During the 2023-2024 school year, the Volcano School of Arts and Sciences 9th and 10th grade student’s have been learning what it means to be hands-on stewards of the historic loko iʻa (fishpond) at Honuʻapo.
Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund teams up with Ka ʻOhana O Honuʻapo to launch an environmental and cultural stewardship program for wahi pana in Kaʻū from October 2023 to February 2024. We worked collaboratively and inclusively with other local nonprofit entities as well as State, County, and Federal government agencies, and pertinent landowners to offer stewards a comprehensive training and stewardship experience for 10 trainees from the shoreline into the forest.
Mike Stone was a graduate student working with HWF during his internship within the Tropical Conservation Biology and Environmental Science Master’s program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo from Fall 2019 to Fall 2021. During this time, Mike worked with HWF’s Megan Lamson (as his graduate advisor) and completed over 700 volunteer hours with HWF and focused on a brand audit study for marine debris collected in Kaʻū from 2013-2021. We are so appreciative of his amazing contribution to HWF.
This month, we are featuring the beautiful, bright yellow lauʻīpala, also known as lāʻī pala, yellow tang, or Zebrasoma flavescens. Similar to many other types of surgeonfish, lauʻīpala are an important reef grazer, and can help promote coral reef resiliency by removing algae from reef substrates.
The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a legal intervention opposing a proposed resort development on one of Hawaiʻi’s most renowned black sand beaches that would harm local residents and jeopardize threatened and endangered species, including green sea turtles and Hawaiian monk seals.
Jaya Mishra was an intern with the Hawai’i Wildlife Fund team on Maui from June to July 2023. Here is her wonderful account of her experience with HWF.
With funding and support from the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Association (NOAA), Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund recently reached a major milestone in its collaborative project with the Surfrider Foundation (Kauaʻi Chapter), SHARKastics, and many other community partners. During this extensive two-year project across three Hawaiian Islands, we collaboratively hosted a total of 390 debris-removal activities and we recovered 61.0 metric tons (134,423 pounds) of marine debris!
Learn more about the experience of Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund Intern, Ramzi Talbi, who joined our team all the way from Patagonia and helped support the Hawksbill (Honuʻea) Sea Turtle Recovery project.
Welcome to Lāʻau Letters: Native Plants of Kaʻū. Read about Kaʻū’s native plants’ moʻolelo (stories), uses, preferred habitats, and opportunities to adopt them for stewardship. Meet loulu! Loulu (not to be confused with loʻulu, the name of the endemic fern Coniogramme pilosa), is the name for all species of the only native Hawaiian palms, which are perhaps the most distinctive and conspicuous native plants.
Check out this inspiring essay from our third and final Kaʻū Wildlife Scholarship winner for 2023, Adam Dierking.
