Rapid ohia death continues to move mauka
HILO (KHON2) — Tuesday, April 22, was Earth Day; and it is also Native Hawaiian Plant Month. One of our most important and beloved native flora is the ʻohia that continues to be threatened by Rapid Ohia Death, a fungal pathogen that has killed more than one million ohia trees on Hawaii Island.
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'Well, we are seeing the disease sadly progress more up the mountains,' said University of Hawaii Extension Forester JB Friday. 'Initially, we saw a lot down in Lower Puna, in Hilo, and everybody's very conscious of it because you saw trees dying. But the disease sadly has moved up, and we're seeing it more in the high watershed in places like Laupahoehoe and Kāʻū.'
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Scientists and land managers have begun to use fences to keep invasive animals out of native forest areas so they are less likely to spread the fungi that cause ROD. Friday said that it can even make noticeable impacts on one side of the fence from the other in the same forest.
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'Fencing is a tool that we have that we can really protect our native forests from ROD. The disease is infects trees when they get injured. The fungus doesn't get through the bark. It's not doesn't seem to be taken up by healthy roots or come through the leaves. What it does get into is whenever there's an injury in the tree. And what we find is that cattle in the forest who are marking trees or pigs in the forest who are tearing up roots are causing those injuries. And we see across the landscape, forests that are protected with fencing and the animals are excluded have a lot lower levels of disease,'
Merrie Monarch 2025 is this week, and Hawaiian Culture features a strong connection to ohia and its lehua blossoms. Friday said that there are ways to help mitigate the spread if people are planning on using ohia.
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'If you do gather ohia for lei, take good biosanitation practices when you go into the forest. Clean your boots, shoes, clean your tools. If you cut in ohia, put some sort of wound sealer on it. One of the things I do wanna get across is that Hawaii Island, there's a moratorium on moving ohia off the island as per the Department of Agriculture. So if you do purchase a lei at Merrie Monarch or you come to Hawaii Island and someone gives you an ohia lei, give it to someone else before you leave because you're not allowed to take them off back the island.'
If not, the plant bottle brush has similar flowers to Ohia and has proven to be a way to replace Ohia's presence in leimaking.
One of the ways that people can help ohia is to grow it in and around their homes. Friday notes that the tree is commonly thought to only grow in higher elevations, but it grows from mauka to makai.
'On Oahu and Maui, mostly you only see ohia up in the mountains, but that's just because the forest was cleared everywhere else. In ancient times, ohia, of course, came all the way down to the ocean. And here on Hawaii Island, we do see ohia coming all the way down to the ocean. So people think it can't grow in town, and it can. So go ahead and keep on planting ohia. I wanna mention that this year is the year of the community forest as per DLNR. And part of the idea is to make our native plants part of our daily life in Hawaii, so plant ohia, plant other native plants.'Another great way to help our native forests is through volunteering your time.
'There are opportunities for volunteering in the forest on all the islands,' Friday said. 'An awful lot of our native forest restoration is done by volunteers. Even if it's an agency organizing it, still, the people on the ground a lot of time are volunteers.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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