What has Lloyd Loope done for Hawai`i? Actually, the answer may be shorter if one asks what Lloyd Loope has not done. The biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Biological Resources Division at Haleakala National Park has been instrumental in just about every major conservation program on Maui in the last decade.
It was Loope who sounded the alarm over the threat to native species posed by the planned expansion of Maui’s Kahului airport to accommodate increasing numbers of overseas flights. Loope spearheaded the battle to eradicate Miconia, a weedy species that was threatening to establish a foothold on Haleakala’s slopes. Loope was instrumental in establishing the Maui Invasive Species Committee, which has served as a model for similar committees on all the other islands.
Loope has participated in about every positive restoration effort on Maui for the last 20 years, so it was only fitting that he should be honored this year with the Distinguished Service Award from the Secretariat of Conservation Biology. The award was presented at the secretariat’s annual conference, held in Honolulu last August.
In accepting the award, Loope generously shared credit with co-workers. “It’s a bit embarrassing, of course, to get a personal award since team effort has always been so crucial for my perceived contributionsÉ. Few, if any, of my ideas are original with me. But I can’t help but take this award as a stamp of approval of the vision of the extremely high priority for Hawai`i of stopping new biological invasions and the need for ‘thinking out of the box’ to make it happen.”
While to some the need to stop the invasions of new species to Hawai`i may be self-evident, Loope rejects the notion that the sermon has been preached to death. “In fact, protection of Hawai`i from new invasions has been severely neglected at all levels,” he told Environment Hawai`i. “Of course, the same can be said of the U.S. mainland and just about everywhere else in the world as well. But in Hawai`i, the consequences of invasions are especially insidious and striking. And there is plenty of blame to go around. Hawai`i’s conservation community has been preoccupied with the symptoms of the invasive species crisis – what a recent national news story calls ‘hospice ecology,’ dealing with the rarest of the rare and declining individual species – and hasn’t really become engaged in pushing for better protective measures until recently. But in the 1990s, momentum has been building toward a consensus that better quarantine and rapid response measures are needed. There is increasing and broad-based recognition that Hawai`i is in the midst of an invasive species crisis affecting not only our highly endemic plants and animals, but also overall environment-human health and the viability of our tourism- and agriculture-based economy.”
Even as more and more people are understanding the need for increased measures to protect against alien invaders, Loope says, many still don’t know what they personally can do. Whenever anyone asks Loope for ideas, he says, “My current answer is to get fully knowledgeable on the topic and let your government representatives know your concern. I’m pretty sure that very soon, there are going to be some specific measures to support at the State Legislature.”
When Loope was asked what the concerns deserve the most urgent attention, he listed “the red imported fire ant, a species that poses immense threats to Hawai`i’s tourism, agriculture (especially the livestock industry), the relaxed lifestyle of its people, and its natural environment.” The ant has recently invaded California, so it is “on our doorstep now,” Loope says, “and will certainly get established in Hawai`i unless there is a well-funded, carefully coordinated effort to stop it. A business-as-usual approach will result in disaster.”
Does Loope ever find himself getting discouraged? “To be honest, I have to say yes,” he replied. “I’ve been working in Hawai`i for 20 years and I can’t help but worry that many of our long-term efforts may ultimately prove futile – for example, if the red imported fire ant, the Asian long-horned beetle, and snakes get established here in spite of all our collective best efforts. But this feeling just energies me and others more to try to get action now while it is probably not too late.”
Big Isle Team Gets National Award
In September, the Ola`a-Kilauea Partnership received the 2000 National Park Partnership Award in the category of Environmental Conservation. The team is made up of state and federal agencies owning land in the area on the east side of Hawai`i Island near Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park, plus private landowner Kamehameha Schools.
Altogether, 32,000 acres of land constitute the team’s bailiwick. The area includes some of the best remaining native forest ecosystems in Hawai`i. Four species of endangered forest birds, plus the hawk and nene, the Hawaiian hoary bat, and 22 rare plant species, 10 of which are classified as endangered, are found within the management area.
Tanya Rubenstein, with the Resources Management division of the park, is project coordinator.
Recent accomplishments include the use of Kulani prison labor to fence 4,800 acres to prevent entry by feral pigs; annual bird surveys; and the planting of 1,500 Mauna Loa Silverswords at Kulani Correctional Facility, with more plantings of other endangered species planned.
Volume 11, Number 5 November 2000
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