Marine Natural Area Reserves in Hawaii

The Ahihi-Kinau Natural Area Reserve, located south of Makena on the island of Maui, is a unique and vulnerable place that needs care to survive and thrive. One of the first reserves created in Hawaii, it is the only one that includes ocean waters. The reserve’s young volcanic landscape is probably the most recent lava flow on Maui and protects an array of creatures found nowhere else on earth, from rare native spiders and birds to flowering plants and corals. Although the area is hot and dry, the Ahihi-Kinau Reserve shelters fragile anchialine pools that are home to tiny, rare Hawaiian shrimp and a variety of native plants and animals that are found only in new lava flows, coastal dry shrublands, or boulder beach communities. There are many invaluable archaeological sites in the area dating back thousands of years. Archeologists estimate that this area was inhabited by native Hawaiians for at least 600 years. It is illegal to remove, injure, or kill any living things as well as damage, disturb, or remove any geological, natural, or cultural site in a NAR. To learn more about the NAR rules, visit: http://files.hawaii.gov/dlnr/dofaw/rules/Chap208.pdf.