Lloyd Loope
Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 11:30-12:00
Hawaii’s isolation, combined with substantial age, topographic and climatic diversity, and only occasional colonization from afar, produced spectacular endemic marvels of evolution. But past evolutionary isolation contributes to vulnerability of these islands to alien pests in an age of globalization. Hawaii had suffered dramatically from invasions for two centuries before 1970, the start date of a two-decade renaissance in biodiversity conservation effort led by the national parks. Around 1990, Hawaii’s conservation community experienced a revelation with recognition of how vulnerable natural areas are to new invasions. The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii took a planning and leadership role in a heroic effort toward orchestrating coordinated actions by federal and state agencies to address alien species (all-taxa approach), leading to formation of Hawaii’s Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species (CGAPS) in 1995. Simultaneously, discovery and recognition of the ecosystem-killer invasion of the rain forest tree Miconia calvescens energized formation of a grassroots interagency committee on the island of Maui in 1991; such committees formed elsewhere and within a decade morphed into invasive species committees (ISCs), active on each of Hawaii’s five largest islands. Though Hawaii’s inherent invasive species challenges are world-class and still mind-boggling, tremendous progress has been made, and it is hard to imagine where we would be without vibrant partnerships.
Keywords: INVASIVE SPECIES, HAWAII, PARTNERSHIPS