The City and County of Honolulu is dealing with the coconut rhinoceros beetle (CRB), a pest damaging Oahu's palm trees. Recent efforts to control the infestation led to the removal of about 100 palm trees from West Oahu's beach parks, based on a survey by the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR), according to KHON2.
City officials are expanding their efforts to Oahu's North Shore and Leeward Coast. "Primarily, we just started over on the leeward coast from Kea’au down to Ewa Beach, which we had to, unfortunately, remove about a hundred palm trees along those shoreline parks. Now we will be surveying from Mokuleia down to Waimanalo doing the same thing," said Nate Serota, DPR Head of Public Relations, in an interview with KHON2. While tree removal is a difficult task, it is an important step in protecting public spaces and restoring the landscape.
At Haleiwa's Kaiaka Bay Beach Park, city officials faced the reality of another dozen CRB-infected palm trees marked for removal. "The unfortunate truth is it's going to get worse before it gets better. We're going to have to start removing more and more of these palms really out of concern for public safety. It could be a falling hazard for anyone that's underneath them," Serota told Island News.
DPR Urban Forestry administrator Roxanne Adams expressed her concern to KHON2, saying, "It’s another sad day for us, we don’t like removing trees, especially trees like the coconut." The coconut tree is culturally significant to the people of Hawai’i, which strengthens the commitment to a more beetle-resistant future. Adams assured the community, “We’ll be back. Our palm experts from around the world can help us establish a way to control them, we’ll be back to plant more coconuts.” Until then, officials are asking the public to help monitor trees, adding an extra layer of vigilance in the fight against the invasive pest.
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