| Abstract: |
Introduction: The island of Kaho'olawe is the smallest of the eight major islands of the Hawaiian chain and is located 18 km southeast of Maui and in the rainshadow of its highest mountain, Haleakala (3055 m [10,023 feet]). It is roughly 17 by 10 km and is 117 km<sup>2</sup> in area, with its highest point at 450 m. Despite being such a relatively small island, Kaho'olawe has been the center of controversy for much of this century. The initial controversy was over how to rehabilitate the devegetated and rapidly eroding island, with ranchers and foresters the protagonists in the debate. But this early conservation issue was rendered academic when the island was taken over in 1941 by the U.S. military for use as a target island, and all conservation measures ceased. Kaho'olawe soon gained the reputation as "the most shot at island in the Pacific" (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 16 August 1946, p. 19, c. 1-2). Military control continued after World War II and the use of the island for target practice and other military manoeuvres continues to the time of writing, much to the chagrin of various citizen groups and international peace organizations. Although efforts were made by Inez Ashdown, the daughter of a former rancher, the County of Maui, and the Territorial and (after 1959) State Government, to have the island returned to civilian use, it was only in 1976 that the island's military status was seriously challenged. It was the Protect Kaho'olawe 'Ohana (PKO), a grassroots Hawaiian native rights organization, that took the U. S. Navy on, this time in the Federal courts. The PKO filed a class-action suit claiming that "continued use of live ordnance on Kaho'olawc pollutes the environment, endangers lives, interferes with religious practices and destroys historical sites" (Honolulu Advertiser, 14 October 1976, p. A6), and that in failing to file an environmental impact statement describing the impact of military use on the island's archaeological sites, the Navy had violated the National Environmental Protection Act. When Hawaiian protests started in January 1976, archaeological knowledge of the island was limited to a short monograph by McAllister (1933). In response to PKO charges of destruction of historic sites by bombing, the State Historic Preservation Officer recommended, and the Navy agreed to, an archaeological survey of the island. This took place between 1976 and 1980. The PKO eventually won the lawsuit but failed to get the military off the island. Conflicts arose during and as a result of the survey between Hawaiians and archaeologists over the significance and interpretation of the archaeological sites on the island, and over the causes of the devastation of its vegetation and landscape (detailed in Spriggs 1989). In 1980 the entire island was placed on the National Register of Historic Places as an archaeological district. Although military use continues, targets are now placed away from archaeological sites and the PKO is allowed monthly access to the previously restricted island for religious and cultural purposes. For several years the Navy has been preparing a Cultural Resource Management Plan for the island and is following a number of procedures of interim management policy. These included an interim site protection program involving data recovery and stabilization of those archaeological sites that are immediately threatened by erosion. The project with which I was associated in 1982-1983 was a second phase of the interim site protection program. For the aims and results of the 1982-1983 project see the two-volume report by Rosendahl et at (1987).<sup>1</sup> My own objective was to examine landscape change on the island in the prehistoric and historic periods. This involved a short program of field work and a reconsideration of historic sources and previous theories about how Kaho'olawe had come to present its current eroded and windswept appearance. The basic question to be addressed was when had this degradation of the landscape occurred, whether historically (post-I778) or predominantly in the prehistoric era. Based on the results of the 1976-1980 survey (to be discussed below), Kaho'olawe has been held up as a classic case of prehistoric land degradation and subsequent population collapse. In the literature this view has come to replace the earlier one that its degradation was caused by overgrazing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, exacerbated by later military use. The revised interpretation has been generally publicized by the writings of Kirch (1982a: 10, 1982b:4, 1983: 30, 1984:108-109,1985:153-154
see also Barrera 1984lwritten in 1980)), and to an audience outside the Pacific by J. M. Diamond, among others (see for instance Keegan and Diamond [1987: 79]). But was this bad press for Kaho'olawe justified?
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