NEWS

Developing meaningful relationships to inspire action

In 2023, the Hawaiʻi Climate Commission hosted the inaugural Climate Fair in Hilo, Hawaiʻi, to bring awareness to what is being done to create a more resilient and sustainable Hawaiʻi and the many resources available to the community. There were nearly 50 local conservation and education exhibitors, with interactive tables related to climate change and adaptation for community members.

Amongst the exhibitors was a collaborative booth between the Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center (PI-CASC), the Mauna Kea Watershed Alliance (MKWA), and the Pacific Islands Regional Invasive Species and Climate Change (Pacific RISCC) Management Network, which took an alternative approach to engaging with the community and affecting positive change. They sought to create meaningful relationships between team members and the visitors to their booth by creating relationships with native Hawaiian plants. To do this, the group offered native trees to those who visited their booth.

“By their nature, person-to-person or person-to-nature relationships are far more profound in driving human behavior than information or data exchange. Increased awareness of and, more importantly, direct relationships with native species help to drive ʻāina-based (nature-based) restoration practices,” explained Scott Laursen, PI-CASC Climate Adaptation Extension Specialist. “We wanted to do something that aligned with our communities, and we know that there is a huge interest in native Hawaiian plants, so thanks to generous donations of native trees from the Mauna Kea Watershed Alliance and the Hawaiʻi Division of Forestry and Wildlife, our booth offered native plants free of charge to those willing to put in the significant time to steward such plants.”

At the fair, the collaborative booth displayed seedlings from six native Hawaiian plant species adapted to different ecosystems. The team engaged with the visitors to the booth and offered the opportunity to adopt one of the seedlings. Amongst the PI-CASC, MKWA, and Pacific RISCC teams were highly experienced scientists, naturalists, and cultural practitioners. To ensure that each plant found a place best suited to its needs, the team talked with each visitor about the potential new home environment, decided on the plant species best suited for that environment, and offered stewardship guidance (e.g., how and where to plant).

“I am so appreciative of the opportunity to have participated in the native plant stewardship experience,” said Lei Leong, a participant who adopted an ʻaʻaliʻi plant. “The native plant stewardship experience offered the ability to bridge my knowledge gap between simply reading facts about a native plant and actually caring for one, then sharing this with others.”

In the end, 34 visitors to the booth committed to caring for a plant, and each walked away with one or more seedlings to plant, tend, and watch them grow.

Nurturing relationships beyond the event

Another goal of the collaboration was to continue developing the newly formed relationships even after the visitor left the booth. In the months following the event, team members continued to connect with each of the recipients to check on the performance of their plants, weekly at first, then monthly.

“Many community events do not offer a way to continue to engage after the event is over, but we wanted to do something different at the Hilo Climate Community Fair,” said Dr. Elliott Parsons, Pacific RISCC Specialist. “By cultivating a longer-term relationship with community members, we change the ‘one-off’ nature which is typical of most events. And by encouraging the development of the relationship between the community member and the native plant, we believe they are more likely to learn about their plant and want to protect them and other native species.”

Participants reported details like the condition of the leaves, overall growth, and personal experiences with their plants.

“We found that many participants were happy to share stories of their plant and the challenges they overcame in getting their tree planted and established,” said Dr. Parsons. 

One week after the event, one participant reported, “He’s currently greener than can be. I’ve really enjoyed taking care of the plant (who I affectionately named Compton Boole, after a video game character I like), and it gives me something to look forward to every day.” 

In January 2025, Brenda Akao-Wedin, a plant steward who named her adopted ʻaʻaliʻi, “Ikaika,” reached out to the team saying, “Ikaika is doing so well in ‘Āinakō! So well that I had to prune it back so it wouldn’t be in the way of the water meters. It even flowered last summer. I’m so thrilled to have ‘a’ali’i growing at my elevation (I think 600’).”

Creating a Storymap

 Last year, the team began constructing a storymap, culminating the experience, using information about the plants and feedback from the plant stewards. As the name suggests, a storymap is an interactive tool that combines geography with engaging content to tell a story about a specific place or event.

Their storymap provided an overview of the event and included ecological information and moʻolelo or story about each of the plants the team gave away, a map that plots the areas where the seedlings were planted and the environmental conditions of those areas, and updates on the progress of some of the adopted plants.

“One of the most interesting sections of our storymap was where people planted the native trees they adopted,” said Dr. Parsons. “We expected most trees to be planted in and around Hilo, where the event took place, but seedlings ended up being planted in all of the districts on Hawaiʻi Island. Trees were also planted in areas with different rainfall patterns, elevations, and vegetation zones.”

One of the goals of creating the storymap was to offer a model for other organizations wishing to engage with participants after similar events.

“Sharing this model through a storymap is super exciting in that it is not simply sharing information, which doesn’t drive human behavior all that much, but sharing a relational pathway that moves well past conventions of one-off workshops, conferences, community fairs, etc.,” said Laursen.

The team recently released their storymap, “Beyond Event Experiences,” first sharing it with the participants who adopted a seedling over two years ago. Lei Leong was one of them.

“It was so interesting seeing the different native plant species people chose on a map, creating a community feeling and personal connection to the project,” said Leong.

Learn more by visiting the Beyond Event Experiences storymap.