Ohia trees are dying rapidly, Why?

[Carey]

OK, I didn't post links before... but the dieback problems with ohia are VERY WELL RESEARCHED & DOCUMENTED, Peter Vitousek is probably one of the early gurus of ohia dieback research & has given talks in Hilo & around the island since we have been here, along with other researchers... In order to give some a little research, here are some of the research papers I have looked at, some dated back a few decades (Before GMO ... would that be BGMO years???)

http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/922
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10....=ecolsys.1
http://www.scopenvironment.org/downloadp...5-ch10.pdf
http://agroforestry.net/tti/Metrosideros-ohia.pdf
http://www.hear.org/books/hte1985/pdfs/h...ombois.pdf

ADDED: some of these papers are also pre the east rift eruption, geothermal, most of the pesticides in current use....and the fact that the very early reports of these dieoffs predate any pesticide use & some of the areas that are currently effected would not even be areas of pesticide concern..... not the lower stuff most of the Puna people are noting but the mauka dieoffs... & large ohia dieoffs that have been noted for a century...points to a cyclic problem that is probably older than many of the more recent introductions...