Report Title:

Appropriation; Miconia Calvescens plant.

Description:

Appropriates funds to increase efforts to eradicate the Miconia Calvescens plant.

THE SENATE

S.B. NO.

988

TWENTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2003

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

making an appropriation to INCREASE STATE FUNDING TO eradicate the miconia calvescens plant.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The Miconia Calvescens plant was introduced to Polynesia on the island of Tahiti and has destroyed more than seventy-five per cent of the island's watershed during the past sixty years. The plant's giant canopy smothers local vegetation and quickly establishes itself as the single dominant plant form. The Miconia Calvescens plant has no natural enemies to hamper or halt its spread and flowers at least three times a year. A single plant can produce up to eight million seeds in its lifetime.

Locally, the Miconia Calvescens plant has been found in thirty-six locations on four islands by March of 1997 and has consumed more than ten thousand acres of land.

The purpose of this Act is to increase state funding to eradicate the Miconia Calvescens plant.

SECTION 2. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $       , or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2003-2004, and the same sum, or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2004-2005, for the purpose of increasing state funding to eradicate the Miconia Calvescens plant.

SECTION 3. The sums appropriated shall be expended by the department of agriculture for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2003.

INTRODUCED BY:

_____________________________