 Bingo. We're back at one o'clock rock. I'm Jay Fidel. I really love this show, Life and the Law. We talk to lawyers and people around lawyers and the law and we try to get a handle on how the law is operating and how the profession is operating and interesting situations the lawyers find themselves in. And today we're talking to Leah Hahn. We're talking about the Trust for Public Land, creating parks and protecting land. And she is the Hawaii State Director of the Trust for Public Land. Welcome to the show, Leah. Well, thank you for having me. Nice to have you. So, yeah, let's talk about the Trust for Public Land. What is it? It's a national organization. What does it do nationally and what does it do locally? Well, it's a national land conservation organization with over 30 offices nationwide. And it's been working in Hawaii since 1979. Its first project was to expand the Volcanoes National Park. And since then, the Trust for Public Land has helped to conserve over 43,000 acres throughout the state. That's substantial. When you say, I get the feeling that this is a project-based kind of organization. And projects come to you or you develop projects and then you make that land into public land or land which is dedicated for agriculture, for culture, for public use. Yes, yes. So, in Hawaii, we have a local advisory board with representation from all major islands, including Lina'i, which is like, yay, we got Lina'i. And that local advisory board has helped us develop a strategic plan. We work in generally three areas, shoreline coastal lands, native lands that perpetuate Hawaiian culture, and working lands that promote Hawaii's self-sufficiency. Recreational? Yes. And so the coastal and shoreline lands are very recreational. I mean, everybody in Hawaii serves or goes to the beach. And so that's why shoreline lands are very important. They're also very important to native Hawaiian culture. Many of the practices, fishing, subsistence occur on the shoreline. A lot of our working lands projects, projects that protect our watersheds that produce our drinking water, also have elements of public access for hiking in the mountains. And so, yes, the recordation is back. So the state is your oyster. I mean, it's all fair game, isn't it? Yes, yes. So, I just wonder, I mean, give us a project that you have done in, say, 2016 and tell us, step us through on that as a sort of case study. Okay, well, there's two slides, I think, that you're close to have. Oh, let's look at them, yeah. And one very, I think, important project that we worked on that we closed actually just a year ago in December of 2015, so just, it's really a year anniversary right now, is Kuomo'o. So I don't know if you know the Hawaiian history, but in 1819, there was a very important famous battle called the Battle of Kuomo'o, which occurred on the Big Island, south of Kuna. There's a picture of it. And this is a rendering by Brooke Parker, the artist, the native Hawaiian artist who has generously allowed us to use this image in talking about the story of the Battle of Kuomo'o. It was a battle following the death of Kamehameha first in December of 1819. And it was the battle of his son versus the battle of, versus his nephew. They were fighting over the traditional kapu system. And after this battle, the traditional ways fell away, and sort of the idols were abandoned and sort of Western influences took over. So the kapu system went away. Yes, yes. And so... This was after the Polly, the Polly Battle. Right. This was after Kamehameha first took over. The consolidation of the islands and all that. Right. And this was approximately six months after his death. So there was sort of a bit of a power vacuum, and so it's a very important time in Hawaiian history. And at this site, it said that the forces of Kamehameha II and the opposing forces, you know, battled up and down the coast. The forces of Kamehameha II had cannon and muskets and cannon mounted on... The Europeans had already come ashore. On canoes, actually. And so they were overpowered, the sort of rebel forces, if you would. And there are hundreds of warriors and chiefs and chiefesses buried on this land. And so... Where is it now? It's at Kumu'o, and it is south of Kehau, south of Kona. Okay. Okay. Toward Milo, the Ii. Right, right. Okay. And so I had been aware of this land and its historical importance for quite a while. But luckily, the landowner, Mrs. Shantower, and if you show the next picture, you'll see a picture of Mrs. Shantower. Okay. She's a part Hawaiian native lady. This is her Ohana, but to the right, or I can't really tell which is right, but... To the right of the picture. To the right of the picture is the famous musician Keola Beemer and his wife Moana. So Keola Beemer is a descendant, of course, of Nona Beemer, his mother, who's named after the chiefess who died in this battle, Manono. And he, for many, many years, generations really, had visited this land. The stories and chants and hulas of the battle were handed down to him by his mother. He really wanted to preserve it. Mrs. Shantower wanted to preserve it as well for educational purposes. But she needed a little bit of economic return for her family and her future. And so we were able to figure out a price and raise the money. And now a non-profit that is formed by the Beemer Ohana owns and stewards the property. Over the past year, they've had hundreds of volunteers restoring native vegetation along the coastline, honoring sort of the native practices, trying to connect with the families of those who fell in the battle and who were buried along the coastline. So it's a coastal land. And as I recall, the topography is sort of a drop-off in that area. Right. It's a bit of a sea cliff if you go south of Kehoe Bay. But to the south and to the north of this property are very large luxury homes, and then the development Hokulia. So this is a welcome respite in that development of the Hona area. So this is more natural. And so how much acre is we talking about? 