Hawaii County Mayor Kimo Alameda announced Thursday that after more than two decades of advocacy, the 364-acre coastal Puna property known as Honolulu Landing had been acquired by the county for preservation.

The $3.7 million deal was made possible by the County Council’s unanimous approval of Resolution 286-25 on Sept. 17 last year. It authorized the Department of Finance to negotiate the property’s purchase using funds from the Public Access, Open Space and Natural Resources Preservation Commission, also known as PONC — a county advisory body tasked with identifying lands for purchase based on their cultural, recreational and ecological value.

Money for PONC acquisitions comes from a fund comprised of 2% of annual property tax revenue.

Honolulu Landing is situated between Nanawale Forest Reserve and Waiakahiula, comprised of 4,000 feet of rocky, undeveloped shoreline and a broad swath of deep jungle, making up a traditional Hawaiian land division known as an ahupua‘a. It is scattered with village complexes, burial sites, temples known as heiau, house platforms and traditional farming terraces — an archaeological record of Puna district’s past and the result of centuries of human habitation.

Although vacant in modern times, the property — known as a “wahi pana” or sacred place by many — is home to endangered species like the io (Hawaiian hawk), opeapea (Hawaiian hoary bat) and pueo (Hawaiian owl), as well as native trees like hau, kukui and hala.

Alameda’s announcement was celebrated by cultural practitioners, scientists and conservation groups, and especially by some lineal descendants of the area. Among this latter group was Lehua Kaulukukui, who said her great-grandmother was born on the property in 1876. The land, she said in past testimony supporting the resolution, is a part of her genealogy, reminding her that humans are “not separate from the universe.”

“We are genealogically connected to it — we all descend from that same cosmic origin,” Kaulukukui told a County Council committee last year during discussions about the purchase. “Honolulu Landing is part of that genealogy. Its walls, heiau, house sites and burials are not relics. They are living testaments to our place in the universal order. To disturb them is to break the chain between past and future, between earth and sky, between people and the cosmos.”

In a prepared statement shared with the Tribune-Herald, she thanked various county officials for their “leadership and commitment” in advancing the resolution past the finish line.

”This pivotal moment represents more than policy,” she wrote. “It is an affirmation of the enduring relationship between our people and this beloved wahi pana. Honolulu Landing holds the legacy of our Tutu, Mary Kaui Moke Kuamo‘o Keli‘ipio, and generations of ohana before her who lived in deep alignment with this aina. We recognize this action as a meaningful step toward the protection and preservation of Honolulu Landing, ensuring that its cultural, historical, and spiritual significance remains intact for future generations.”

The land got its name in the early 20th century when it served as a hub for interisland commerce. From the early 1900s up until the 1940s, cattle were driven across the lava field shoreline and made to swim out to waiting steamships, which would hoist the animals onboard before beginning their journey back to Oahu. Before that, a black sand beach resulting from the 1840 Nanawale eruption and lava flow created an ideal spot for launching canoes along an otherwise rocky, treacherous coast. Honolulu means “sheltered harbor” or “calm port” in the Hawaiian language.

Local activists also celebrated the good news, like former County Council member Eileen O’Hara, who currently serves as the executive director of Pahoa-based environmental nonprofit Malama O Puna. O’Hara lives in the Hawaiian Shores subdivision right up the coast from the now-preserved land, and has been petitioning the county for its protection since it landed on the inaugural PONC list back in 2006.

“I’m just really, really happy,” she said. “I’m happy for future generations. I feel like I can point to this and say I did something meaningful — really meaningful — for my community. To me, it’s just thrilling to succeed in this long-term endeavor.”

The property was previously slated for development by Nani Kahuka Aina LLC, which had owned it since 2006, but these plans didn’t move forward. Then it was listed for sale in the summer of 2025. This could have resulted in the property being used for the construction of a new coastal subdivision along Old Government Beach Road, posing a threat to its archaeological sites and botanical wealth.

“It’s very important — we don’t want to see more development down here,” O’Hara said. “Just imagine 200 one-acre lots being developed on that property, and the additional traffic that would cause. It would not be something that would be a benefit to anybody.”

The land’s potential for archaeological study, she said, is a critical reason why it should be left as open space.

“That is why it’s so important to preserve it, because it’s very much still an intact village up there,” she said. “I mean, it’s grown over and there’s a lot of new vegetation, but you can uncover a lot as you get further away from the road. It’s pretty exciting to think of what we might find.”

She said the lessons that the property’s “living record of the past” could teach contemporary Hawaii Island residents about self-sufficiency and “malama aina” are most important.

