The agencies charged with protecting Hawaii’s ecosystems are seeking public input through the month of May on the 2025 State Wildlife Action Plan, an in-depth document detailing the state’s most vulnerable native species. The plan will be used to guide conservation efforts and funding access.
The Division of Aquatic Resources and the Division of Forestry and Wildlife — two divisions of the Department of Land and Natural Resources — are seeking community feedback to help them provide a user-friendly, informative SWAP.
In addition to listing the numbers and range of native wildlife, the action plan also gathers information on the location and condition of key habitats, identifies threats, lists conservation efforts as well as monitoring plans for species and their habitats.
Hawaii’s first SWAP was compiled in 2005, with a second in 2015 and now a third that the DLNR expects to be completed in October.
DAR watershed management specialist and meeting co-host Maya Goodoni explained that the public feedback “ensures SWAP reflects local knowledge and community priorities, helps identify gaps in the plan that may impact your region or area of work, and strengthens conservation outcomes through public collaboration and transparency.”
“In Hawaii, we have over 10,000 endangered endemic or indigenous species,” Goodoni said. “The purpose of the SWAP is to help prevent them from becoming endangered and try to conserve as much as we can. It also helps to get funding for the state … to be able to conduct restoration and conservation, and protect these species.”
A SWAP is required in order to participate in the federal State Wildlife Grant program administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, through which Hawaii receives around $500,000 annually for conservation projects. Additionally, the state submits proposals for Competitive State Wildlife Grants alongside all other states that submit proposals through their own SWAPs. Over the past 10 years, Hawaii has received $1 million to $2 million per year through additional grants, according to the DLNR.
“I think one of the best things the State Wildlife Action Plan does is it outlines some conservation actions that are going to be a priority in the state broadly, not just within DLNR, so if we want to identify a new partnership with a community group and put a proposal together, we can align our objectives to the SWAP to make it more competitive with some of those grant competitions,” said meeting co-host Kirsten Moy of the University of Hawaii’s Hawaii Coral Reef Initiative, in the first Tuesday virtual meeting that was open to the public.
In the meeting — which was hosted again in the evening on Tuesday — attendees were given an overview of the SWAP process, key updates for the 2025 SWAP, and an open forum opportunity for questions and feedback. The morning meeting’s comment opportunity saw several local ecological professionals weighing in.
Diane Ley, the Hawaii Island representative to the State Board of Agriculture and president of the Agricultural Leadership Foundation of Hawaii, asked where the public could learn more about shared resources and actions that come out of the SWAP. The meeting’s co-hosts described forthcoming databases and dashboards that will offer an easier way to search and view information. Goodoni said these resources will likely become available at the same time as the 2025 SWAP release in October.
Tina Lia, founder of the environmental nonprofit Hawaii Unites, questioned the effectiveness of a current environmental effort that she finds to be more harmful than helpful.
“(Hawaii Unites has) been speaking out in opposition to the mosquito releases as an effort to save the native birds,” Lia said, pointing out that the current SWAP documents include support of mosquito releases and genetic modification of mosquitoes to be released. “We feel that it’s actually very dangerous for the birds and the entire ecosystems of their habitats. Many species that are part of the SWAP could be affected by that.”
Goodoni and Moy said Lia’s input is the exact kind of input DLNR is seeking through the public commentary window.
Rebecca Ostertag, a tropical forest ecologist and biology professor at UH Hilo, took the forum as an opportunity to remind the attendees and hosts that the public commentary window regarding President Donald Trump’s effort to edit the Environmental Protection Act’s definition of “harm” to not include the destruction of a protected species’ habitat is also currently open in the Federal Register until May 19.
“If this change goes through, it would significantly weaken the Endangered Species Act by allowing harm to happen to our habitats without any consideration of how that is hurting our species,” Ostertag said.
Kupono Aguirre, a student of Ostertag’s receiving his master’s degree in Tropical Conservation Biology and Environmental Science, brought up the topic of incorporating modern Hawaiian ecological practices into the SWAP instead of only highlighting the ancient Hawaiian cultural significance of certain native species. That was recognized by the hosts as another example of the kind of input that greatly benefits the SWAP.
“A lot of the information is (about) more traditional uses and beliefs on these species,” Aguirre said, asking if the 2025 SWAP could integrate “how the perspectives and beliefs of modern-day Native Hawaiians could shape the action plan or management efforts instead of just (explaining) what Hawaiians believed in the past.”
The public can submit commentary until the end of May by visiting the SWAP Storymap, a document that is continuously updated with new information and revisions, at https://tinyurl.com/5fzuaraa. By scrolling down past the seven Conservation Strategies and Goals, one will find the Public Response Collection 2025, a survey that collects public opinions and suggestions to incorporate into the 2025 SWAP.
The online survey page also contains a link to the Public SWAP folder, a library of fact sheets focusing on over 6,000 indigenous species which can be reviewed and given suggested edits by the public.
Email Kyveli Diener at kdiener@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
