Long-standing concerns over the ecological consequences of military training at Pōhakuloa Training Area derive from the situation that PTA contains the richest and most pristine dryland biota remaining in the Hawaiian Islands. It is national park-quality.

Three diverse biotic assemblages meet at PTA, and the last and best remnants of two of them are on the PTA installation. One, the last remnants of a diverse shrubland, formerly extended across the driest parts of northwest Mauna Kea and now is found only at Kīpuka Kalawamauna and immediately northwest of Pu‘u Ka Pele. This is a large relict of Mauna Kea land surface long isolated by younger Mauna Loa lava flows and more recent cattle fences.

Second, an encircling band of Mauna Kea montane dry forest extends downslope into PTA and abuts Mauna Loa in the north and northeast edges of PTA and onto some northeast cinder cones. The latter are flanked or surrounded by relatively lightly vegetated Mauna Loa lava flows of various ages. Third, to the southwest lies a suite of dry forest and scrub communities which represent several degrees of ecosystem succession in the unique Mauna Loa-Hualālai central plateau area, including Kipuka ‘Alalā.

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These communities also are on variously aged lava flows, mostly Mauna Loa, and they exhibit different successional degrees of ecological development: scattered pioneer plants developing into ʻōhiʻa forests and then maturing to diverse māmane-naio (high-elevation dry forest and shrubland) or other forest types.

The best examples also lie within PTA, again because of past partial protection from cattle grazing and browsing. These various plant communities are habitats for a rare invertebrate fauna that is equally special, some species linked to specific plants. This relict fauna appears to be some of the best remaining in the islands’ dry habitats.

In addition to important transit routes, PTA has breeding areas for ‘ua‘u (Hawaiian petrel), ʻakēʻakē (Band-rumped Storm petrel), and ʻōpeʻapeʻa (Hawaiian bat), as well. Importantly, most of the lava flows are old, having allowed their forests to mature, an important circumstance on such a volcanically active landscape. These flows have representation from three volcanoes.

Also important is that these remnants form a sizable mosaic of kīpuka (separate pieces of lava flows) that can persist over time if the current ecosystem stresses from land use conflicts are removed. The large PTA area includes a wide range of ages and elevations to ensure that the successional mosaic has all the species elements preserved collectively in order to allow ecosystem continuity over time and to allow small losses to occasional lava flows.

The type and consequences of U.S. Defense Department control will most likely determine whether or not much of this rich natural diversity will be allowed to continue into the future.

One reason that this PTA area is unique in still having the best remaining dryland native plants and animals is that past detrimental land use activities on other dryland areas of Hawai’i have left them depleted of most of their native elements. Because off-PTA dryland locations have been so bereft of their original native Hawaiian biota, many plants and animals once shared with PTA are now considered rare and endangered throughout PTA, with many of these extending into and across PTA’s “impact area.”

This is not an auspicious setting for operating military training activities. The conflict between preserving the extraordinary biota of PTA and the consequences of military training maneuvers that require personnel and vehicles (that are brought in from outside, along with unintended hitchhiking pest species) is significant. Add in the air- and ground-based live firing and the conflict is much elevated, and the adverse consequences become far greater and far-reaching in scale.

Ungulates And Uranium

Some aspects are permanent: residual ordnance, including dud shells or bombs that retain their lethality, and depleted uranium projectiles. Hawaiʻi has not yet seen effective clearance of dangerous ordnance from any area subjected to the impacts of live firing training, much less that which was long maintained as at PTA, Kahoʻolawe, Mākua Valley and Schofield.

To make matters very much worse, military control over PTA, both lands ceded to the military and those leased, has promoted the proliferation of feral ungulates (sheep, goats and pigs) and institutionalized their presence with a public hunting program in and next to important habitats for rare plants. In this dry environment, even a few passing ungulates deplete seedlings, saplings and smaller stature native plants. Unpalatable introduced plants, however, thrive with the reduced competition and the training-related disturbances.

Over time, many native species are reduced to geriatric remnants while the weeds proliferate. From lack of any effective mitigative measures, the consequences of live firing and ungulate impacts are exacerbated in the huge “impact area,” from which there is also the spread of ungulates and fires to adjoining areas, including non-PTA lands. These problems and impacts continue to the present, as evidenced by the devastating training-related “Leilani” 2022 fire and by the continued collisions of Saddle Road traffic with ungulates at and near PTA.

Periodically, PTA has considered agency-suggested mitigation efforts and has developed a natural resources management program, has enlisted long-term ecological field support from the Center for Ecological Management of Military Lands (out of Colorado State University), and has solicited or received advice and guidance from a variety of federal, state and private entities. This has helped to provide some degree of constancy of management despite the biennial replacement of base commanders, all of whom have continued the counterproductive public hunting programs which maintained ungulate pressure on these native resources.

