Endangered Plants

Hawaii is considered to be paradise to many people. However, it is the complete opposite of the native species living here. Hawaii is “The Endangered Capital of the World.” In the United States, Hawaii makes up only 0.2% of the landmass, but has 40% of the United States endangered plants, according to Alessandra Potenza’s article, “The scientists saving Hawaii’s rarest plants need to be saved.” Endangered plants in Hawaii means that many native plants are close to extinction. Protecting native plants means that making sure that the native plants don’t die out and to preserve them for the youth of tomorrow. This paper will talk about the causes/ history, the effect, the solution and our own unique solution to endangered plants in Hawaii.

The main cause of this is humans. Humans are the main cause of this problem because all the other causes go back to humans. For example, the Mongoose was brought to Hawaii by humans. Also, Rapid Ohia Death was brought to Hawaii by humans. Lastly, goats, deer and pigs all came to Hawaii because humans brought them. Many native plants are extinct or endangered because of humans, or effects of humans. For example, some reason humans drove these plants to extinction or endangerment is deforestation, urbanization and over-harvesting. Deforestation is when humans clear, or cut down a large area of trees. Urbanization is turning an area of land into a city or town. These are the main reasons how humans keep harming the ecosystems of

For example, a botanist in Japan and a couple other scientists, came up with a very unique solution to save the Kopiko. Most Kopiko plants that are left in the wild are female. This means that there’s not enough male plants to pollinate the female plants. These scientists’ solution was to hand-pollinate the rest of the female plants. They collected a viable amount of pollen from the male plants and dabbing it onto the female plants. Pollinating these plants allows the Kopiko to make fruits and seeds and reproduce themselves. If it weren’t for these scientists, the Kopiko would most-likely be