“This takes us back and allows us to look at how the host culture dealt with these lands,” she said. “They lived here for centuries, and they had a population that may have exceeded what we currently have on the Big Island by some estimates. And they were self-sufficient and lived off the land, and we’ve rolled backwards.”

Email Stefan Verbano at stefan.verbano@hawaiitribune-herald.com.

WASHINGTON — When Kash Patel visited Hawaii last summer, the FBI took pains to note the director was not on vacation, highlighting his walking tour of the bureau’s Honolulu field office and meetings with local law enforcement.

Left out of the FBI’s news releases was an exclusive excursion that Patel took days later when he participated in what government officials described as a “VIP snorkel” around the USS Arizona in an outing coordinated by the military. The sunken battleship entombs more than 900 sailors and Marines at Pearl Harbor.

The swim, revealed in government emails obtained by The Associated Press, comes to light amid criticism of Patel’s use of the FBI plane and his global travel, which have blurred professional responsibilities with leisure activities. The FBI did not disclose the snorkeling session or that Patel had returned to Hawaii for two days after his initial stopover on the island.

“It fits a pattern of Director Patel getting tangled up in unseemly distractions — this time at a site commemorating the second deadliest attack in U.S. history — instead of staying laser-focused on keeping Americans safe,” said Stacey Young, who founded Justice Connection, a network of former federal prosecutors and agents who advocate for the Department of Justice’s independence.

With few exceptions, snorkeling and diving are off-limits around the USS Arizona. The battleship, now a military cemetery reachable only by boat, has stood as one of the nation’s most hallowed sites since Japan bombed and sank it in 1941. Marine archaeologists and crews from the National Park Service make occasional dives at the memorial to survey the condition of the wreck. Other dives have been conducted to inter the remains of Arizona survivors who wanted to rest eternally with their former shipmates.

Still, since at least the Obama administration, the Navy and the park service have quietly allowed a handful of dignitaries, including military and government officials responsible for management of the memorial, to swim at the site. The Navy and park service declined to provide details of those permitted to take such excursions.

Former FBI directors have visited Pearl Harbor on official business, but none going back to at least 1993 has gone snorkeling at the memorial, according to those familiar with their activities and a former government diver who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. The diver said it was unusual for a director or anyone not connected to the memorial to be granted such access because the swims come with physical risks and present security, safety and logistical challenges.

Patel has faced scrutiny over his leadership for the past year, with his use of government resources emerging as a recurring storyline of his tenure. The issue flared in February when video surfaced of Patel partying in the locker room with members of the U.S. men’s hockey team after their gold medal win at the Winter Olympics in Milan. Patel defended the trip as recently as this week as “purposely planned” in connection with a cybercrime investigation involving the Italian authorities.

Unanswered questions about exclusive outing

Patel’s excursion was in August as he spent two days in Hawaii on his return to the United States from official visits to Australia and New Zealand. On his way to those countries, he stopped in Hawaii to visit the Honolulu field office. An FBI spokesman did not answer questions about the snorkeling session.

The FBI said in a statement that top regional commanders hosted Patel at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam “as they commonly do with US government officials on official travel.” The Pearl Harbor visit, the spokesman said, “was part of the Director’s public national security engagements last August with counterparts in New Zealand, Australia, our Honolulu Field Office, and the Department of War.”

It was not clear how Patel’s snorkeling session was arranged. A Navy spokesperson, Capt. Jodie Cornell, confirmed the outing but said the service was not able to track down who initiated it.

Participants in Patel’s swim were told “not to touch/come into contact with” the sunken ship in any way, Cornell said. She added that the snorkelers were also briefed about “the historic significance of the Memorial as the final resting place/tomb for hundreds of service members.”

A ‘VIP Snorkel’

Government emails obtained by the AP through a public records request show military officials coordinated logistics and personnel for the “VIP Snorkel.”

The National Park Service, which administers the site in coordination with the Navy, told AP it was not involved in Patel’s swim and declined to comment on the excursion. It also declined to answer questions about any other such outings.

Among those afforded invitations to snorkel have been Navy admirals, secretaries of defense and interior, according to the former government diver. The diver added that the swims were intended to provide officials with insights into the memorial and its operations.

The Navy declined to provide examples or numbers showing how frequently it organizes such excursions. It described Patel’s outing as “not an anomaly.”

Hack Albertson, a Marine veteran, is part of a select group from the Paralyzed Veterans of America trained to dive on the Arizona annually to check on the condition of the wreck. He said it was inappropriate for Patel and other political figures to snorkel or dive at the memorial.

