‘Ewa Plains ‘Akoko (Euphorbia skottsbergii var. kalaeloana) … making a last stand.


    It always amazes me when I find a plant that is so easy to propagate and grow in the garden but is critically endangered in the wild. Such is the case with the ‘Ewa Plains ‘akoko. In 1979, Winona Char and N. Balakrishaan reported that there were approximately 4,388 ‘akoko in six locations stretching from the proposed deep-draft harbor and West Beach Resort area (neither had been constructed yet) to the far east end of the Naval Air Station at Barbers Point. They suspected there were additional plants farther east into ‘Ewa and ‘Ewa Beach but these areas were outside their contracted survey area. While efforts were made by the State of Hawai‘i and the US Army Corps of Engineers to preserve the nearly 2,500 ‘akoko growing in the deep-draft harbor area, today, the plant can no longer be seen there. Likewise, the approximately 1,300 ‘akoko seen in 1979 in the West Beach Resort area are no more, all killed by a poorly-researched and managed translocation. According to Char and Balakrishaan, approximately 100 ‘akoko in Campbell Industrial Park were killed by a bulldozer in 1979. Since then, the remaining ‘akoko in the Park have disappeared. In 1998, a survey by Whistler revealed only one ‘akoko in the northwest corner of the Naval Air Station where there had once been 18 in 1979. Finally, in 2004, in consultation with the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the US Navy conducted a cleanup operation of 23 acres in the northeast corner of the Station to remove lead and arsenic from the soil; the site was home to approximately 850 ‘akoko. While the Navy took great care to preserve as many ‘akoko as it could inside the cleanup area and established two new populations of ‘akoko outside the cleanup area, today, two of these three sites are nearly devoid of ‘akoko. The third site, I thought, was the last stronghold. With the help of volunteers, I was able to maintain this population of ‘akoko at about 800 adults. However, time has proved me wrong and in 2011, we lost approximately 80% of this supposedly stable population. Not to end on a sad note, in 2012, we started planting ‘akoko back into the Navy cleanup area, within small depressions that have accumulated new soil. These new plants have done amazing well, even beginning to produce new plants within the depressions and nearby. (This story has become too long to continue telling all here, but as of 2020, the largest existing population of ‘Ewa Plains ‘akoko is now within the Kalaeloa Heritage Park, started in 2013 with the help of many, many volunteers.)