HILO — In Hawaii’s ongoing fight against little fire ants, teamwork is key.
This weekend, the Big Island Invasive Species Committee kicked off a training program that will help entire neighborhoods learn how to apply pesticide to their properties. And this summer, Hawaii County is expected to launch a voucher program that will amplify the efforts of organizations like BIISC and the Hilo-based Hawaii Ant Lab.
The County Council is set to appropriate funding for the program next week. The $96,589 in grant money comes from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Forestry and Wildlife.
Once implemented, the voucher program will be administered in part by the Hawaii County Economic Opportunity Council.
“We’re still hashing out a lot of the details,” said Glenn Sako, agriculture specialist for Hawaii County Research and Development. He said he did not expect the program to be established for another three months.
The voucher program, which will help residents obtain pesticide, will dovetail with the training work being done by BIISC and the Hawaii Ant Lab.
Only people who have attended training through either of the two organizations will be eligible for a county voucher, said BIISC communications director Franny Kinslow Brewer.
“There’s a lot of regulations, and there’s a limited amount of funding, and you don’t want to just be like, ‘Hey, free pesticides,’” Brewer said. “It’s not a good way to run any kind of program.”
The BIISC program that starts this week focuses on teaching the most effective ways to use pesticide so that ants do not return over time.
Its main goal, however, is to encourage neighborhoods to work together to fight little fire ants.
“It’s a much more effective treatment if you come together and treat large areas,” Brewer said. “Our goal is to help kick off a neighborhood plan that should take about a year (to complete).”
For more information about neighborhood training sessions, contact the Big Island Invasive Species Committee at biisc@hawaii.edu.
Hawaii Ant Lab training sessions are held monthly. For more information or to book a training session, visit littlefireants.com.