To Save Hawai’i, Study Hawai’i
“I go out in nature a lot. I love Waipi`o and the mountain,” a Hilo High School freshman named Jessica says. Her friend Miki agrees. “We go camping and I love the ocean. Something just compels me to the water.”
These two girls are members of the Hilo High team for Paradise Pursuits, a quiz show where students from high schools around the state compete to answer correctly questions about Hawai`i’s geology and native species. Paradise Pursuits is sponsored by the Hawai`i Audubon Society.
The Hilo High team consists of four girls, myself included. All of us love practicing with the buzzers and are looking forward to a chance to be on TV if we win the district competition. But when we think harder about it, we realize what the competition is really giving us: a deeper love and appreciation for Hawai`i’s natural history in all its aspects.
“Sometimes, I get an urge to protect Hawai`i’s environment, when I go into koa forests and I see how beautiful everything is,” says Jessica. “Paradise Pursuits has made me aware of some of the problems that are happening in Hawai`i.”
“Yes, especially because there are so many native species,” Miki agrees. “It seems like so many of our plants are going away and being depleted.”
For me, I see the beauty in Hawai`i and Hawai`i’s native plants when going through hala covered valleys, interspersed with kukui nut trees and all the variety of plants everywhere around the coast where I live. Only a few miles away, though, are gulches completely covered in Miconia, where all you see are those awful purple leaves that mean destruction and threat. I want Hawai`i to keep that diversity.
The members of the team all do various service projects. “We go with our club, the Leo club, and clean up streams,” the girls say. “And also, when we go camping, we always have to pick up all the rubbish that we find lying around everywhere, because we have to leave the area cleaner than we found it.”
It makes me sad when I see garbage bags strewn around the ground in places that otherwise are gorgeous. I feel almost guilty for being part of a race that is the number one destroyer of nature.
Paradise Pursuits is just another way for us to learn about Hawai`i, which makes us appreciate it. Knowing the names of a plant or understanding what its significance is, or even learning little interesting facts about Hawai`i is always rewarding. Miki likes marine biology and Jessica likes facts about the forests.
“I think I might work in the National Parks inside the forests someday,” Jessica says. “I just want to be outside and see the plants and all the green everywhere. Because in our classes we only learn about the general biology of the world, and nothing specific to Hawai`i, this is one of the only chances for us to really learn about Hawai`i’s land.”
We practice for the competition, but it’s much more relaxed than school – just an informal thing. We comment on the information we’re quizzing each other about, or sometimes just joke around. But we all agree that because of all the wonders that we now know about Hawai`i, the environment has become a bigger part of our lives.
— Emma Yuen
Volume 10, Number 10 April 2000