History of the Maui Coastal Land Trust

For the formation of the the Maui Coastal Land Trust, we look to the year 2000 when Maui residents were inspired on a truly grassroots level to change the direction of Maui's future.

As large resort hotels and other projects were being built along south and west Maui coastlines, in the 1980's and 90's, a group of concerned Maui citizens fought to preserve precious coastal lands, at Keka'a, Olowalu, Kamaole Point and Palauea. Some of our best island beaches and favorite camping, fishing, and recreation areas were developed and public access diminished.

Lucienne de Naie and Susan Bradford who had been part of the 'Save Palauea' effort, realized there had to be a better way. Soon, Helen Nielsen, Diane Zachary, Claire Capelle, Chuck Meyer, and Dave Mackwell joined the effort. As public discussion began, it was clear that everyone wanted to find a way to preserve special lands. It was definitely an idea whose time had come. The idea of creating the Maui Coastal Land Trust (MCLT), a citizen based organization providing a wide array of tools for land preservation and committed to working in partnership with landowners, developers, and government, began to solidify.

Politicians, business people and many others joined in our bi-weekly meetings at a former gas station in Wailuku. The group realized that to be truly successful, it was imperative that a broad spectrum of people needed to come to the table in collaboration.

With a grant from the Environmental Support Center, in Washington D.C., the forming organization held a series of planning meetings in the summer of 2000, inviting over 100 people to look at the needs of Maui County and our proposal for a land trust. The upshot of these meeting was clear: Just do it! Do it now! Three months later in December 2000, MCLT held its first official board meeting. The board included major landowners, developers, business people, a Native Hawaiian activist and environmentalists.

The Land Trust Alliance, in Washington D.C., the umbrella organization for land trusts in the United States, provided invaluable information and support, including guiding us to the right person. One such person was the head of their Northwest division, Dr. Dale Bonar. It was a fortuitous connection as he would become our first Executive Director some two years later.

One of the first major decisions the new land trust board made in September of 2001 was to commit the organization to a nearly $5,000,000 purchase of the old Waihe`e Dairy site. Quite an aggressive move, considering the organization had as yet no money, no office, and no staff! Fortunately, we hired Dale Bonar, a national land trust expert, as our 1st Executive Director in May 2002. He had been a mentor to us in our formative stages and having been born and raised in Hawaii, he was a natural! In Dale's first week on the job, he applied for and subsequently received two $1 million grants from the federal government, which meant we were well on our way to acquiring the Waihe`e 277 acre site. With the combination of federal, state, county and individual donations, MCLT purchased the old dairy in June of 2005.

Recognizing that government commitment to open space would be essential to the success of this venture and future acquisitions, MCLT was a public advocate for the successful County Charter amendment vote in 2002 that now sets aside a minimum of 1% of property taxes each year to acquire and preserve open space on Maui. In 2005, the Land Trust worked with other conservation groups to lobby both the legislature and the governor to approve the Legacy Lands Act which now provides significant funding for land conservation and affordable housing.

In our early formative months we felt that if the land trust could preserve even two parcels of land in our first 10 years, it would all be worth it. Now in our 7th year, we have 11 parcels protecting over 3,000 acres with a combined economic conservation value exceeding $ 50,000,000. And by the end of 2008 we expect to add another 14,000 acres to that total!.

Working together for the last seven years at local, state and federal levels, citizens and legislators realize the importance of maintaining Maui's best resources: our coastal areas, cultural and historical sites, view corridors, agricultural lands and open space. Thank you to the greater Maui community for making this possible!