Saving the Endangered Plant Species of Hawaii by Rene Sylva Paia, Maui, Hawai'i Presently in Hawai'i there are 272 plant species listed under the Federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) of November 7, 1996 as in danger of becoming extinct. Since that time, there have been almost another dozen plants added to that list. It is a good thing to classify plants as endangered, but we must realize that this does not save them from becoming extinct. It merely gives them paper protection. I recall when the first plant was entered on the endangered species list. It was a specie from the Big Island called Vicia Menziesii, which was named in 1826 for Archibald Menzies, the botanist on Captain George Vancouver's ship. It was put on the endangered species list on April 26, 1978. It is still on that list today. As far as I know, no plant has ever come off the Endangered Species List. The only way for a plant to be removed from that list is to become extinct. To me, this is a disgraceful and insulting way of saving Hawaiian plants. Each plant is chemically different. Some plants are poisonous. Some plants are not. Some plants grow to a huge size. Others crawl on the ground. Some are edible. Others are not. Some plants have beautiful flowers with aroma and others without. Some have thorns. Some plants produce thousands of seeds. Others produce only one. I could cite many many more differences. There are specific reasons for these differences, usually associated with the plant's need for survival. The famed botanist Otto Degener once said, "They haven't found the cure for cancer yet. Ihe cure might be in one of these ugly Hawaiian plants that people step on. Too bad if they find the cure and the plant has become extinct ... now you can never reproduce the chemical. " All of the native plants have Hawaiian names. This tells us that the early Hawaiians knew all the plants. Plants played the major role in the Hawaiian culture and were involved in every aspect of the culture, however for some reason, plants never got the credit they deserve. Eighty percent of the medicine came from plants. They used dirt, salt and other things from the sea but plants served the major medicinal role. Some of those plants are now extinct. To give an example of what is happening to the Hawaiian plants, go to Hana on the Hana highway. From Huelo, to Kailua, Honomanu, Keanae, and Nahiku most of the trees you will see are paperbark and eucalyptus. They are native to Australia. When you get to historic Kauiki Hill you will see that it is dominated with ironwood trees which are also native to Australia. In this sense, Australia dominates Hana highway and Hana. It is the same way on the back side of Haleakala in Kipahulu where we see java plum, Christmas berry, and other aggressive normative plants. In Kihei, on Kaho'olawe, Lanai and other dry areas in Hawai'i we find that the dominant tree is kiawe (Prosopis pallida) the so-called Algaroba, or mesquite, which is native to South America. It is important to note that East Maui and West Maui are politically the same island, but botanically they are separate. The silversword on East Maui is actually a different specie than the silversword on West Maui. The greensward, geranium, loulu palm, and many many more plants are also different species when found on East and West Maui. The same is true for a group of coastal plants. Degener relayed the story that in the 1920's the Department of Forestry solicited the collection of koa seeds through an ad placed in all of the newspapers in Hawai'i. When the seeds arrived in Honolulu, they were all thrown into the same box and then distributed to be planted on 9 of the islands. According to Degener, sometime in the future, botanists will want to study the koa on Maui, and will not know that that koa might have come from the Big Island, Molokai, Kauai, or other islands. The koa all carry the same Hawaiian name and scientific name. However, the koa from each island is botanically different. If someone wants to plant koa on Maui, it is important that they plant the Maui koa so that they do not mix the genetic code. Not only are there many different species of a particular plant, but the species that exist on one island are different from that of another island. The same is true for insects, land snails, and flies. There are hundreds of species of each. The point is not to mix the species in dfferent localities. If they do cross, it will end hundreds of thousands of years of evolution due to man's indifference and ignorance. Better, more effective, and efficient solutions in rescuing Hawai'i's flora and fauna from becoming extinct are necessary. We now know the problems of aggressive feral animals such as pigs in the wet forest, the goats in the dry forest, the cattle, deer, and other introduced animals. We know the severe impact that they cause on Hawai'i's natural environment. It is rapidly increasing at a very alarming rate. We also know the critical impact that aggressive normative plants such as ginger, miconia, lantana, molasses grass, kikuya grass and many many other introduced plants have on our Hawaiian environment. From where we are today, we can look back with hindsight and see the damage that we have done to our Hawaiian flora and fauna in the last 100 years. We see an alarming 272 plants on the endangered fist, and another 100 plus plants ready to be added to the list, and all poised for extinction. Let us use foresight now and look ahead at the accelerated speed of complete destruction that can occur in the next 100 years. It is feasible that we can completely eradicate the native Hawaiian flora and fauna. Mahalo to Rene Sylva for this article and his dedication to saving Hawaiian plants.