HALEIWA, Hawaii (KHON2) -- A project, happening Saturday, aims to tackle a problem that has hit many areas of Oahu.
The coconut rhinoceros beetle has been attacking trees on the North Shore, a call for action went out and this project is the result.
Sen. Brenton Awa said the community will plant 70 trees, both Hawaiian and Samoan coconut trees.
"The idea is, a lot of these tall trees are really hard to manage. One of the things to manage is you got to get up, you got to wrap it with netting basically to catch them. When they're tall it's hard to do. So we're gonna put shorter trees, give us a longer time period of getting coconuts to harvest before it gets out of reach," Sen. Awa said on Wake Up 2Day.
To address hot spots around the community, they will work with farmers to set up traps and kill as many of the invasive beetles as possible.
Seeds of different coconuts are also being stored and saved for future use. That will assure the diversity is preserved from all areas.
For those who want to help out at the planting project, the event will be near the stop light by Haleiwa Beach Park, starting at 9 a.m.