Colonization, species invasion, deforestation, sugar cane plantations. The earth has been gravely mistreated since the illegal occupation of Hawai'i began over a century ago. In a habitat with no winter, no large predators and nitrogen-poor soil, so much existed tenuously. So much was erased, island by island.
Would you believe that, far above the bungalows, introduced black rats live on top of the highest mountains on Oahu?
My relationship with Mother Earth is the most important and inviolate part of my identity as a person of indigenous descent. Whether dwelling in the homeland of my ancestors or Hawaii, the land of the kānaka ʻōiwi, the ʻāina (Hawaiian for earth) and my love for her is the same.
I attempt to help heal the invasions, and usher renewal and return for the littlest things. If I volunteer to protect the old ways of the ingenious native Hawaiian aquaculture, it is still assisting that balance. More commonly, I assist in government wildlife conservation. Sometimes, I do this on my own in the wild, because my appetite proves too extreme for friends, casual hikers most of them.
This week it was with government. We were planting a species of Schidea, in the carnation family. The Army as a significant landowner and natural resources operation on the islands does a lot of this work, and actually supplied the government organization with these individuals, left. This tub rested on my back up the mountain in the Waianae (why-a-nye) Range, which forms the western side of Oahu. Our handful of volunteers ranged from a teenager to a septuagenarian. We all scrambled up the mountain adeptly.
The lowlands systems of the southern Hawaiian islands nearly all died a long time ago, which leaves only a few slivers of preserve to mourn them. Fortunately, the massive flanks of lost volcanoes form great chains of mountains, too extreme for intensive agriculture or development. Here, conservationists fight to halt the extinctions. Hawaii has lost dozens of bird species and over 110 species of plant.
Up in the mountains, rats, cats, and feral pigs destroy native perennials and of course, the many unique birds from wetlands and shore which evolved without significant predators.
Here, to the right, you catch a glimpse of almost-what used to be, although it is not as pristine as appearances suggest. A state employee accompanying us (who gave me a much appreciated hour and a half ride to the site, and then back) said there were maybe three tiny habitats on the whole island where the forest was mostly intact, that is, without serious plant invasions. Even the tops of the mountains are commonly marked by invasive ironwood, eucalyptus trees from Australia, or guava or strawberry quava or Christmas berry. I have seen the rat bait on the very ridges. The view in this photo shows a forest scene better than most.
A previous journey had me resurrect the dead: a plant species which had gone extint in the wild over a decade ago. It was last seen up on the cliffs in 1997 where it was best accessed by helicopter. You can see it below. Ethically, I'm sworn to secrecy about its state and location to keep it protected.
Being the most geographically isolated civilization on earth, the Hawaiian islands sported extreme endemicism, meaning species that could only be found there, often to one of the individual 8 major islands only. In addition, some species, like the Scaevolas spread via waves across the equator and can be found in the Indian and Pacific.
This dry-mesic 'ohia forest features typically on the western half of most of the islands. But 'ohia once dominated most of the land, dry or wet forest, having evolved into four morphologically variable species on Oahu. It tends to sport highly attractive olive-colored leaves and vibrantly crimson inflorescence, sometimes other colors like yellow. Diseases from introduced plant pathogens (fungi and bacteria) have devastated native forests across the islands.
Years have I spent volunteering in the outdoors, waiting for a career. Some of you may remember myinterning at a private preserve last summer, which was also unpaid. At the moment, I have not gotten any offers from US Forest Service, National Park Service or BLM, after applying to positions in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Colorado, California, New Mexico, and probably some other places. It's been several hundred applications.
School hasn't helped me greatly in procuring student internships with the feds on the mainland, known as SCEP and STEP, but this story must have more. I'm losing jobs to students who don't have nearly as nice resumes, to put it somewhat arrogantly, as well as students in grad school. I have not graduated yet, nor taken all of the most relevant, awesome classes yet, but I have good training and experience. Hundreds of hours. I am trained in ArcGIS, have used GPS, digital photography, assisted in plant ID, monitored protected and invasive species, plant phenology, et cetera. Many students can't say that.
Some of the competitive jobs I've applied for have supposedly been beyond my qualifications according to the generic, email response, and many simply had 'better' applicants. I have no lost love for HR departments and the state of the economy.
To stay viable, I suppose unpaid experience serves as a requisite, but it doesn't get you far necessarily.
To put it bluntly, it frightens me to prospect graduating with $36,000 in debt and no relevant paid experience in government or private conservation. The industry gets called 'highly competitive.'
But that's what I'm doing, for now.