Wings, Water, Wind Created Hawaii’s Ecosystem | National Geographic

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park has to be
one of the most unique ecosystems on
earth spaced in the middle of the
Pacific Ocean here thousands of miles
from the nearest land mass the only way
for species to get here was by one or
more of the three w arrival mechanisms
wind water and wings and that really set
up for a unique almost Alice in
Wonderland echo system here from those
few founders you end up with literally
thousands of unique species found
nowhere else on planet Earth a lava
comes through wipes a clean slate and
life starts appearing fairly rapidly as
these plants grow and die there are
bodies that are left behind decompose
and start creating this rich mulch that
other things can continue to grow off of
we are doing a bio blitz which is a
2-day species inventory we have crews of
many hundreds of people out here in the
forest and they’re looking at everything
from the fungus that’s growing on the
ground to the birds that are up in the
trees it’s very important to know what
is in the forest at any one time is a
baseline so in the future when people
come out and they look in the forest
they will know what was here in the past
and they’ll know if anything is
disappearing or if their new invasive
species that have come in you see more
and you learn more and you can pass down
that information to other people my
favorite part about being in the
National Park is that you just get to
enjoy all this you know I really hope
that as we work with children here in
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park this year
they’ll really take those messages to
heart rather than just being given bad
news about things that have happened in
the past and giving them a sense of
hopelessness we’re really instilling in
them this new generation sense of we can
make a difference and we are making a
difference
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