I had just come down from hiking up to Waimoku Falls at Haleakala National Park – had bent my beloved alpenstock when I fell over a slippery boulder and was fuming because I had seen a family hiking up to the falls with their dog, which is expressly forbidden. So I was in no mood for what greeted me back at the visitor’s center.

It was a proposal that access in the Kipahulu rain forest unit of the park be restricted. There were photos showing erosive wear around Oheo Falls and trampled vegetation on the ever-widening trails. There were charts showing attendance spikes and capacity projections. And a survey asking me what I thought of the idea.

I thought it was terrible, because I suspected that I – as a handicapped individual – would likely be one of the first casualties. If the park was only going to allow (let’s say) 100 people on the trail, it seems very likely that I would be picked out as one who would not be admitted, in order to let some more obviously healthy hiker go. Probably the selection would be subconscious, but the temptation would be there to think “Why allow this crippled guy, who may not even make it to the falls, when we can let this strapping stud here go?”

(I’m enough of a paranoid to also think the stud would win because he would look more handsome in photos taken from the bamboo forest halfway up the slope.)

Of course the weeding process wouldn’t be so obviously personal, but I still fear that it would favor the hale over the frail, and we handicappers would be discouraged from attempting the trail, in order to open up space for others.

But enough of my personal fretting. What about that bamboo forest? Well, it doesn’t really belong on Maui, but it’s pretty darned impressive. Planted some 100 years ago for agricultural development, bamboo has spread and is now encompassed by the park. The forest is thick, dark and cool and, when the wind blows through the upper canopy and smacks the bamboo trunks together, it produces a clacking sound like frightened creatures in flight. The sound is so sudden and unexpected (I feel no breezes down at the roots) that it makes me want to flee as well.

This is a wet place, drippy and mosquito ridden (another introduced species). And as I walk through the forest that does not belong here, slapping at the bugs that do not belong here, passing the dog that is not supposed to be here, I get a little depressed. Hawaii’s native birds are dying out, its native plants are getting crowded out, and this little piece of federally protected soil hardly seems to make a difference.

Heck, even the people that come here to visit – people who presumably understand what a national park is for – won’t stay on the trails, won’t obey the signs regarding their pets, won’t accept that all their little actions (“What can it hurt?”) add up.

To cheer myself up, I take some pictures of vibrant orange flowers that have fallen to the forest floor, glowing like licking flames on the glistening leaves. Back at the visitor’s center, I show the photos to one of the rangers.

“African tulip,” he says. “It’s a non-native species.”

I don’t know. Maybe it’s too late and no one needs to worry about preservation on this little piece of soil after all. Trees, bugs, dogs, people – we’re all of us invasive. Meanwhile, I am told – and I think this is supposed to be encouraging – the native birds flee farther and farther into the forest, up past the waterfall and the last great barrier of rock, frightened creatures in flight.