ILIMA LOOMIS
Locks and chains cost Sumner Erdman about $1,800 last year.
The Ulupalakua Ranch president said that each time one was cut by a trespasser, it had to be replaced.
He doesn’t know how many people trespass on the ranch’s 23,000 acres but said it happens 365 days a year.
“You see footprints, bike tracks, you find gates left open and fences cut,” he lamented.
Many kamaaina hikers recall days when gates didn’t have to be locked and it was common courtesy to close them behind you when hiking through.
Today locked gates and “kapu” signs are a way of life, and landowners prosecute.
“If you go back far enough, it was openly accepted,” said Wes Nohara, Plantation Manager for Maui Pineapple. “Other than a stray tourist, it was all local folks from the town who wanted to spend the day in the mountains picking mountain apples.”
But as Maui has grown, trespassing has turned into a serious problem, and Nohara agreed that large landowners can no longer afford to keep their open spaces public.
He spent around $20,000 just cleaning up illegally dumped trash at Maui Pine’s Honolua plantation last year.
People dump cars, dead animals, mattresses, washing machines, drums of oil and chemicals, batteries, even whole buses on ranch and plantation lands around Maui. Regardless of who dumped it, the landowner is responsible for cleaning it up and is liable for any environmental damage it causes.
But what’s the harm in sneaking under a fence for a picnic or lifting a mountain bike over a gate_
“There’s no harm in one person, but we’re dealing with them in the hundreds,” said Erdman.
Herds get mixed up when a gate is left open allowing cattle to wander out of their pastures, and it can take all five ranch cowboys a full day of work to sort them out and put them back.
“When you add up labor, materials and time, (trespassing) might cost us $10,000 a year to deal with, and that’s a conservative estimate,” he said.
Emergencies add to the expense; when hikers get lost or hurt in the deep forests on private land, company employees are often called upon to assist with rescues.
It’s a problem for all businesses whose lands encompass forests, streams and mountain areas, but none more so than East Maui Irrigation, whose scenic trails and remote waterfalls are pinpointed by guidebooks.
Eco-tourism guidebooks “are a big part of the problem,” said Garret Hew, manager of EMI.
A growing number of tourists is venturing past “No Trespassing” signs onto EMI lands, he said, and many of them are inexperienced hikers.
Hew said employees have helped with many rescues, many of them at night.
“Even the Fire Department doesn’t know the area like we do,” he said.
Trespassers often damage private property, but they can also harm the environment, according to landowners
A good example is dirt bikers who like to ride in pineapple fields, said Maui Pineapple Haliimaile plantation manager Doug MacCluer.
Motorcycles carve ruts and intensify erosion in dirt roads used by harvesters. They tear up the plastic sheeting used to protect the growing pineapples. Neighbors complain about the dust and noise, and Maui Pineapple has to take responsibility, MacCluer said.
But they also destroy endangered plant species when they use the fields to gain access to gulches that border the fields.
“They don’t always stay on the roads; they go into native plant areas,” MacCluer said.
Hikers can cause the same problem by tracking in weeds, said Avery Chumbley, president of Wailuku Agribusiness and state senator for the East Maui-North Kauai district.
“That’s a consequence of trespassing I hope the community wakes up to,” he said.
On the ridge above the Iao Valley State Park, the “tableland” area — a plateau accessible only by trail across Wailuku Agribusiness land — is a good example of the problem.
“It used to be pristine,” Chumbley said. “Now when you go back there you see a lot of lantana and invasive weeds, all things people have tracked in. It’s gone from native to nonnative.”
But while landowners point to concrete harms caused by trespassing, they’ll readily admit that their biggest fear is for the trespasser’s safety — and the possibility of a big lawsuit if someone got hurt.
Erdman worries that a stray bullet from a poacher could someday hit cattle, an employee or even another trespasser.
And because he has no idea where trespassers might be, he sometimes wonders if he’s driving a herd of cattle down on people who are quietly having a picnic or hiking alongside the ranch roads.
The land looks pastoral and safe, but with hundreds of cattle being moved on a regular basis, it’s not, he said.
And lawsuits do happen.
Far and away, most landowners said liability was their biggest concern.
“It’s at the top of the list in capital letters,” said Peter Baldwin, president and chief executive officer of Haleakala Ranch.
Chumbley said that the yearly cost of trespassing to his company would be dwarfed by a big lawsuit.
“It’s in the tens of thousands a year out-of-pocket, but if there’s a lawsuit it could be millions,” he said.
And according to the legal system, he added, a landowner is actually more liable if a trespasser gets hurt than if an accident happens to someone who has permission to be there.
“The landowner has more responsibility to the trespasser,” he said. “It’s insane and backward.”
But an attorney who successfully argued several personal injury cases against landowners believes fear of lawsuits shouldn’t be an excuse to close lands to the public.
“I’ve never understood that argument,” said Wailuku attorney James Krueger.
Private lands are required by law to be kept in a safe condition, no matter who uses them, he explained.
“The fact that someone is trespassing doesn’t make any difference, because the law says a landowner owes a duty of care to all land users.”
Krueger also pointed out that landowners have the opportunity to open their lands to the public and be protected from lawsuits, under an existing law.
According to Hawaii Revised Statute 520, landowners who allow free public use of their lands receive immunity from liability, although they could be sued if they failed to warn or protect the public against a major safety risk on the property.
Krueger’s own track record, however, is probably more than enough to convince landowners they’re still vulnerable.
About five years ago he argued and won a suit against Maui Land & Pineapple by a paramedic who hurt his back while rescuing a woman injured at Mokuleia Bay — land that was considered open and immune from liability under HRS 520.
Population growth, the popularity of new outdoor sports and an increasingly litigious society have all contributed to more lawsuits in recent years, and even though not all of them are successful, they still have landowners nervous.
“You have that exposure,” said Baldwin, “and for a business
owner, that’s not a good thing.”