In the 1950s, Joseph Rock, the father of Hawaiian botany, still loved to get out into the field. With the construction of jeep roads during World War II, many of the remote places he had visited in the early part of the century were now available for “roadside botanizing” to Rock, then in his 70s.
To Rock’s dismay, writes Alvin Chock, “many of the species with which he was familiar more than 35 years earlier had van ished to extinction, remaining only as ‘dried corpses in the herbaria.’”
Half a century later, the number of native plant species found only in herbaria collec tions has undoubtedly increased, as the range and severity of enemies arrayed against the natives have continued to grow.
Included on the enemies’ list are the usual suspects: invasive weeds, browsing and root ing mammals, seed-eating vermin, and suck ing and boring insects.
But the human element should be high on the list as well. Not only are we collectively responsible for bringing in the animal and plant pests that threaten Hawai‘i’s floral pat rimony, we exacerbate the problem through apathy.
An Image Problem
Call it a vertebrate bias. Most humans are susceptible to campaigns to save whales, turtles, and birds. A few are open to pleas to help butterflies or other charismatic inverte brates. Plants, though they form the back bone of any ecosystem, tend to be ignored. When the plants in question are all but unrecognizable to most people, are identified only by their Latin binomials, and inhabit areas few have occasion to visit, raising their plight to the level where people will mobilize to help them is an insuperable challenge.
That, however, is exactly what must hap pen if the 600 or so rarest native Hawaiian competing interests, ranging from concerns over introductions of human disease to pro tection of commercial crops. Proposals to address invasive species having an impact on native plants are not necessarily going to be at the head of funding priorities.
Saving Botanical Bonanzas
The situation of many of Hawai‘i’s rare plants is grave. Among the hardest hit are denizens of the once vast dry forests on the leeward sides of most islands, hard hit by grazing pressures, development, fire, insects, weeds, and disease. It is in these same areas, however, where the richest species diversity occurs.
A precious few acres of dry forest on Hawai‘i island, Maui, Lana‘i, and O‘ahu have been targeted for protection and re newal by bands of dedicated botanists and volunteers. Art Medeiros, who has worked for years to restore the Auwahi forest of South Maui, has developed a program that could well be used as a prototype for efforts elsewhere. He has enlisted private land owners, public school students, Hawaiian elders, the National Park Service, and the state – to name but a few – in the many diverse and difficult enterprises associated with restoration: controlling weeds, remov ing cattle, collecting seeds, planting seed lings and watering them until they are established. Those who have helped in the process have become far more invested in the forest’s health than they would be otherwise.
This approach is difficult. Enlisting vol unteers and supervising them can be a daunting task in itself. The work in the field is physically hard and often discouraging.
But the rewards are incalculable. There’s the promise of a functioning ecosystem re stored to a semblance of its former glory. There’s the education and training of young people who might otherwise never have a chance to see first-hand Hawai‘i’s natural landscapes.
Finally, there is the creation of a deep awareness of and appreciation for Hawai‘i’s one-of-a-kind plant kingdom among people who will be champions and will fight for the resources needed to rebuild it. Among all the many obstacles that stand in the way of a reinvigorated Hawaiian flora, this is the one on which everything else rides.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 15, Number 11 May 2005