Ahead of the Merrie Monarch Festival next week, the Hawaii Department of Agriculture is reminding people it is illegal to transport ʻōhiʻa from Hawaii Island.

A quarantine was put into place in 2015 in order to stop the spread of rapid ʻōhiʻa death, a fungal plant disease, which is killing ʻōhiʻa lehua trees and devastating native forests. 

The Merrie Monarch Festival takes place in Hilo from April 20 to 26. 

HDOA issued the quarantine in Aug. 2015, and it forbids taking ʻōhiʻa plants and plant parts, including flowers, leaves, seeds, stems, twigs, cuttings, untreated wood, logs, mulch, greenwaste, frass (sawdust from boring insects) and any soil out of Hawaii Island. Even if the ʻōhiʻa came from another island, it may not be transported off of Hawaii Island. People are only allowed to take ʻōhiʻa from Hawaii Island with a HDOA Plant Quarantine Branch-issued permit. 

During last year’s Merrie Monarch, the HDOA Plant Quarantine Branch inspectors at the Hilo Airport intercepted 27 lei poʻo (head lei). 

This year, inspectors will again be at the Hilo and Kona airports on Sunday, April 27, and Monday, April 28, to intercept any ʻōhiʻa materials. HDOA will return any intercepted materials to Hawaii Island’s native forests. 

At the Merrie Monarch Festival, staff with the University of Hawaii at Manoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience will provide hoʻihoʻi baskets to collect ʻōhiʻa. Baskets will also be stationed at the Hilo and Kona airport PQB offices.

Lei poʻo collected by the Hawaii Department of Agriculture. (Photo courtesy of HDOA)

A violator of the quarantine may be charged with a misdemeanor and fined between $100 and $10,000. For a second offense committed within five years of a prior conviction, the violator will be fined between $500 and $25,000. 

In 2010, rapid ʻōhiʻa death was first noticed in Puna on Hawaii Island. Recent research classified ROD into two distinct species: Ceratocystis lukuohia and Ceratocystis huliohia. About 1 million ʻōhiʻa trees have died from the disease on Hawaii Island. 

Observers spotted ROD on Kauai in 2018 and Oahu in 2019. The disease was detected in a single tree on Maui in 2019, which was destroyed, and in three landscaped trees at a Maui elementary school in Jan. 2025. 

The Merrie Monarch Festival draws hundreds of people to Hawaii Island every year. The HDOA emphasized that the act of harvesting ʻōhiʻa may spread the disease, because harvesting tools, vehicles, shores or soil can carry spores to uninfected areas.