Before last August’s fire decimated Lahaina, the historic West Maui town boasted a tree population of about 25,000.

Today, only about 1,000 survive, including the world-famous Indian banyan tree, a behemoth popular among tourists and locals planted on Front Street in 1873, according to the chair of Maui County’s Arborist Committee.

Efforts are underway to care for the historic banyan and other surviving trees — and grow thousands of seedlings for displaced residents. The idea is that when fire survivors are ready to rebuild on their burned properties, mature trees, most of them fruit-bearing, will be available for planting free of charge.

There’s also a push by community members and Maui County Council member Gabe Johnson to get a second arborist on the county payroll because the amount of tree-related work is expected to skyrocket as Lahaina gets rebuilt.

Duane Sparkman, who heads the Arborist Committee, said he and other members started fielding calls soon after the Aug. 8 fire from people asking the same question: What are you going to do about the trees?

With the amount of interest he was getting, Sparkman, who oversees engineering and landscaping at Royal Lahaina Resort and Bungalows, knew he had to hatch a reforestation plan quickly.

Sparkman and Matthew Murasko, an entrepreneur and product designer, started a nonprofit called Treecovery Hawaii in November. Its mission is to keep surviving trees alive and to grow new ones for Lahaina and Kula, which had 2,179 and 202 acres burn, respectively.

With private donations, philanthropic support and corporate sponsors, Treecovery Hawaii has established several grow hubs on Maui where thousands of seedlings are now planted, including a limb from the banyan that grew new roots. It’s being cared for at Marriott’s Maui Ocean Club in Kaanapali.

Eventually, Treecovery Hawaii would like to acquire land in Central Maui for a large tree nursery.

“That way we’ll have large trees so that when people go back, they’ll have trees that provide fruit and shade,” Sparkman said.

He estimates it’ll cost around $6 million to plant fruit trees around homes that get rebuilt in Lahaina and Kula.

Sparkman said there’s money available from the Arbor Day Foundation, Kaulunani Urban and Community Forestry Program and other sources. Some funding has already come in but he is encouraging officials and the public to start applying for grants.

Other groups of volunteer arborists, including the Lahaina Treescape Restoration Project and ReGreen Lahaina, have also sprung up. They’re joined by local companies and organizations helping to water the surviving trees and apply compost tea to some of the most historic and exceptional specimens, like the enormous banyan that took up most of Lahaina Banyan Court Park and the ulu, or breadfruit, tree outside Baldwin House Museum.  

Abraham Jauregui, co-owner of Brothers Landscaping, is among those who have been regularly watering the banyan tree and others, giving them compost tea and applying Safari, an insecticide treatment to deter worms.

“It’s like medicine to keep away the bugs,” Jauregui said.

The amount of work involved in reforesting Lahaina and Kula, where an estimated 150,000 trees burned, is expected to keep the lone county-funded arborist more than busy.

Johnson, who chairs the council’s Agriculture, Diversification, Environment and Public Transportation Committee, was pushing the county to hire a second arborist even before the fires.

He wrote to Mayor Richard Bissen last year urging him to include funding in the budget for the position. Johnson said he never got a response and Bissen’s fiscal year 2025 budget does not include money for another arborist.

Johnson has drafted a budget amendment that he hopes will pass so that county arborist Timothy Griffith can get help. In a letter to Johnson, Planning Director Kate Blystone said she supports the idea and would like any newly hired arborist to be housed within her department.

When it comes time to rebuild Lahaina, the county will need at least one additional staff member with specialized tree and landscape knowledge and an appreciation of Lahaina’s unique history as the former seat of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Johnson said.

“When we look at the rebuild of the city of Lahaina, the town, we want it to make sense given the cultural importance. The ulu tree was the tree of Lahaina. That should weigh heavily when we talk about rebuilding our community,” Johnson said.

Kihei architect Randy Wagner with Maui Green and Beautiful said the county has an authoritative planting guide that was created by Ernest Rezents, a Maui College agriculture professor emeritus and certified arborist who is now deceased.

The 243-page plan contains detailed guidance on the types of trees that should get planted on Maui, along with the location, spacing and care they need.

Wagner said she’d like to see implementation of the plan become mandatory, not just recommended.

“It’s a wealth of great information,” Wagner said.

With water pumps and pipes destroyed in the fire’s aftermath, groundwater is bubbling to the surface in many parts of Lahaina. Grass is growing and baby ulu trees are springing up in places. With regrowth happening naturally, it’s time to plan for Lahaina’s future greenscape, she said.

Should the town, once called the Venice of the Pacific, look like it did pre-contact when only native trees dominated the landscape? Should imported varieties be planted that produce beautiful flowers, or others with expansive canopies that create copious amounts of shade? These are just some of the many questions that West Maui residents will need to decide.

But Maui is fortunate because it has a go-to resource for thoughtful and informed decision-making — the tree planting guide the late Maui College agriculture professor produced, Wagner said.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.

Civil Beat’s coverage of environmental issues on Maui is supported by grants from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy and the Hawaii Wildfires Recovery Fund, the Knight Foundation and the Doris Duke Foundation.