Exactly two years after the wildfires that swept through upcountry Maui, community members gathered for a celebration.
“It's really a vision of hope, healing and new growth for our ʻāina and new growth for our community. We can nurture these plants. The plants, in turn, will nurture us," said Sara Tekula, the executive director of the Kula Community Watershed Alliance.
She was referring to the organization’s newly completed restoration nursery.
Two large hoop houses stand in a grassy pasture in Kula that will one day be a native forest. The 60-foot-long structures will grow tens of thousands of native plants.
“In the wake of the fires, very early on, we said we're going to need a lot of trees, guys, and they need to be the right trees for this place. The right way to do that is just to collect them up the hill, the seeds, and grow them here. So that is what begins tonight is that story," Tekula said.
Local musicians like Uncle George Kahumoku serenaded the evening last week, under a rising moon.
The area is one parcel of about 120 acres that this group of neighbors and fire survivors in the alliance has been stewarding since the fire.
The alliance has removed invasive trees that fueled the blaze, cleared a firebreak, and is working on fencing to keep out deer.
“What's phenomenal is seeing the changes that have been made just in the last year," the alliance's Council of Neighbors President Dave Albright said.
“It's not just regrowing the plants that were here before and restoring it back to the way it was. This whole community has decided to restore this back to the way it should be, which is native plants."
On the day of the ceremony, Tekula motioned to the greenhouses, with dozens of neatly labeled natives.
“This is for more sun-loving plants, so eventually it'll be filled with our koa, our aʻaliʻi friends, wiliwili, that's about, for the nerds in the room, 52% shade," she said.
The other hoophouse has more shade coverage for ferns and seed starts. The nursery will also feature a community tool library.
Under the moonlight, volunteers planted the first native trees above the greenhouses. Project advisor Joe Imhoff of Skyline Conservation Initiative patted dirt around their roots.
“So which species is this? It starts its life with some music. They call it ʻōhiʻa ʻalani because it has orange flowers," he said to attendees.
For Imhoff, planting rare species like naupaka kuahiwi is restoring a piece of the historical and ecological puzzle.
“This tree was probably here thousands of years ago. So we’re bringing it back home."
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