While some conflicts have been partially mitigated over a period of decades, the nature and degree of conflicts remain. The adverse consequences are still accumulating, and the overall degradation of biological habitats has been significant.

The conflicts between preservation of most of Hawaiʻi’s best remaining dryland habitats and sustaining military maneuvers and live firing at PTA cannot be continued forward without acknowledging the permanent loss of these ecological resources as a consequence. Also needing acknowledgement is the realization that the bulk of the PTA landscape is permanently and dangerously contaminated by ordnance to the point that returning it to the public for almost any use is unfeasible.

In the past this decision making has been a choice decided by federal, military and state officials, but now with lease renewal discussions and pressures from the public, and some hesitancy indicated from state interests, the decision makers should be considering alternative options for the PTA lands and the desires of the public.

There are also additional resources at PTA other than biological to add into the considerations. The archaeological resources of PTA have escaped the ravages of range development and training activities in many areas, and include prehistoric and historic trails, cave sites and numerous other features. The lands of PTA were traversed much over time and were used as routes to and from the Mauna Kea adze quarries with caves containing adze workshops and other resources.

Additionally, the scenic vistas to and across this landscape are stunning. Again, these resources are national park quality, including the unreplicated and irreplaceable biological, historic, cultural and scenic values of the area. To squander these for a few more decades of military training that alternatively could be conducted on the much larger continent should not be the choice for Hawaiʻi.

Hawaiʻi has already given up much to support the U.S. military for a long time: ceding Pearl Harbor in mid-1800s, experiencing the landing of armed U.S. naval forces that facilitated the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893, acceding military control of almost a third of Oʻahu by the 1930s, the attack on Pearl Harbor and its subsequent imposition of internment of Hawaiʻi citizens and years of martial law, tolerating disruptive live fire training on several islands for World War II and beyond, the long battle to reclaim Kahoʻolawe, the repeated contamination of Pearl Harbor and Oʻahu’s primary aquifer, the degradation of military-controlled lands’ natural and cultural resources at training areas and at other facilities all over the islands, and enduring the countless lies, duplicity and cover-ups throughout this long period.

Now we face the threat of seizure by eminent domain of some of these lands by the military while they negotiate an early extension of leases, as they pressure to prematurely renegotiate these leases in the military’s favor. There is much more to consider than lease rates, token mitigations, trade-offs and trades. Hawaiʻi has already endured more than most other states. It is time for the military to change the uses of some of the lands it controls.

This is particularly relevant since the military plans to continue training for last century’s wars when today’s tactical drones and cyber-operations have rendered PTA’s tank and howitzer maneuvers obsolete, just like how enemy aircraft on Dec. 7, 1941, demonstrated for Oʻahu’s shore batteries and a harbor full of naval targets. It appears that the military cannot keep up with the times. Hawaiʻi’s leadership should not act to continue the sacrifice of our resources on its recommendations.

It is time for other voices and views in the decision making. Of the four choices offered in the EIS, only the “No Action” alternative provides significant relief from most adverse consequences of military training, by letting the leases lapse. Other kinds of use changes should be suggested and evaluated.

One such change to seriously consider and implement is to end permanently all field maneuvers and live firing at PTA and to establish other non-degrading uses instead. Training activities should be limited to those that are non-degrading to all its resources, such as cyber activities and electronic simulations of firing exercises. Perhaps some training at PTA could be as assistants in natural and cultural resource management, a skill set useful at other training facilities in Hawaiʻi and elsewhere.

Additionally, and importantly, the bulk of the PTA lands should instead be managed protectively as a mitigation area for past training here and also for the ongoing and past use of other military lands in Hawaiʻi.

Save The ʻĀina

On Oʻahu the Army has an environmental management group that has been performing some of the best habitat and species restoration and protection conducted in Hawaiʻi. This group should be directed and permanently funded to do the same for the natural and cultural resources at PTA in order to permanently effectuate the management of PTA as such a mitigation area.

My involvement with PTA goes back to 1976-1977, when I spent time doing botanical surveys as contributions to a planned but never released environmental impact statement for PTA, Mākua Valley and Schofield training areas. We traveled widely, discovered rare plants including those believed to be extinct and saw unexpected cultural remains. Surveys included EOD-escorted trips into impact areas where I saw lots of dangerous duds and an example of aerially dispersed anti-personnel ordnance firsthand.

Subsequently, over the next few decades I have been back to PTA many times and have written advisory scientifically based commentaries on various proposals and activities of the military at PTA, both as an agency person and as a private individual. Some changes have been made at PTA; some bad projects have been prevented or modified; but overall, the continued military training has been cumulatively very detrimental to the ‘āina at PTA, and particularly so for its native plants and animals.