A community is coming together to revitalize the Hawaiian landscape after last year's devastating wildfires.
According to Hawai'i Public Radio, the Kula Community Watershed Alliance has been working hard since fire ravaged Maui last year, planting new, native seedlings and using woodchips to help slow the erosion of good soil.
"It's frustrating and stressful," Monica Loui said of efforts to rebuild, "But the Alliance and our community — they're healers. This whole remediation of the hillside was a healing process for us. The whole experience was traumatic, and not knowing how we were going to take care of that hillside, it could have endangered property and human life. For them to show up and help us, was amazing."
The Watershed Alliance took the opportunity presented to them by the wildfire to repopulate the area with native plants, like koa and iliahi, or native sandalwood. In doing so, they also created a habitat in which other native plants like the pua kala, or native Hawaiian poppy could thrive despite not having initially being part of the regrowth effort.
Community members have been raising the plants in their own backyards and personal greenhouses, helping them along before they're transplanted into other places, allowing them to spread.
As Time reported, last year's wildfires were largely fueled and spread by the highly flammable, non-native, invasive grasses that covered large swathes of Maui prior to the blaze. Often brought to the island for aesthetic purposes, the grasses pushed out native species of plants, only to struggle when climate-powered drought hit the area.
When the fire started, the grasses became the kindling that fueled the flames, and now area residents are working to ensure something like this doesn't happen again.
According to Alliance executive director Sara Tekula, they've stabilized eight acres of land since starting the project, and have no intention of stopping now, with a goal of stabilizing at least 120 acres before all is said and done.
"This is not a short-lived project by any means," said Tekula. "This is years and years of bringing the burn scar back to life and actually better than it was before."
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