Citizen Foresters document and preserve Hawaii’s urban trees. (Photo by Nagisa Umemoto)

By Nagisa Umemoto | Staff Writer

The trees play a vital role in aiding our environment. They clean the atmosphere, offer shelter to wildlife, and assist in lowering temperatures in urban areas. A student and volunteer community, KCC Citizen Foresters, is active in maintaining the trees found within the college grounds. The foresters aim to ensure that every tree is counted and valued, contributing to environmental conservation in Hawaii.

1. What is the main purpose of this community?

The goals of the KCC Citizen Foresters are to inventory all the trees on campus and to teach students about the benefits of trees. It’s part of the state Citizen Forester Program, overseen by Smart Trees Pacific. It is improving Hawaii’s records to show where trees are located, identifying those that need attention, and what benefits they provide.                                                                           

2. What are the key achievements this community has made so far?

Citizen Foresters measure the circumference of a tree as part of the campus tree inventory project. (Photo by Nagisa Umemoto)

Led by Francisco Acoba at KCC, his role is to organize the tree inventory project and teach people about the benefits of trees. According to him, in the Spring 2024 semester, nine students and 10 volunteers worked about 250 hours to count nearly 400 trees on campus.

3. What are the plans for the community’s activities?

After the inventory is finished, they use i-Tree, the USDA Forest Service’s software, to calculate the ecological and economic benefits of the trees on campus. Some of the ecological benefits include the removal of air pollutants, absorption of stormwater runoff, and the sequestration of carbon. The Citizen Foresters group plans to present this information to the campus community in some form. They will also share their data with city and state officials to contribute to their tree databases. For example, the data collected previously which includes all the information gathered by Citizen Foresters appear in the DLNR/USDA Forest Service Urban Tree Canopy Viewer. On campus, they may revisit the inventory in future semesters to check the condition of the trees. They may start a new project that determines the benefits of trees to reduce the heat island effect on campus. 

4. How are tree inventories conducted?

The group determines the kind of tree based on such characteristics as leaves, bark, and flowers. They use a special type of DSH (Diameter at Standard Height) tape to determine the circumference of the trunk, while two members measure with a 100-foot tape how far the crown of the tree which is extended. A laser hypsometer measures how tall a tree is, and the crew takes 16 measurements per tree. All of this is then entered into Tree Plotter, a tree database for the whole state that is one of the tools helping in the urban forestry of Hawaii.

5. How Is This Community Contributing to Climate Resilience?

As part of its Climate Adaptation and Resilience Objectives, the City and County of Honolulu aims to have 35% tree canopy cover by 2035. The KCC campus already has 35% tree canopy cover. The campus has many common trees found in Honolulu, such as rainbow shower, royal poinciana, and monkeypod. This also includes large ficuses, such as benjamin fig and indian banyan (found around Makahiapo, more commonly known as the Great Lawn). Kukui, a Polynesian introduced tree, is in several places on campus. More Native and Polynesian introduced trees — such as milo, kou, and lonomea — are being planted on campus. One area is the Native Hawaiian Plant Garden (near the Kokiʻo building), cared for by a Botany professor Mike Ross. Students do service-learning in these areas as well, learning about trees while planting and caring for them. For example, Māla Māunuunu held a workshop which is created to teach Hawaiian ecological and cultural knowledge about growing and using Hawaiian plants for food, medicine, and education through traditional methods. Anyone can join this workshop, for further information about it, check this flyer for Māla Māunuunu.

 6. How to get involved? 

The KCC Citizen Foresters community welcomes any interested person to volunteer. This semester, this group gathers every Wednesday from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in various places on the campus. Every meeting begins with a brief email describing the meeting and other details sent out by Acoba. For further information, reach out to him at facoba@hawaii.edu.