The wildfire created by the recent eruption of the Kilauea volcano on the Island of Hawaii has already burned some 2,000 acres in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, home to 23 species of endangered plants and 6 endangered birds. Because this fire now threatens a relatively pristine native rain forest that is home to Hawaii's famous happyface spiders and honeycreeper songbirds, Park officials are quite rightly doing everything they can to stop it. As a whole, Hawaii is a globally important paradise that is dying on our watch. Three quarters of all the bird and plant extinctions in the US have occurred within these islands, and one third of America's threatened and endangered birds and plants now reside within this state.
The wildfire created by the recent eruption of the Kilauea volcano on the Island of Hawaii has already burned some 2,000 acres in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, home to 23 species of endangered plants and 6 endangered birds. Because this fire now threatens a relatively pristine native rain forest that is home to Hawaii's famous happyface spiders and honeycreeper songbirds, Park officials are quite rightly doing everything they can to stop it. As a whole, Hawaii is a globally important paradise that is dying on our watch. Three quarters of all the bird and plant extinctions in the US have occurred within these islands, and one third of America's threatened and endangered birds and plants now reside within this state.
Read more of this post at on Huffington Post in their Green section. 
Island Press Field Notes administrator.