Workshop on Energy and Environmental Research

Sydney Campbell
Abstract:
The ways in which agricultural land is used and managed has both public and private consequences. Landowners tend to allocate land to uses that they expect will maximize their net financial returns, which are influenced by market conditions, government policies, land characteristics, and costs of converting land between different uses (Lubowski et al., 2008). However, land use activities affect broader social and environmental goals as well as the landscapes, local food availability, ecosystem health, fire hazards, cultural heritage, and other outcomes that matter to the communities where these lands exist (Bremer et al., 2018). The evolution of agricultural land use in Hawaiʻi is shaped by a unique and complex history, beginning with the development of ancestral Hawaiian ʻāina-based systems and continuing through the dramatic transformations brought about by the establishment of plantations, the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the rise of tourism and military industries, and the ongoing Native Hawaiian Renaissance and Food Systems Transformation movements. Following the decline of plantations, it was anticipated that former plantation lands zoned for agriculture would be used to grow diverse agrifood products, yet approximately 40% of the lands zoned for agriculture in Hawaiʻi remain fallow (Melrose et al., 2016). In addition to the opportunity cost of productive uses, these fallow lands are dominated by invasive grasses creating a fire-prone landscape adjacent to housing and critical infrastructure, increasing the risk of wildfire disaster (Trauernicht et al., 2015). This is unfortunately exemplified by the devastating fire that consumed the historic city of Lahaina, killing over 100 people and displacing thousands of others, as well as creating billions of USD in damages in the Summer of 2023 (Farrant et al., 2024). To address this issue, we examine the historical consequences of agricultural land use change and propose an Agricultural Land Use Model to holistically evaluate the costs and benefits of fire-mitigating land uses for high-risk agricultural lands in Hawaiʻi.