Reprinted from PATH’s email to their members:
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Remember Haleakala Ranch’s land exchange idea? Thanks to you and thousands of others, we prevailed over that bad idea. Unfortunately, we have a new problem. Large landowners, like Haleakala Ranch Company, are now wielding their substantial money and power to change the law!
Within the last two weeks, a number of Hawaii senators introduced a bill that purports to “clarify that the legislature has the authority to determine a public trail.” This innocuous title is entirely misleading. The bill, if passed, would almost certainly mean the end to any ancient trail ever being made public ever again. In short, the bill is free ride for large landowners–many who purchased properties in the 1800s knowing that they were encumbered by public trails. If this bill were to pass, every large landowner can almost be assured that the trails have become their private domain forever.
One of the last bills signed into law by Queen Liliuokalani before the overthrow of the Hawaiian Government was the Highways Act of 1892. It remains on the books today in the form of Hawai‘i Revised Statutes 264-1(b). Through the Highways Act, the legislature of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i declared that any trail or other thoroughfare open, laid out or built by the government, or surrendered or abandoned by a land owner, was a public trail and owned by the government in fee simple. The ownership stays with the government forever, or until a resolution expressly giving up the trail is passed by the legislature.
The proposed amendment that was almost certainly prompted by Haleakala Ranch Company (and likely supported by many large landowners in Hawaii) adds just five words to the Highways Act of 1892: . . . “as determined by the legislature.” Those five seemingly innocuous words would effectively eviscerate the Highways Act and potentially wipe out the public’s interest in the hundreds of miles of ancient trails throughout Hawai‘i Nei that remain visible on the ground today, or that are shown on early maps. What is more, the bill is intended to be retroactive to January 1, 2011. It just so happens that this retroactive date would precede the date Public Access Trails Hawaii filed its complaint against Haleakala Ranch Company–January 11, 2011.