47 acres. 47 acres. And this is an example of the kind of projects that the trust does. So you raise the money, you organize somebody who will steward the land, and you create the documents, I suppose, that define that stewardship. And then you're done. And then we transfer it. But we're constantly checking in with Kele Beemer and his non-profit Aloha Koumou. I know about their progress, referring them to different funding sources that we think that might be able to assist them in the program. Are you part of the documents? Are you a party? Yes. When we buy land, we're usually a party to it, but then we eventually transfer it to the sort of ultimate steward of the land. So when you say you check in with Kele, you check in and to see whether he's doing the cultural things that were agreed at the time of the transaction? We're not in that formal role as a monitor of the restrictions, the property more of an informal role and sort of assistance and supporter. But there are restrictions on the land that prevent it from being developed. In that particular instance, the Office of Fine Affairs donated quite a bit of money to the purchase price, and they are the monitor of the restrictions. So what sort of restrictions are there? The trust, I mean his trust, his non-profit, I guess, is supposed to conduct Hawaiian culture education on the land. What have they done? What are they doing? Well, yes, the restrictions against development. So it can't obviously be developed into luxury homes. That runs with the land? That's title? Yes. That runs with the land. It's permanent. And so he is running sort of a cultural education program. He has a wonderful young woman, Kamuela Mejula, who is the program coordinator, and she has already invited several, not several, but dozens of groups from different schools and Halau, Hula Halau to come over and to help with the restoration and to learn about the story of Kul Mo'o and the history. It's also part of the Alaka Hakai National Historic Trail, which runs through roughly three-quarters of the Big Island, the Coastal Trail, that the National Park Service administers, so they're also partnering with the National Park Service. Is that on the Makai side of the road? Yes. Makai side. So that would be a very beautiful area, I think. Yes, yes. So I've walked at many times, and it's rocky, but it's really, really beautiful. And they've been partnering with the National Parks and Rural Restoration and signage and things like that. So this is in perpetuity. Yes, it is in perpetuity. So this is the kind of thing we need to do to preserve the essence of Hawaii. Right, right. That's part of it. But that, you know, your national organization then is dealing with very local cultural experiences like this. Yeah, I mean, that's the great thing about the Trust for Public Land. It brings its real estate, legal, and conservation experience to that local, to local issues. So the conservation that we do in Hawaii is very meaningful to Hawaii, but we're doing very meaningful, and it looks slightly different, conservation in Montana or Colorado, or, you know, recently we added onto Yosemite Park in California. So it's, you know, we do great work all over the nation. So now, you were an environmental lawyer for a firm on Bishop Street, and I got into all kinds of things, I mean, in that specialty. And so now you bring a certain legal experience to the Trust for Public Lands. What do you do as the director of the Trust here? Well, a lot of it is just sort of working with communities and landowners as that bridge, right? So you said some of our projects come from communities that say, we don't want this land to be developed, please help us save it. And then on the other hand, we work with landowners who, you know, have to be willing sellers, so it's all voluntary work that we do. Landowners have to voluntarily give up their rights, voluntarily sell their land. And so we're often the bridge between a very, maybe sometimes upset, hurt feelings local community and the landowner who may feel like, why are, who are these, you know, other, you know, people in the community that are against me, you know. So we provide that sort of bridge and we negotiate with the landowner. We try to work out some kind of transaction or deal that meets his or her needs and then raise the money needed to make it happen. But it's always with the view toward conserving the land. Yes, yes. So do you have, you know, it's a legal practice question. Do you ever try a negotiation and it doesn't work? People back out or something? What happens? Yeah. I mean, it is voluntary. So if there are, there are many times where a project does not close, I think, and there's this motto at the Trust for Public Land where it takes like a thousand cups of coffee to close a product, you know, and sometimes it might, it might not be the right time for the landowner or the market. And then a few years later, you know, we're back talking, we're, we're checking in with them. Are you still interested? This was, this was something like Mrs. Schantauer and the Koumou project because she very strongly wanted a Hawaiian organization to own and steward that land and so we approach different partners like Kamehameha Schools, like the Office of Fine Affairs, like the National Park Service. And for one reason or another, those partnerships were not attractive to her, but she met Keola Beamer, and I don't know if you know Keola, but, you