Explore the Valley Protecting Hawaii’s Ancient Plants

For the past 1,500 years, Limahuli Valley on Kauai has been a green haven, a wilderness preserved to exist just as the native Hawaiians experienced it. It is home to plant life unlike anything found in the rest of the world, with many endangered plants thriving in the valley. The Limahuli Garden and Preserve hopes to continue their conservation efforts so these plants can survive for generations to come. Join director Kawika Winter for a tour of this lush nature preserve.

This Great Big Story was made in partnership with Hawaii Tourism United States: https://www.gohawaii.com/

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When you come into Limahuli,

you're gonna see plants that you see

nowhere else in the world.

All of this biodiversity is the foundation

that Hawaiian culture was built on.

I hear the voices of the old Hawaiians

talking about how special this place is

and pushing me to really
care for this place.

(tranquil music)

Limahuli Garden Preserve is
a 1,000 acre botanical garden

and nature preserve
situated on the North Shore

on the island of Kauai
in the Hawaiian islands.

My job is to basically garner
support for our protection

of this place and the
restoration of this valley.

Some of the plants that we have now,

they're so rare that you have
to go on a four mile hike

deep into the valley or risk your life

and climb one of those
peaks to get to them.

One of the examples of that
is this plant called olena,

which is the second
strongest fiber in the world.

Now that plant is pretty rare,

and they only exist way deep back

in the wet valleys of the island.

Within the context of
the Hawaiian culture,

every plant has a name.

When a plant goes extinct,

that's a part of our language that dies.

It's our job to make sure that they

stick around for a future generation.

So this tree right here,

this is a really
important tree culturally.

It's a hardwood, it's the second
hardest wood in the forest.

Its name is uhiuhi.

It's down to two trees left
on the island of Kauai,

so this is one tree that you're not

gonna really find anywhere else.

200 years ago, all of these
plants were all around.

The community was
actively cultivating them,

but there's been a huge
disconnect in the past 200 years

between the community and
the resources of the valley.

This is actually the state flower.

Unfortunately, our state flower is down

to just a handful of
individuals in the wild.

So it’s kind of a
pretty strong statement

of the state of affairs
of our native plants.

I can feel the rare
plants calling for help.

We talk about sustainability nowadays.

We don't have to reinvent the wheel.

The ancient Hawaiians did it.

They were doing it for
a millennium at least.

In Hawaiian culture always
try to be at a point

where you've given more than you've taken.

That resource management system

is viable in the 21st century to address

a lot of the problems we're
dealing with nowadays.

If we're engaging with the ocean,

we don't just go down there and fish.

We build fish houses so
that there's more habitat

for the fish to live in.

And in the forest, you go
and take care of the place,

make sure that the plants
are healthy before you gather

and then before you leave,

you replant behind you so that
there's more for tomorrow.

If you take responsibility for something,

and then you have a right to access it.

(tranquil music)

Humanity doesn't have to
be separated from nature,

and there are ways for
humanity to engage nature

such that both benefit.

This place can be a model.

It can be a model of how
humanity is connected to nature

and that is probably the most
important story in Hawaiian culture.