This is a bird note.

Sam Oh, Gugan is the senior scientist and cultural advisor for the Nature Conservancy of Hawaii.

And he's quick to tell you about how special Hawaii's

ecology is. Hawaii is an amazing place because it's a microcosm of the world. In one limited area you have a huge number of the major

biome types of the entire globe and you can find a environmental setting in Hawaii

that can support just about every living plant species.

With invasive species and climate change, Hawaii has experienced so much loss and

extinction since Western colonists arrived. But Sam, who's Native Hawaiian, has done a lot of work connecting Hawaiian culture and tradition to conservation ecology.

The best managed and preserved areas on Earth that remain are ones that largely retain their

indigenous relationships. It's a movement that's growing and Hawaii is kind of leading the way in that

there is growing recognition that traditional knowledge is a vital part of long-term conservation success.

Sam hopes that one day Hawaii can be not just a microcosm of ecology, but of conservation as well.

We get to be the example of what can happen in a place if you can work the right combination of people and the natural world.

People living in a place, caring for their lands from the top of the mountains above

them all the way down into the depths of the sea.

For Bird Note, I'm Mark Bramhill.