced and with the help of some Maui teenagers, he planted several hundred trees back on the mountain. There was little water available for the native orphans so a small drip system was attached to a tiny tank run by a solar panel and a minute wind generator to provide sustenance.

Since then, the sandalwood man has gone to plant trees on the Big Island. The orphan forest has had to fend for itself. And then through the recent long drought,  Poli Poli was closed because of fire danger.

The visionary travelled long and far and then returned once again to the place where the whales had danced ten years earlier. Na Kupuna O Maui (the elders) had gathered. One spoke: "Of course," said he, knowing nothing of the woman and her vision, "the whales and the sandalwoods are connected. They came together into the world according to the Kumu Lipo - the Hawaiian chant of creation."

The woman called the rangers but had to wait some weeks till the forest was reopened. Then she donned her most sacred beads, and a necklace of puka shells to honor the whales. Once there she searched the grove. Not a single tree. At the top of the fence line, scraping by a bush, her beads dissolved in a cascade to the forest floor. These were the gift of her sister as she passed from this world. She fell to her knees and began to search the soft forest debris. As she searched, she prayed - for the ancestors, for the unborn and for the baby trees she could not find. Then suddenly the shells broke from her neck - trickling gracefully into the ground. Now almost everybody in Hawaii knows how Pele feels about stones, so the woman took notice. She had cleared a sizeable space and looking closely it dawned on her that the skinny little stick growing laboriously through right angles and almost crushed by weeds was in fact a sandalwood. An infant. Not planted by human hands. Nowhere near the irrigation systems.  After that she found some 10 really healthy happy sandalwood teenagers who had not only survived the drought but had somehow given birth to one wild baby.

It took thirty years to cut down the sandalwood forests. It took ten years for one tree to seed itself naturally on the mountain. The conclusion? It's easier to keep forests on the land than it is to replace them. No matter who 'owns' the land they grow on, the trees no more 'belong' to us than the whales do. The great trees of this earth need legal representation. Before we repeat our historic pattern and wipe out our planetary lungs. Can you help? I am not sure if you can replace a forest but You can always plant a tree.

listen to the song 'Once'