Rules protecting Molokaʻi from invasive beetles expected to be reinstated

By Chloe Jones. Originally published in Star-Advertiser Honolulu, September 29, 2026

Rules regulating the movement of plant materials to prevent the coconut rhinoceros beetle is expected to be reinstated after a Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity employee admittedly misinterpreted precedent and possibly state law.

The Board of Agriculture and Biosecurity adopted on Sept. 23, 2025, the interim rule, which prohibited the transportation of plants, soil, gravel and other CRB host material like mulch to Molokai from any other area in the state to prevent the invasive beetle, known as CRB, from establishing a population on the Friendly Isle. In April, the board did approve an amendment to allow Kalaupapa National Historic Park to import gravel on a case-by-case basis subject to treatment witnessed and approved by DAB.

State law does not allow interim rules to be effective for more than one year, so Molokai residents Kunani and Ipo Nihipali proposed another interim rule on Aug. 5, which ultimately did not get placed on a meeting agenda before the previous rule lapsed. The meeting to discuss the petition was canceled because of an “administrative error,” and the petition was not placed on the Sept. 22 meeting agenda.

At the last minute, the petition was placed on Monday’s agenda for the Advisory Committee on Plants and Animals.

Plant Quarantine Branch Manager Jonathan Ho initially told the Nihipalis in an email that there will be no new interim rule unless they are willing to accept changes to it — something that nearly every testifier at Monday’s Advisory Committee on Plants and Animals meeting disputed. The change Ho offered was to allow gravel to be shipped to Molokai without treatment or evaluation, similar to shipping rocks and sand, with which most testifiers disagreed.

Rep. Mahina Poepoe (D-Molokai-Lanai-Hana) testified that there is no legal reason why an identical rule cannot be adopted as a new rule with a new date, adding that Ho’s interpretation that the rule should be relaxed to allow gravel didn’t make sense.

“Even though the emergency has actually gotten worse, but we should for some reason weaken the rule, is absurd,” Poepoe said. “It’s honestly one of the dumbest things I’ve heard in a long time. I am deeply concerned with the way the petition has been handled.”

The conditions that caused the Nihipalis to bring forward the petition in the first place have only worsened, she added.

”The reason we’re here today, and the reason we were here last year, and the reason why communities across the state are finding themselves here, is because the department is failing to fulfill its biosecurity responsibilities,” Poepoe said. “Communities are bringing these petitions because they are desperate for help to protect their homes and our aina.”

The agency also had not made any progress in providing additional necessary protections for Molokai to fight CRB over the past year, Poepoe said. Several testifiers — Poepoe included — believed if changes were to be made to the interim rule, it should tighten restrictions — not loosen them.

“Our community continues to ask for help and we are still fighting for the basic safeguards.”

Maui County Council member Keani Rawlins- Fernandez noted that Oahu had two identical interim rules passed in 2023 and 2024 to address CRB spread, which was in conflict with Ho’s interpretation of the law. The state statute does not prohibit a repeat of content, she argued.

“If the Legislature wanted to prohibit this, they could have explicitly included that language,” she said.

Kaulu Lu‘uwai, an attorney with the Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law, recommended the board check Ho’s interpretation of the law with the Attorney General’s and Governor’s offices, adding that she also believed Ho’s interpretation to be “absurd.”

Loosening rules also may violate the precautionary principle that requires the state to take precautionary measures to protect human and environmental health from potential threats, like CRB.

At the end of the meeting, Ho explained he “believed something that probably the record contradicts.”

While he said he was still unsure of whether state law prohibited identical rules, he acknowledged that the Oahu identical interim rules “happened” and “the facts are the facts.”

“The initial set of information obviously seemed to say otherwise, but again I’m doing it wrong and that’s my fault.”

He added that he doesn’t disagree with rules only being allowed to extend for a year, because if they could, then the agency could use the emergency interim rule process year after year to bypass the traditional rulemaking process. He added that the agency has “consistently tried to work in good faith to get this done and to make sure that Molokai doesn’t get CRB.”

“Whatever people believe, it’s up to them,” he said. “I can only do what I can do and try to get this done.”

Several Molokai residents and Hawaiian cultural practitioners emphasized the need to protect their island from the CRB’s devastation. The beetle was detected for the first time in April, with three confirmed detections within around a week. No new detections have been reported since.

Malia Akutagawa, who was born and raised on Molokai, testified that she was raised drinking coconut water, eating coconut meat, feeding coconut to her family’s pigs and grew up “admiring and playing as a child in our treasure Kapuaiwa Coconut Grove, which was dedicated to our King Kamehameha V.”

“For myself, as a Kanaka, niu (coconut) is important to our lives and our cultural livelihood,” she said. “We shouldn’t be taking any risk, especially since we are the last remaining main Hawaiian island with healthy coconut trees.”

Protecting Molokai’s coconut trees is even more important because its trees will be able to seed and replenish the neighbor islands that have lost scores of trees, Akutagawa said. The trees also help mitigate climate change impacts like sea-level rise, and provide food and water security, she added.

The committee ultimately voted to recommend the rule be passed essentially identical to the previous rule — not allowing for gravel — with Board of Agriculture and Biosecurity Chair Sharon Hurd expected to sign it and put it into effect this week.