A new program in Hawai‘i will draw on the collaborative efforts of science and community to restore local corals and coastlines to make reef communities more resilient in the future.…
Across Hawai’i’s sprawling islands of towering tree ferns in the wet mountains to the night-blooming maiapilo flower on the coasts, down to the vibrant lionfish in the seas, an Indigenous…
Two musical instrument makers wanted to save Hawai‘i’s rare koa tree. In the process, they restored a tropical forest on the slopes of the Big Island’s Mauna Loa volcano. Part one of a three-part Mongabay mini-series on island habitat restoration.
For far too long, studying plant species endemic to high-altitude cliffs was no small feat. More often than not, it involved researchers abseiling down cliffs to survey rare species and…
In 2016, Barack Obama, the U.S. president at the time, made a proclamation: he would expand the protection of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, a stretch of ocean fringing the…
7.8 billion people produce a lot of waste, but governments, entrepreneurs and NGOs are developing a host of technologies that work with nature to transform a dirty problem into a suite of elegant sustainable solutions.
For the uninitiated, the first mouthful of the Hawaiian red algae known as limu kohu (Asparagopsis taxiformis) may be an unpleasant one: intensely iodine-rich and bitter, with all the marine…
All seven sea turtle species are already endangered. Now humanity’s overshoot of planetary boundaries — climate change, ocean acidification, pollution and more — is upping the ante. Can turtles, people and conservation adapt?
While coral reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific region have been bleaching in response to rising sea temperatures, the reefs around Marovo Lagoon in the Solomon Islands have mostly kept their color.…
Many marine megafauna share a similar behavior of swimming in circles, often when in search of food, but also while engaged in a range of other activities, according to a…
In some parts of Hawaiʻi, the ocean is a blue canvas streaked with light-hued threads that curve and meander across the surface. These threads, called “surface slicks” or “bio slicks,”…
In a newly released map, the coastal waters of the eight main Hawaiian islands are alight with color. Blue, turquoise, green, yellow, orange and red tinge the islands’ perimeters, each…
A healthy coral reef system is like a well-managed city. Each resident fish has a job in maintaining the reef: some nibble away at seaweed threatening to smother the coral,…
In the Wai‘anae Mountains, a range on the western side of O‘ahu, Hawaii, a group of scientists were surveying the land for tiny, terrestrial snails when they came across something…
Hawaiian myth says that ‘ōhi‘a lehua trees were created by Pele, the goddess of fire and creator of the Hawaiian islands. Spurned by a handsome young warrior, ʻŌhiʻa, she turned…
Newly released video footage gives us a glimpse of a rarely seen behavior: baby humpback whales nursing in the sheltered breeding grounds of Maui. Here, the young calves must drink…
OAHU, Hawaii — Tucked at the base of the Ko’olau Mountains on the eastern side of the Hawaiian island of Oahu lies He’eia fishpond. Built around 800 years ago by…
The scope of the microplastic pollution problem is astonishing. While nations need to slow the rate of plastics entering Earth's waters, discovering what the density of it is, and where…
Coral reefs in Hawaiian waters are facing the prospect of another major bleaching event as ocean temperatures rise above the norm. “We found the first signs of [coral] bleaching off…
Sometimes looking for rare plants can mean taking extreme steps. And for decades, botanists at the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG), a nonprofit based on the island of Kauaʻi in…
Faster and cheaper Surveying and studying coral takes a lot of work. It’s usually done manually, which requires wet suits and air tanks and SCUBA gear and people. But it’s…
In January this year, a drone surveying a cliff face in a remote part of Kalalau Valley on the Hawaiin island of Kaua‘i chanced upon something unexpected: In one of…
First the good news: A sweeping survey of the Pacific Basin has found the population of endangered green turtles (Chelonia mydas) there is increasing. However, the hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata),…
On the first day of 2019, George, the last known member of the Hawaiian snail species Achatinella apexfulva, died. He was 14 years old. Named after Lonesome George, the last known…
When a vibrant coral reef teeming with life transforms into a barren skeleton in the tropical shallows — as a result of bleaching linked to climate change, for example —…
Coral reef conservation efforts will soon get a major boost with a global monitoring system that will detect physical changes in coral cover at high resolution on a daily basis,…
Keeping equipment running in harsh field conditions can challenge any tech project, as can working successfully with volunteers. Some projects have to manage both. A recent Wildtech post describes wpsWatch,…
For the last two years, a U.S. non-profit and local partners in South Africa have quietly been catching wildlife poachers using remote cameras connected to a unique cross-continent volunteer monitoring…
A plant without water will wither and, eventually, die. This is easy to observe in the browned leaves of a neglected houseplant, but what happens when an entire forest gets…
Musician and actress Alison Sudol has been connected to nature since she was a very young child growing up in Seattle. Playing under the name A Fine Frenzy in recent years,…