“It’s like having a bachelor party at a church. It’s hallowed ground,” he said. ”It needs to be treated with the solemnity it deserves.”

Some family members don’t object to snorkeling

Some family members of Pearl Harbor survivors said they were not bothered by such official excursions, though some expressed a desire to also be permitted to snorkel at the site. They said they have not been permitted to do so.

“I have not heard of anyone who would object to these visits as they are very rare and there aren’t any survivors of the Arizona left alive,” Deidre Kelley, national president of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors, wrote in an email. “Their children might have some objections but I haven’t heard any.”

Patel visited Pearl Harbor several years ago during a trip he made to Hawaii while serving as chief of staff to Christopher Miller, then the acting secretary of defense, according to the former government diver.

Miller said he snorkeled over the Arizona during an official visit to the base, but Patel was not present for that excursion. Miller said he was invited to snorkel by regional military officials and was told such a tour was for “special occasions and for special visitors, of which you’re one.” He called it a “meaningful” experience.

“It was a very somber and meaningful event,” Miller said in an interview. “It was a historical tour. It wasn’t a recreational thing.”

FBI will not discuss Patel’s return to Hawaii

Beyond the snorkeling excursion, it is not clear what else Patel did during his second stop in Hawaii.

Flight tracking data for the Gulfstream G550 typically used by the FBI director show the jet remained on the island two nights during that stay before flying on to Las Vegas, Patel’s adopted hometown. The jet has a published range of about 7,700 miles, meaning the plane would have needed to refuel somewhere between New Zealand and Washington.

The snorkeling session happened one day after Patel stopped in Wellington to open the FBI’s first standalone office in New Zealand. The visit sparked controversy after the AP revealed that Patel had gifted that country’s police and spy bosses inoperable 3D-printed replica pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws.

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Mustian reported from New York. Associated Press writers Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.

A tourist who drew widespread condemnation in Hawaii after a witness recorded him chucking a coconut-sized rock at “Lani,” a beloved, endangered Hawaiian monk seal off a Maui beach, was arrested Wednesday by federal agents.

Igor Mykhaylovych Lytvynchuk, 38, of Covington, Washington, is charged with harassing a protected animal, the U.S. attorney’s office in Honolulu said, adding that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration special agents arrested him near Seattle. He was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Thursday.

The court docket didn’t list an attorney, and a person who answered the phone at a number associated with Lytvynchuk declined to comment.

A state Department of Land and Natural Resources officer last week investigated a report of Hawaiian monk seal harassment in Lahaina, the community that was largely destroyed by a deadly wildfire in 2023. A witness showed the officer video of the seal swimming in shallow water while a man watched from shore.

“In the cellphone video, the man can be seen holding a large rock with one hand, aiming, and throwing it directly at the monk seal,” prosecutors said in a criminal complaint. The rock narrowly missed the seal’s head, but caused the “animal to abruptly alter its behavior,” the complaint said.

When a witness confronted the man, he said “he did not care and was ‘rich’ enough to pay any fines,” the complaint said.

Maui resident Kaylee Schnitzer, 18, told HawaiiNewsNow she witnessed the incident while taking photos nearby.

“What he was picking up was like a rock the size of a coconut,” Schnitzer said. “It wasn’t no small rock. It was the size of a coconut. And he threw it right, directly aiming towards the monk seal’s head.”

Maui Mayor Richard Bissen said the charges send a clear message that cruelty toward protected wildlife won’t be tolerated. Lani’s return after the wildfires brought a sense of healing and hope during a difficult time, he said.

“Lani is a reminder that humanity and the instinct to protect what is vulnerable are still values people can unite around,” Bissen said in an emailed statement.

The mayor said he called the U.S. attorney in Honolulu to advocate for prosecution.

Lytvynchuk is charged with harassing and attempting to harass an endangered Hawaiian monk seal.

Hawaiian monk seals are a critically endangered species. Only 1,600 remain in the wild.

“The unique and precious wildlife of the Hawaiian Islands are renowned symbols of Hawaii’s special place in the world and its incredible biodiversity,” U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson said in a statement. “We are committed to protecting our vulnerable wild species, in particular, endangered Hawaiian monk seals.”

If convicted, Lytvynchuk, faces up to one year in prison for each charge. He also faces a fine of up to $50,000 under the Endangered Species Act and a fine of up to $20,000 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

In 2016, a man was seen on video appearing to beat a pregnant Hawaiian monk seal in shallow water.