The making of a natural leader

The Maui News
Monday, January 08, 2007
By LEHIA APANA, Staff Writer

MAKAWAO - Sloshing through muddy terrain, scaling near-vertical mountainsides and navigating through dense vegetation is all part of the job for Francis Quitazol, The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii's new natural resource manager.

The Maui native recently completed a two-year Assistant Natural Resources Managers Fellowship program aimed at training a new generation of leaders. Following the fellowship, Quitazol was immediately offered a job overseeing the conservancy's Maui lands. His duties include overseeing the 5,230-acre Waikamoi preserve, mapping natural resources, monitoring ungulates and invasive plants and reporting findings.

"The training program really prepared me to do this job and gave me the foundations to be successful," Quitazol said.

After realizing there were few people fully capable of caring for its 11 preserves statewide, the conservancy invested $500,000 over a two-year period to train leaders. The concept: If there are no qualified workers, train them yourself.

"Finding skilled natural resource managers to protect large landscapes with intense management needs has been a critical problem. There is just too much area to cover and not enough skilled people to do the job," said Karen Poiani, conservation programs director for the conservancy.

The highly competitive program accepted four people from nearly 90 applicants throughout Hawaii. Each fellow completed 21 training modules, covering topics like Hawaiian natural history, fence building, predator control and geographic information systems. In addition, they developed yearlong field projects within their specific preserves. Quitazol worked with other partners to build fencing that would protect 600 acres within Waikamoi.

The fencing preserves native forests that are home to rare plants and animals that can be wiped out by feral pigs and other hooved animals. Pigs, goats, axis deer and feral cattle damage the area by disturbing ground cover, eating and trampling native plants, and paving the way for the introduction and spread of invasive weeds.

Team members met their goal of removing eight deer from the area, Quitazol said.

"We established at the beginning of the project that there were 16 deer in the area, and we wanted to cut that number in half," he said. "So it was definitely a success and really rewarding for everyone involved."

Quitazol also traveled to the Big Island to learn various management techniques used there.

"I visited the Big Island because I felt that they were successful in their ungulate removal, and I wanted to see what they were doing and what methods they were using," he said.

Although born and raised on Maui, much of Quitazol's experience comes from time spent in the Mainland. After graduating with a degree in agriculture from the University of Hawaii at Hilo in 1998, Quitazol worked for the U.S. Forest service in Idaho doing timber sale surveys, as a wildfire firefighter across the country and at the Eldorado National Forest in northern California.

Upon returning to Hawaii, he worked for Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, then moved back to Maui to join the feral animal management team at Haleakala National Park.

It's been his goal since he started his career to return home to work on preserving Hawaii's native resources, Quitazol said.

"I made the decision to come home because my connection to this place is deeper than anywhere else. Being born and raised on Maui, it was a connection I couldn't find in the Mainland," he said.

Quitazol said the need for training programs like the one he completed is increasing as more lands throughout the state are set aside for conservation.

"We'll continue to need skilled workers, and this program gives people the groundwork to get started. I cannot say enough about the program and how helpful it was in developing me professionally. There's nothing else like it in the state."

For more information about The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii, visit www.nature.org/hawaii.

PROTECT HAWAII
The Hawaii Nature Conservancy protects 15 preserves and watersheds across the state, with 10 in Maui County. Below is a list of the Maui preserves, along with the types of native plants and animals found in each.

MAUI
EAST MAUI WATERSHED:
- more than 100,000 acres
- at least 63 rare plant species

WAIKAMOI PRESERVE:
- 5,230 acres
- 63 species of rare plants and 13 species of birds; native birds include the i`iwi, apapane and amakihi

WEST MAUI MOUNTAINS
WATERSHED:
- more than 126 rare natural communities, plants, and animals.

KAPUNAKEA PRESERVE:
- 1,264 acres
- 24 species of rare plants, the only known kauila tree of its kind on Maui; habitat for apapane, i`iwi, amakihi and pueo

LANA‘I
KANEPUU PRESERVE:
- 590 acres
- 49 plant species found only here, including the iliahi (sandalwood), the nau (Hawaii gardenia) and the vine Bonamia menziesii

LANAI FOREST AND WATERSHED PARTNERSHIP:
- ensures the future supply of water for the island and protects the health of near shore waters, fisheries and beaches

MOLOKA‘I
EAST MOLOKAI WATERSHED PARTNERSHIP:
- 5,000 acres
- protects and enhances native Hawaiian rain forest communities

PELEKUNU PRESERVE:
- 5,714 acres
- at least seven native aquatic species

KAMAKOU PRESERVE:
- 2,774 acres
- more than 250 species of Hawaiian plants, including alani, hapuu and ohia lehua; animals include olomao and kakawahie (Molokai creeper), amakihi, apapane and pueo

MOOMOMI PRESERVE:
- 921 acres
- more than 22 native Hawaiian plant species, including the akoko and ena ena; animals include the green sea turtle and pueo (Hawaiian owl)