Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

LOCATION AND GENERAL FEATURES

The Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is located in the south-east part in the Hawaiian islands, in the island of Hawai’i, called the big island, in the United States.
This site contains two of the most active volcanoes in the world, Mauna Loa and Kilauea, both of which tower over the Pacific Ocean.
The volcanic eruptions changed the landscape, and the lava flows reveal surprising geological formations.
Here you can find rare birds and endemic species and forests of giant ferns, which are importants because they existed in the prehistoric period.

To reach the hawaii volcanoes national park, from Hilo, you can take the Highway 11 and it will take 45 minutes. Also from Kailua-Kona you can take Highway 11 and it will take about 2 hours. But you can also take highways 19 and 11, through Waimea and Hilo, and it will take about 3 hours.
To get to Hawai’i island there are 2 airports, the Hilo and the Kona.
You can’t use the public transportation to reach the park.

The criterion for the inclusion in the UNESCO heritage list is the criterion VII, “to be outstanding examples representing major stages of earth's history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features”
Because this island was constructed by a volcanic process and this process keeps changing the Hawaiian Archipelago.
In the park there are two of the world’s most active volcanoes, the Kilauea and Mauna Loa, which is the biggest volcano on the heart.

As we can see from the document of 2013 “Periodic Reporting Cycle 2, Section II”, in the factors summary table, the Unesco label improved the site.
In fact the social and cultural uses of heritage is positive for the impacts of tourism, visitor and recreation, the society’s valuing of heritage and the changes in local population and community.

In the table of visitation for the last five years we can see that five years ago there was a decreasing but in 2012 there was a minor increasing.
The document says that “There is excellent cooperation between those responsible for the World Heritage property and the tourism industry to present the Outstanding Universal Value and increase appreciation”

As we can see from the table, the “current transportation options and infrastructure do not support the high level of visitation at the park”.
The new GMP (General Management Plan) want to improve the transportation methods to make a better experience for the tourists and the parking lots, park roads and trails are growing up following the visitors needs.