know, basically fell in love with him because who, who doesn't, who doesn't fall in love with Keola Beamer? And that's, you know, was the right partnership and his, you know, strong connection to the land. It's perfect. It's a match made in heaven. It was, was just amazing. Yeah. So that, that would be something you do. You try to make matches like that. So everybody is on the same page. Yeah. We're the e-harmony of, yeah. E-harmony. My conservation. So, you know, okay, aside from, you know, the cultural process on the big island, what, you know, can you, can you do this kind of project, say, in Oahu, where there's not so much remote land? Well, I think, actually, the major, a lot of our projects are on Oahu. This year, we closed several projects on Oahu, the Turtle Bay Malca Agricultural Land Project, our Whitmore North Agricultural Land Project with the State Agribusiness Development Corporation and DOLE, and we're working very hard to close our Ka'ivi Project, Ka'ivi Coast Malca Agri, Malca Lands. Okay. When we come back from this break, Leah, Leah-harm, she's the State Director of the Trust for Public Land, a national non-profit organization that preserves and conserves land. When we come back from this break, I want to talk about those projects. Okay. So, we'll do some more case studies with you and get the depths and breaths of what you do. All right. Thank you. We'll be right back after this break. Hi. I'm Ethan Allen, host of Lackable Science on Think Tech, Hawaii. I hope you'll join me every Friday at 2 p.m. to discover what is likeable about science. We bring on scientists of all ilk, astronomers, physicists, chemists, biologists, ecologists, and they talk about their work, and more importantly, they talk about why you should talk about their work, why you should think about their work, why you should like their work. I help them bring out why their work is understandable, why it's meaningful, why people should care about it, why people should support science. We have a good time. We talk about current events of interest. We talk about historical events sometimes. We dig deep into their research, why they do, what the joys and delights and frustrations of their work are. And in all, we show a real world of science, a real world of likeable science. I hope you'll join us every Friday at 2 p.m. Okay. We're back. We're live with Leah Hong. She's the state director of the Trust Republic Land, and we're talking about the depth and breaths of the projects that that organization is doing around the state of Hawaii, and you have a, you have a number sheet here. Oh, yes. We do. And can you give us a handle on the depth and breadth according to the numbers? Okay. Well, thanks to our wonderful administrative assistant, Chanel. We have this wonderful, by the numbers. So we've been conserving land in Hawaii for 37 years since 1979. To date, we've collaborated with over 20 community land owner and governmental partners to protect 31 special places across our island home, permanently safeguarding over 43,000 acres and counting. And this work would not be possible without the support in Aloha of our 6,000 supporters and donors throughout the Hawaiian Islands. So you have supporters and donors in the Hawaiian Islands? Yes, we do. Who, who give you money and otherwise help you. Yes, volunteers, sweat equity and also cash donations. Yeah. Okay. That's for, oh, so land also. And land and cash. Perfect. Well, I mean, the idea, I mean, I'm going to tell you before the show the land. The idea is that it's about public space. It's about public land and we, we can't let all of that go away, especially in an island state where the amount of land is limited. We need it for quality of life, quality of cerebral life, physical life, economic life. And so you stand as a sort of barrier between losing it all. And so what you're doing is, is very important. Thank you. So I want to turn to, I want to turn to the agricultural kind of project. You mentioned Turtle Bay and agribusiness kind of project. Can you give us a case study of that one? Well, there's a picture that your, your technicians have of the Turtle Bay Malca agricultural lands. Okay. And in April of this year, we recently. Is that it now? Yes. We recently recorded agricultural conservation easement over 468 acres of this agricultural land, which permanently dedicates it to agriculture, meaning it cannot be subdivided into gentlemen estates. It cannot be developed. It will permanently stay in agriculture. How does this differ from other state characterization zoning maybe or, you know, the designation of land as conservation land or, I don't know how, how concrete it is, but that's a bad word to use. How, how, how structured it is to call land agricultural land and expect it to stay agricultural land. Well, your system is be different. It is, it is not zoning. It is a document called an agricultural conservation easement that is recorded in the Bureau of Condenses that permanently restricts the land. It runs with the land. So if the property is ever bought or sold or inherited to another person, that those restrictions would continue. Can you ever undo that? Only in very unusual circumstances, things like an act of God that might destroy the resources for which the easement was created. Interesting. So for, you know, for some wild example, you know, maybe, you know, this agricultural land is near the coastline, but what if this enormous tsunami, you know, washed all the dirt away so that it was barren rock and it had no agricultural value, then maybe something as extreme as that, maybe the restrictions could be lifted, but it has to be very extreme. Would you have to go to court to get that? Yes. The court would have to