As a resident of the Puna area, I've picked some of my most favorite places to share with geocachers! I feel these each have a unique landscape or exceptional surroundings to make them a "MUST SEE" in my neck of the woods! Please enjoy the area and let me know if I can answer anything for you!!
What you see around this cache is volunteer sugar cane... What is left over from the large sugar plantations that used to populate this entire area! Most of these have been turned into personal properties or papaya farms.
sugar cane was introduced to Hawaii by its first inhabitants in approximately 600 AD and was observed by Captain Cook upon arrival in the islands in 1778. Sugar quickly turned into a big business and generated rapid population growth in the islands with 337,000 people immigrating over the span of a century. The sugar grown and processed in Hawaii was shipped primarily to the United States and, in smaller quantities, globally. The groups of people that were contracted to work on the plantations were the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos and Puerto Ricans. 1
Environmental Impact
Sugar plantations dramatically impacted the environment around them. In an 1821 account, prior to the entrenchment of sugar plantations in Aiea, the area is described as belonging to many different people and being filled with taro and banana plantations along with a fish pond. This subsistence farming would not last long. 1
Plantations were strategically located throughout the Hawaiian Islands for reasons including: fertile soil area, level topography, sufficient water for irrigation, and a mild climate with little annual variation. These plantations transformed the land primarily to suit water needs: construction of tunnels to divert water from the mountains to the plantations, reservoir construction, and well digging. 1
Water was always a serious concern for plantation managers and owners. In the early 1900s it took one ton of water to produce one pound of refined sugar. This inefficient use of water and the relative lack of fresh water in the island environment were fiercely compounding environmental degradation. Sugar processing places significant demands on resources including irrigation, coal, iron, wood, steam, and railroads for transportation. 1
Decline of plantations in Hawaii
Sugar plantations suffered from many of the same afflictions that manufacturing market segments in the United States continue to feel. Labor costs increased significantly when Hawaii became a state and workers were no longer effectively indentured servants. The hierarchical caste system plantation managers had worked hard to maintain began to break down, with greater racial integrations as a result, ironically, of the sugar plantations. Workers began to discover they had rights, and in 1920 waged the first multi-cultural strike. Additionally global politics played a large role in the downfall of Hawaiian sugar. Shifting political alliances between 1902 and 1930 permitted Cuba to have a larger share of the United States sugar market, holding 45% of the domestic quota while Hawaii, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico shared 25%. 1
The Big Five slowed the production of sugar as cheaper labor was found in India, South America and the Caribbean and concentrated their efforts on the imposition of a tourism-based society. Former plantation land was used by the conglomerates to build hotels and develop this tourist-based economy which has dominated the past fifty years of Hawaiian economics. 1
If you're lucky, the Hot Dog Guy might be around and he has the best reindeer hot dogs! He's aware of the cache, so you don't have to be stealthy if its just him around!!
Counter Added 6/29/2012 |
1 Wikipedia Web Site