404 

 MAUI FOREST LAND SURRENDER. 



November 12, 1906, is entitled to be regarded as an impor- 

 tant date in the forest history of Hawaii, for on that day were 

 signed the final papers in a cooperative agreement whereby an 

 area of privately owned forest land within an Hawaiian forest 

 reserve was for the first time turned over to the Board of 

 Agriculture and Forestry for management. 



The lands of which the care, custody and control are relin- 

 quished are in the Koolau Forest Reserve on Maui and are 

 owned by the plantations controlled by Alexander & Baldwin. 

 The surrender is made under the authority of Section 384, 

 Chapter 28, of the Revised Laws of Hawaii, which provides 

 that "any person or persons, corporation or corporations, may 

 at any time surrender to the government the care, custody and 

 control of any lands, wdiether held under lease or in fee, as a 

 forest reservation, either for one or more years or forever. Xo 

 taxes shall be levied or collected upon any private land so sur- 

 rendered for the purposes aforesaid, so long as the same shall 

 remain exclusively under the control of the government as a 

 forest reservation." 



The lands now turned over to the Board have for a number 

 of 3'ears been treated as a private forest reserve, but when the 

 Koolau Forest Reserve was created by proclamation of Acting 

 Governor Atkinson on August 24, 1905, Mr. H. P. Baldwin 

 agreed to cooperate with the government so that an organic 

 plan of forest management might be put into operation for the 

 reserve as a whole. Accordingly the matter was turned over 

 to his attorneys, Messrs. Smith and Lewis, with the result that 

 there have been prepared and finally executed three transfers, 

 respectively from the Paia Plantation, the Haiku Sugar Com- 

 pany and the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company. As 

 the three documents are identical in all essential points, ex- 

 cept for the difference in names, only one is reproduced here, 

 that of the Paia Plantation. 



While foimidable in legal phraseology, the purpose of these 

 documents is simple. The gist of the matter is that the planta- 

 tions turn over to the government for the term of seventeen 

 years from February 26, 1906, the care, custody and control 

 of the privately owned lands of Halehaku, Haiku, Opana and 



