HILO — Government and nonprofit groups are pitching in to keep the vision of botanist Amy Beatrice Holdsworth Greenwell alive.
The Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden in Kealakekua was closed and put up for sale by Bishop Museum in late January. Since then, Friends of Amy Greenwell Garden has been working on incorporating as a 501(c)3 organization to act as stewards of the 15-acre collection of Hawaiian plants — some of them rare and endangered.
The county Public Access, Open Space and Natural Resources Preservation Commission, known as “PONC,” got into the act Monday, unanimously voting to send a letter asking Mayor Billy Kenoi to have the county purchase a conservation easement on the property to prevent it from being developed.
Kenoi said Monday he supports the idea.
“I visited Amy Greenwell gardens at the request of Councilwoman Maile David and went with our land management team and Corporation Counsel along with Amy Greenwell Gardens staff,” Kenoi said. “Protecting the gardens and its many treasures and native and rare plants for future generations is a worthwhile goal and something this administration will support wholeheartedly.”
The requests for county protection came from Janet Britt, acquisitions specialist and Hawaii Island director of the statewide Hawaiian Island Land Trust, with a letter of support also coming from David.
Britt, accompanied by Interim Executive Director Scott Fisher, said the land trust has not completed its process of vetting the land and getting approval from the board of directors. The trust sometimes buys land in fee simple, but more often, it facilitates conservation by working with other groups, they said.
“I don’t think I need to tell you how important Amy Greenwell is to our community,” Britt said. “It’s just an iconic place.”
The property is divided into five parcels, some of which have deed restrictions requiring them to be owned only by a nonprofit. Otherwise, the county could just purchase the land in fee simple. The parcels together, some 13.6 acres, are appraised at $1.9 million, with the land valued at about $400,000, Fisher said.
In addition to purchasing a conservation easement, the county would be able to provide stewardship grants to nonprofits maintaining the property.
The PONC program was created in 2006, after a charter amendment passed directing a minimum of 2 percent of property tax revenue be set aside in the account to purchase public lands. A subsequent charter amendment put another 0.25 percent of property taxes into a maintenance account to care for the properties purchased with the funds.
The participation of the county and nonprofits was good news to Rhonda Kavanagh, CEO of Kealakekua Ranch, a Greenwell family enterprise that donated land and other resources to Bishop Museum.
“We’re very excited to see the passion that the community has for the garden,” Kavanagh said. “We are very interested in seeing the land preserved and continuing its mission and vision that Aunt Amy had envisioned for it.”
It’s not known if Bishop Museum, whose CEO Blair Collis recently resigned amid questions he took an improper loan, would be interested in selling a conservation easement — which will devalue the property — prior to selling the property itself. A representative did not return a telephone call by press time Monday.
Supporters are hoping for more than simple enthusiasm from the community, however. It’s hoped, said Fisher, that “philosophical support would translate into monetary support.”
The commission annually prioritizes a list based on public input and other factors. It presents the list to the mayor, and then the County Council works off that list.
PONC commissioners decided not to tear into the commission’s 2015 list to add the project, instead opting for the letter to the mayor and inclusion on the 2016 list.
“The easement is very important for what you want to accomplish with this property,” said Commissioner Kaiena Bishaw II, “and we can show support for this property by sending a communication to the mayor.”
Greenwell was one of 23 grandchildren of Henry Nicholas Greenwell, a soldier who became a merchant before coming to Hawaii in the 1850s. After college on the mainland, she returned to Hawaii in 1947 and began working with Bishop Museum, according to the museum. It was later in life that she resided at the property, which she transformed to feature pre-contact flora.
When she died at age 53 in 1974, she left the property to Bishop Museum as an educational and cultural resource.
The goal was to create an experience in which visitors and locals alike could revisit the Hawaiian past and explore the environmental splendors of ancient Hawaii, according to the museum. The gardens, which had a $5 admission fee, had about 14,000 visitors annually before it closed its doors.