#haenastatepark

By Chipper Wichman The Hā‘ena State Park Master Plan is an amazing document that captures the vision and dreams of community leaders as well as the leaders of the Division of State Parks. It lays out a comprehensive path to managing visitors and protecting the natural and cultural resources of this sacred area.  It has been a long time coming…in fact, I have worked on it for over 30 years and the lead planner, Kimi Yuen from PBR Hawai‘i, who brought this plan over the finish line had two children in the course of completing this epic journey. To appreciate the scope and importance of this plan you have to understand how abused this area was for over 40 years and how important it is historically and culturally and that it is a destination for almost every visitor that comes to the island of Kaua‘i.  While it has been a frustratingly slow process for those of us who have been involved since the start in the early 1990s, in a way time has worked in our favor.  Over the past five years the over-tourism that has impacted so many communities in our State has resulted in a steady paradigm shift occurring even at the highest levels of government--we no longer view places like Hā‘ena and Nā Pali as recreational areas that can accommodate ever-increasing visitors; we now view them as finite and impacted and also recognize that the communities that live in these areas have been negatively impacted for decades. We now hear the concepts being thrown around of “regenerative tourism” and “place-based management”.  As we emerge for the “great pause” in visitor arrivals in Hawai‘i caused by the pandemic, the public is not only [...]