approve it. Yeah. Okay. So now this, this document creates an agricultural easement. It's a word that doesn't, doesn't really connote the gravity of the change, though. Right, right. It's real serious and it's real forever. Yes. Yes. Well, you and I went to law school and we know that real property is described as a bundle of sticks, right? Yeah. And so you're, the landowner's literally giving away sticks. I'm giving away this right to subdivide. I'm giving you, I'm giving away the right to request a change in zoning. And I'm giving the right, away the right to request a change in the land use classification. So I'm giving, you know, et cetera, et cetera. It's an agreement. It's a voluntary agreement by the land. By the owner. By the owner. Is there another party to it or is it just the owner? Well, there are other parties to it. The conservation easement holder is usually a public agency or another land trust organization that. Could it be your organization? It could be ours. We occasionally do serve in that role. And that is a sort of monitoring role where every year you go back to the land and you look at the restrictions and you kind of keep a running, running a report of, well, you know, here where all the sheds and buildings are and have a complied with all the restrictions not to build houses, not to, not to pave over everything, et cetera, et cetera. So why would a landowner do that? Because he's, you know, he's cutting down the value for resale, for development, for subdivision, all that. Right. Why would he do that? Well, there's a number of different reasons. There are some significant tax benefits for conservation easement donations. There are also programs that reimburse the landowner for the fair market value of the rights that he's giving away. And so it is a bit of a complicated appraisal question, but appraisers can estimate the value of the right to all these rights or the sticks that the landowner is giving away and put a value on that. And there are programs that exist to reimburse the landowner for the fair market. Again, you would raise money and you'd pay the landowner and be voluntary. You'd have to be willing to do it and the money would have to be enough to satisfy him. I expect that an appraisal would help him feel that it's in the ballpark anyway. And the money comes from various sources. One of the wonderful things that the Trust Republic land has done in Hawaii is help to lead the establishment of land conservation funds throughout the island. So every single county, government, and the state have a land conservation fund. And so I think that, over the last since 2002, has helped to raise maybe close to $200 million for land conservation. Not just for the Trust Republic land projects, but for land conservation in general, statewide. And you'd be one of the beneficiaries of your project. We can apply for it and compete in open and transparent processes for those monies just like any other organization. But you might go somewhere else too. You might go to one of your donors or a number of them and find the funds there. And then there are federal sources of money. And I think establishing those local sources of money has really helped the land conservation movement in Hawaii in the last 10 to 20 years because the federal government has had programs for land conservation for many, many years, but they all require a match. They'll fund up to 75%, but require a 25% local match. And so the state was always hampered by the fact that they didn't have a dedicated source of land conservation money. And now they do. And now they can make these matches and all these conservation projects can happen now. Yeah. Just a footnote question is you may know that we have a new president-elect. And he has different ideas about so many things, including environmental issues. Well, we'll see. His interior department pick was very encouraging, at least from the land conservation standpoint. So you don't necessarily see a loss of funding on the national level as a result of his administration? Well, I think the president-elect has always been in favor of these sort of voluntary private landowner incentive programs. I think he's expressed in his past a dislike of regulation, but most of the land conservation programs are sort of these voluntary incentive-based programs that give landowners an incentive to do it on their own. And so he has been generally supportive of that. I hope so. I mean, he has a secretary, he appointed a Treasury secretary who is into saving money and will cut programs wherever he can. So this might be one. Many events back from our digression. Okay. I'm trying to remain hopeful. We just have a schmooze here. So back to the agricultural program at Turtle Bay. So now it's closed. It happened. It happened. It's in place and it's perpetual. And I guess the landowner who did receive some money or is receiving some money for the bundle of rights that he sold, he still has the land, the control of the land to lease it to an agricultural tenant or tenants, right? That's correct. So now we have agriculture. Right. And that landowner has really actually invested a lot of resources in improving the irrigation to the agricultural lots. They hired a agricultural consultant named Wendy Gady to help all the farmers on the lease lots to improve their agricultural practices and their business plans. I know they're trying to find partners to maybe create kind of a cooperative or a food hub or some sort of facility to help the farmers do the sort of food safety processing and certification processes that are becoming more important. So this sets a whole bunch of other things in motion. Yes. It's not just an agricultural easement. It's a whole industry of