As detections of the highly destructive coconut rhinoceros beetle in West Hawaii continue to climb, two bills making their way through the state Legislature aim to slow the bugs’ spread in markedly different ways.
Senate Bill 2925 establishes a tax income credit for property owners growing coconut palms for food who choose to control CRB through “natural management practices” — language which has drawn opposition from some Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity (DAB) officials because it omits the use of certain pesticides.
The tax credit is meant to offset some of the costs of eradication and management efforts, and beneficiaries would have to certify that no “systemic or prohibited” pesticides have been used. The legislation appropriates funds for two full-time environmental health specialist positions tasked with conducting inspections.
The House Committee on Economic Development and Technology voted unanimously to pass the bill on March 25. From there it was referred to the Finance Committee.
In tandem with the Senate tax bill, House Bill 2207 requires DAB to establish a “Biosecurity Government-Industry Working Group” where education, training, supplies, equipment and pest management programs are provided to private industries, which will in-turn supply labor, surveillance, some treatment equipment and response readiness.
HB 2207 includes legal protections for government workers entering private property to do pest eradication work. It also allows for the sale and distribution in the state of fine mesh nets — currently restricted due to their illegal use in fishing — as an effective CRB control measure. The Senate Committee on Agriculture and Environment passed the measure on March 24 and referred it to the Ways and Means Committee.
Franny Brewer is the program manager at the Big Island Invasive Species Committee, a University of Hawaii partnership working to protect the island from harmful invasive plants and animals. Brewer supports HB 2207’s loosening of restrictions on mesh nets because they offer a poison-free CRB control for homeowners and small-scale farmers.
“They are a good deterrent,” she said. “You can put them in the palm trees, and they’ll provide a barrier to prevent the beetle from actually burrowing in. That’s a great use for people who don’t want to use pesticides. It’s one of the important tools, and I think just being able to have that be legally available to use without running afoul of the rules about fishing nets is very helpful.”
For large-scale CRB eradication, though, she admits that pesticide application — often using drones — called “crown sprays” are still the most cost-effective and least labor-intensive solution.
“Certainly for us in the case of a response, you know if something pops up in a new area, that’s what we’d recommend, that a drone is used,” she said. “If you’re managing a large amount of land, and you need to hit a lot of different trees, I think that’s probably the relatively cheapest way to go. Now, if you’re just a resident, and you have a backyard with a couple of palm trees, you might want to go in a different direction.”
A large armored insect native to South Asia, the beetle has killed or damaged more than a thousand coconut palms across Oahu in the past decade, and also threatens bananas, sugarcane, papayas, sisal and pineapple plants. It was first found on Hawaii Island in the Waikoloa area in October 2023 and — after almost two years of little to no detection — the number of adult and larval beetles tallied in north and central Kailua-Kona began to tick up significantly starting in mid-2025.
An on-site inspection of Keahole Agricultural Park by several different agencies last July uncovered two active breeding sites at a landscape nursery, discovering 110 late-state larvae and three adult beetles. Since then, officials have been steadily finding an average of roughly 30 adult beetles per month along with varying numbers of larvae.
Rep. Kirstin Kahaloa represents Kailua-Kona, Honaunau and Keauhou — areas of the island including or near to CRB hotspots. Kahaloa co-introduced HB 2207 at the beginning of this year.
“I want Hawaii Island to have all the tools in the toolbox,” she told the Tribune-Herald. “And this particular mesh net opportunity was not a tool that Oahu has had as one of the methods for CRB mitigation, and we just want to have all options available.”
She fears that if CRB populations are not contained and eradicated before they spread, areas of Hawaii Island could begin to show the same devastation seen on the first island they infested.
“I’ve been to parts of Oahu where a whole bay area that was lined with coconut trees, there’s only like half of them left, and there’s just dead sticks,” she said. “No fronds. It changes the whole landscape, and it’s really sad.”
Stopping this from happening, she said, is one of the most important efforts of her tenure at the state capitol.
“It took about 10 years for Oahu to kind of be overridden across different parts of the entire island,” she said. “So, I’m trying to make it my calling that that doesn’t happen and that we protect biosecurity, because pretty much any biosecurity threat that has come to Hawaii Island usually has turned into something that is now a part of our community … it tends to not stay regional. It tends to migrate islandwide.”
Kahaloa feels that it will take a “collective effort” by state, county and private entities to get a handle on the problem, which HB 2207 strives to do by establishing the Government-Industry Working Group — something she admits is imperfect.
“It takes a village, and it takes a team,” she said. “There are a lot of different entities doing different things. Everybody is sort of working within the silos and the scope of what they do, and what happens is some things get slowed down. We just need to find a better way.”
Other state bills trying to combat the beetles have either stalled or been deferred.
Senate Bill 2885, which would create mandatory handling and storage rules for CRB host material and establish penalties for breaking them, was deferred by the House Agriculture and Food Systems Committee last month.
House Bill 643, which would establish short-term management initiatives for CRB response by training tree trimmers, arborists and landscapers in “best practices” stalled last April.
Senate Bill 746 sought to establish a pilot program offering bounties on captured CRB specimens, but stalled last year and was carried over to the 2026 legislative session but hasn’t moved since.
Email Stefan Verbano at stefan.verbano@hawaiitribune-herald.com
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