Tuesday, November 20, 2012

No Event in December!

Yellow Track will be off and there are lots of other competing events in December. So there will be no event in December. Have a great, happy, and healthy holiday season Tree Huggers! See you in the new year.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Mokauea Island - November 10, 2012

Saturday, Nov 10, 2012 the Tree Huggers went back to Mokauea Island to help restore the native plants. They were part of a larger group doing many projects on Mokauea Island that day from various organizations including HPU, New Hope, Farrington High School and UH.

After paddling over to the island, the Mililani Middle School Tree Huggers listened to Auntie Joni and Auntie Kehaulani discuss the history of Mokauea Island.

Then, they planted cuttings around the fishpond from seedlings grown by 7th graders back at the school campus.

The Tree Huggers used the Big Gulp technique, taught to us by Bruce Koebele, author of the book A Native Hawaiian Garden.

After finishing the planting, we took a walk around the island. We couldn't explore the reef because the tide had already come up.

It was a great day and a lot of great work was done by the Tree Huggers. We'll come back soon to take off the cups to look at survival rates of the plants. We hope for 100%!

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Pouhala Marsh - October 20, 2012

Saturday October 20th, the Tree Huggers teamed up with Hui Malama o Mililani from MHS for a workday at Pouhala Marsh. The marsh is the largest remaining wetland habitat of Pearl Harbor and The Hawaii Nature Center is working with community groups and state organizations to restore the habitat.

Pouhala Marsh provides habitat for the endangered Hawaiian Stilt and other native waterbirds. On our field trip we saw stilts, coots, and ducks, among other organisms.

After a brief introduction about the history of the marsh and surrounding area, students worked very hard to remove invasive cattail and mangrove from the marsh. They all got very muddy in the process and not a single complaint was heard.

Good work everyone!