agriculture now is created on that land. Well, now that the easement is on the property, it has no speculative value for development, right? That's great. So now the landowner really has an incentive to invest in the long-term agricultural future of that land. Can you hold this up for our camera? Oh, sure. That camera over there. Can we get in tight on that? It's a map of all of the, we can see it. Okay, wait, just one second. There it is. Okay. It's a map of all of the many projects over the years that the Trust Republic Lands has done. You can see they're all over the islands. And so I have a question based on that, you know, a going forward question. We've only talked about two of them here as case studies, but there are many, many, many more and different kinds. Where is it, is it going as fast as you want it to go? Is it going as fast as we want it to go? No, there's always more demand for our services than our capacity. So we're constantly juggling, you know, I think it's 18 to 20 different projects at any given moment, our office. And we only have two project managers that work in projects, and then I do a little bit of project work myself. So it's a, it's a, there's a lot more demand for conservation and securing those special places that make Hawaii, you know, our home than, than there is capacity to do it all. If you, if you wanted to do more, if you wanted to do enough so that you could conclude and people around you could conclude that, yes, this is working, you know, to the, to the maximum effect, what would you need to do that? You know, definitely probably a lot more staff in terms of just project managers with the expertise to do these transactions, but also I think an appreciation by, by public officials of the importance of land conservation to really everybody in Hawaii, residents and visitors, you know, it is what makes Hawaii special. It is why we have such a vibrant visitor industry. So these, you know, vistas, these, these watersheds, these waterfalls, these beaches, these open spaces, these cultural places that make Hawaii what it is, are really important to, to, you know, to my parents, to me, you know, to the next generation. So, and to our collective psychology and spirituality. So my last question for you, Leah, is where is it going in 2017? Can you give us a little praisey and, you know, what you have in store? Well, sure, sure. I think there's a picture of, well, there's, I think there's a picture of a recent closing and then two other pictures of a couple. I want to look at them. So this is a picture of our recent, a very recent blessing celebration of a closing event at Kalio Lee, the fishing village south of Puhu Honua O'Ho now now. It's the first acquisition by the National Park Services Alaka Hakai National Historic Trail. They should do many more. Right. And so many of the descendants of that area came together to bless the land and to, you know, welcome people to the trail, which is open to the public. And so this is, you know, one of our many projects on the big island. So, but in 2017, we have a lot of great projects coming up. So if you go to the next picture, you'll see one of our projects that we hope that will close in 2017, which is the Ka'ivi Coast Malca agricultural lands, the two parcels that total over 180 acres are in brown. And this is, you know, kind of the last undeveloped pieces of that whole Ka'ivi shoreline that has been at the center of controversy for many many decades, East Tonolulu, right near Sandy Beach. So if you're standing kind of on Sandy Beach and kind of looking up, it's kind of Malca past the golf course. Yeah. OK. As just as you turn up toward Hanama Bay. Right. Right. And so we're hoping that shortly we'll be able to close that with some state and county money that we purchase that we that we applied for and purchase the property. That property will be going to the livable Hawaii Ka'i Hui, or which which is the umbrella group for the Ka'ivi Coast Coalition. OK. Yeah. So next next next slide. Next slide. That's that's the view of the land from the shoreline, the Ka'ivi shoreline, Makapu, so Makapu with lighthouses to your right. That was my reference, Makapu, just as you turned to go to Makapu. Yes, yes. So this is really sanctuary land, beautiful land. And it's it's threatened lands. It's it's really a beautiful coastline and really thanks to the the vigilance and hard work of just so many community members from East Honolulu. There was a big gap in funding. And so the community came forward and we actually raised more money than we needed, although now we're kind of using some of that money because we actually had to buy it outright and hold it and finance the purchase until the state and county monies are ready to be released. So we're just hoping that those monies will be released as quickly as possible so we can we can close that. What important work you do? I mean, I'm sure you as an environmental lawyer and I know you were always committed to environmental causes, but you probably have a tremendous amount of gratification doing this work. Oh, yeah, I mean, it's just it's I'm so humbled. And so, you know, please that I'm I'm I've been able to work for the trust of public land. It's just been an honor to work with the communities that we've worked with and just dedicated volunteers and people throughout the state who who just want to, you know, conserve their special places throughout the islands, you know, so open space, public space, public land critical to our collective state of mind. Thank you for protecting us, Leah. Oh, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you for asking me. Thanks for coming on. All right. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Bye bye.