Correction
November 23, 2008 | 03:11 AM

Kaho'olawe had been reduced to hardpan clay by the Hawaiians long before the Navy ever had it in its sights. The land was cleared by Hawaiiand using the wood for their needs and the soil began to erode with no roots to hold it in place. By the mid 1700s sailors noted the land was uninhabited and barren. The damage was already done and by 1830, it was Kamehameha III who had turned it into a male penal colony where prisoners starved, dehydrated, or died trying to swim the channel being swept out to sea. Kaho'olawe has always had a lack of freshwater due to its geographical position directly inside Maui's rain shadow and its diminutive size as a watershed. The natural pattern of rainfall is one of heavy rains for a short period folloed by a long period of drought from spring through the fall months. By the 1900s the HI Govt turned it into a forest preserve to restore it.

Anyhow, the point I make is that it is unfair to blame of the state of Kaho'olawe on the NAVY or the White man when it had been ecologically destroyed HUNDREDS of years before they ever started sailing near it by our favorite native people's ancestors.

Adding a little accuracy as to exactly WHO did WHAT may be of an enlightening nature.

Kukui