Return to Coconut Island

ARCS Foundation Honolulu Chapter started with a meeting on Coconut Island, where Barbara Pauley, a charter member of the Los Angeles Founding Chapter. She and her husband enjoyed visiting with Univeristy of Hawai‘i scientists working on the state-owned perimeter while staying at their vacation home on the island's interior. The ARCS Honolulu Chaoter provided $2.5 million for UH graduate students in STEM fields in the 50 years following that 1974 meeting. And Pauley later re-purchased the privately held portion of the island and gifted it to the university for expansion of the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology. Honolulu members returned to the island for a tour and picnic with guests attending the January 2024 National Board Meeting in Honolulu.

First stop: the wet tanks lab of ARCS Scholar Leon Tran

A power outage didn't phase the group, whihe visited Leon's octopi tanks by cell-phone flashlight.

ARCS Scholar Leon Tran with one of his research subjects

Moving on...

Checking out sea creatures at the touch tank

Learning about different kinds of corals and reefs, plus anemones, sea stars, sea cuumbers and more.

Claire Lager explains the work of the Smithsonian coral cryopreservation project.

ARCS Scholar alum Van Wishengrad has returned to the Hawaii‘i Institue of Marine Biology for his second postdoctoral position

Honolulu member Jessica Radovich checks out an aquarium in Van's lab.

A group photo after lunch in the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology picnic area.

Back on O‘ahu, the group braves gusty winds for a visit to the He‘eia National Estuarine Reserch Reserve led by ARCS Scholar alumna Yoshimi Rii, who is the state representative for the project. She explained the Hawaiian land division system that extended from mountain top through valleys and wetlands out into the ocean, creating an interconnected, self-sustaining agricultural system.

Fred Rappun is part of the community non-profit Ka ko‘o O‘iwi, which is restoringing traditional Hawaiian loi (gardens) within the reserve.

Kalo (taro) is a Hawaiian staple—the corm pounded for poi, the leaves stewed in luau or wrapped aorund pork and fish and steamed to make laulau. Ancient chants tell how the plant arose from the burial of the first-born still-born child of Wakea (sky father) and Papa (earth mother), making it the elder brother to the second born Haloa, the ancestor of the Hawaiian people.

The loi is also home to indigenous birds.

Water from the loi flows into the He‘eia fish pond, which is being restored

On to the picnic area for lunch

To Quote a Scholar: Mason Russo

"I have conducted comprehensive studies on two invasive insect pests in the Hawaiian Islands that are severely impacting Hawaiian ecosystems. The coconut rhinoceros beetle is spreading fast across Oahu and has reached other islands. The hala scale impacts native coastal hala forests."

Besides offsetting the high cost of living in Hawai‘i, funds from the 2024 Maybelle F. Roth ARCS Scholar and Honolulu Scholar of the Year awards would allow Mason Russo to return to Asia if an initial survey produces promising biological control agents for the battle against destructive insects that threaten Hawai‘i trees.

Scholar Update: Oceanographer Amy Baco-Taylor

“Because most species in the deep sea are slow growing and long-lived, deep-sea species are actually more vulnerable to human impacts than many shallow-water ecosystems.”

– 1999 Honolulu ARCS Scholar Dr. Amy Baco-Taylor, explaining the importance of her research on deep sea ecosystems in a Q&A on the Florida State University website where she is now a professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science. Read the profile

Scholar Update: Indigenous Scientist Haunani Kane

“Climate issues are large global issues, but the solutions are really going to need to be locally based, driven by communities: community needs, and their vision for the future, as well as looking at our native people and the way that they have sustainably managed lands and their coastal resources,”

2017 Toby Lee ARCS Scholar Dr. Haunani Kane combines indigenous knowledge and modern scientific techniques in her work as Univrsity of Hawai‘i at Manoa assistant professor of earth sciences. Read more

Honolulu 50th Anniversary Field Trip to Coconut Island

Recent ARCS Events

Return to Coconut Island

To Quote a Scholar: Mason Russo

Scholar Update: Oceanographer Amy Baco-Taylor

Scholar Update: Indigenous Scientist Haunani Kane