The forest is sacred

In a 2022 survey, Volcano residents were asked to rank their top concerns about the village. No. 1 on the list was preserving the health of the forest. For hundreds of years before that, Native Hawaiians believed the forest and its components – wind, rain, trees, birds, rocks, and all the plants – had spiritual significance; every form of nature was a body form of a god or lesser deity:  Kū-ka-‘ōhi‘a-Laka, is a deified guardian of the ‘ōhi‘a growth of ‘Ōla‘a; Ua-kuahine, is the body form of a goddess of the rains in ‘Ōla‘a; and Kū-lili-ka-ua is the god of the thick mists that envelop the forests of upper Puna. So Hawaiians took care to protect the forest, and themselves, with prayers and protocols whenever they stopped or passed through. Those who ignored these offerings could become lost in the thick overgrowth and dense mists of the forest.

Caring for the land was a way of life; for many modern-day residents, it still is. “In this cultural context, anything which damages the native nature of the land, forests, ocean, and kino lau therein, damages the integrity of. the whole,”  ultural historian Kepā Maly says. The landscape remains a valued natural and cultural asset, and Volcano residents want to see it stay that way.

Protecting the forest, though, did not mean it wasn’t used. Prior to European contact, the upper Puna forests were likely not very heavily populated. One account says that “there was never any cultivation, as far as we could learn.” For centuries Hawaiians came to these upland areas from their coastal homes to gather plants for food and medicine, collect bird feathers, craft tools, and harvest koa trees for their canoes. Parts of the forests were visited by farmers, travelers, bird hunters, kahuna (priests), wood carvers, canoe-makers and others. These travelers left behind some small huts and canoe-building sheds, but there were no signs of taro growing or other types of agriculture.

The soil in the forest around Volcano Village is rich from centuries of volcanic ash that has fallen in the area. The ash weathers more quickly than lava, creating the deep soil that gives the forest its verdancy.

Much of the Volcano area is made up of three-tiered rainforest, with ʻōhiʻa trees dominating the upper canopy and a dozen or so mid-sized trees (including ōlapa, kāwaʻu, kōlea la nui, pilo, and mamake) and the slow-growing hapuʻu ferns commanding the mid-sized layer that shelter the ground-level area below, which is alive with dozens of native plants and introduced species. This type of forest is particularly well-suited to prevent erosion and to convert surface runoff into underground drainage in parts of the village that often receive more than 100 inches of rain a year.  A great deal of that precipitation filters throgh the ground slowly, where, rather than rushing toward the sea, it finds its way into small springs and streams that gradually fill the huge artesian basins beneath a few inches of soil and then lava.

Many of the indigenous and endemic plants that are in the forest today came here millions of years ago in one of three ways: floating on the ocean; carried on the Pacific air currents, or transported in the stomach of sea birds. They evolved through the process of adaptive radiation and thrived in mostly predator-free areas. The forests are important reservoirs of biological diversity and home to many species of endemic birds, insects and spiders. There’s also an abundance of epiphytes including ferns, tree seedlings, mosses and liverworts that can thrive on host tree trunks and branches.  Volcano is one of the few communities in the Hawaiian Islands with tall canopy trees providing abundant cover and food for native birds. Volcano residents are sometimes treated to the sights of ʻapapane sipping nectar from the flowers of `ōhi`a trees and `oma`o (Hawaiian thrush) eating fruits of the forest canopy trees, including `ōlapa, kōlea, and kāwa`u. Other native birds, including `amakihi, `io, and nēnē, the native goose, are also occasionally seen.

The native forest, however, is susceptible to many threats and damage, and global warming is bringing many changes to the area. In ancient times, access to the upland forests of Ōlaʻa and beyond, was strictly limited to people who knew how to take care of the land. The shallow-rooted ʻōhiʻa trees depend on proper moisture and soil conditions that have been disrupted in many ways – fires, lava flows, invasive plants and insects, foraging ungulates, timber harvesting, residential and commercial developments. Any gap in the complex multi-tiered structure opens the area to more sunlight in which destructive insects, fungi, and non-native plants can thrive.

In the last century, the rain forests around Volcano have been threatened by the introduction of many invasive species. Introduced plant species present an existential threat; these include banana poka, yellow Himalayan raspberry, strawberry guava, cane tibouchina and palm grass. Most prevalent of all is the Himalayan ginger, which spreads rapidly and can cover huge swathes of the forest ground with its corms and broad thick leaves, blocking out light and preventing most native ground covers from growing. Coqui frogs, which first arrived in Hilo about 10 years ago, hitch-hiked their way to Volcano on cars and trucks, adapted themselves to the cooler temperatures and established themselves in some parts of village.  Warming temperatures more mosquitos spread upslope, threatening more native birds. And more and more often, new homebuilders are bulldozing their lots, leaving no trees at all.

Despite the development and growth of the area as a residential and visitor area over the last 120 years, Volcano still feels like a forest community. With a national park designated an international biosphere reserve by the United Nations on one side and a vast forest reserve on the other, the surrounding areas are largely protected in their natural state. And in the village like-minded people are still fighting to keep the forest-like setting of their community.