This is the fun part of William "Butch" Haase's job. He is bouncing along a rocky, divot-pocked trail into Molokai's Mokio Preserve in his four-wheel-drive Jeep and pointing out landmarks along the way.
Haase is executive director of the Molokai Land Trust, a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring and protecting natural and cultural resources on the island while educating the public and incorporating them into conservation efforts.
He spends much of his time toiling on the 1,769 acres of the Mokio Preserve, a swath of land on the northwest side of the island stewarded by the trust. The preserve was given to the trust by Molokai Ranch, and now Haase and his team are working parcel by parcel to restore native vegetation. In many areas that means clearing away groves of thorn-covered kiawe trees. Molokai Ranch, meanwhile, has been closed since 2008, and the 55,575-acre property, representing a third of the island, recently went on sale for $260 million.
The trust was created by residents of Molokai and strives to be a truly community resource. The preserve lands, which include dune ecosystems, native forest and seasonal wetland areas, are open to residents and groups to participate in subsistence and volunteer activities.
Hawaiians are given regulated access to fish and hunt on the trust's preserves. The trust also relies on volunteers to aid in its various restoration and conservation projects, and welcomes tour groups seeking a dirtier, sweatier and perhaps more rewarding travel experience. Haase also hosts school field trips and other community groups on the preserve, teaching about the native species now making a comeback on the land and the various archaeological finds on the site.
The Mokio Preserve stretches for five miles along Molokai's northern coastline, and is home to several rare species including the ohai plant and the bristle-thighed curlew and kioea birds.
"Sometimes when we bring volunteers out here during whale season we'll be greeted with a show of whales breaching and shooting their spouts," Haase said. "Then it gets pretty hard for everyone to focus on the work for the day."
The preserve coastline towers over the turquoise blue ocean below, with crimson-colored rock faces plunging into the water create an eye-catching contrast. Much of the area has yet to be combed for artifacts, and our group of journalists, sponsored by the Molokai Visitors Association, stepped carefully so as not to crush any intact shells and other fossils backed into the earth.
Haase finds a concentrated area of ancient Hawaiian detritus, a pile of discarded shells, crab claws and other materials left behind long before Westerners ever came to the island. Looking at the piles, also called middens, and then staring off into distance to see nary a house, car or person in sight, one can almost picture life centuries ago.
As Haase tells it, a native Hawaiian in the area most likely used a steep path down to the ocean to collect his food for the night, crustaceans, shellfish and other sea bounty, and would then retreat to higher ground to build a fire, protect themselves from the elements and eat their meal.
In other areas, archaeologists who've worked with the trust tell Haase, there are stone working areas where the native Hawaiians made tools. Around larger black stones, the ground was littered with tiny chips of rock and more formed pieces, that were well on their way to being an ax or spear blade.
The Mokio Preserve is the largest protected parcel on the island, but the trust also manages 196.4 acres of protected land at Kawaikapu, which contains a perennial stream and some native forest area, and conducts restoration work at Moomomi Preserve, a 921-acre area to the east of Mokio Preserve owned by The Nature Conservancy that is one of the last remaining strongholds for native coastal plants and animals in Hawaii.
The work the Molokai Land Trust staff and volunteers have put in is already paying off at the Mokio Preserve, near a fenced off area of kiawe trees that had yet to be uprooted, there was patch of land that the teams had cleared and planted with all native species. Delicate vines, colorful wildflowers, and indigenous grasses were all coming back.
The Molokai Land Trust offers a variety of volunteer opportunities that take visitors on to these remote areas. For more information on the trust and ways to participate, call (808) 553-5626 or visit molokailandtrust.org.