Posted on: Friday, July 27, 2001
1,200 biology researchers from around world meeting in Hilo
By Hugh Clark
Advertiser Big Island Bureau
HILO, Hawai'i — Hawai'i's natural world will take center stage when 1,200 delegates from 43 nations convene in Hilo Sunday for the annual meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology.
The conference, titled "Ecological Lessons from Islands," is the most prestigious event staged at the new conference center at the University of Hawai'i-Hilo, said Judith Fox-Goldstein, director of the center and president of Destination Hilo, a tourism promotion group.
Aside from highlighting Hawai'i's wide-ranging ecosystems, the conference, which runs through Wednesday, is "huge" because of its potential impact on the local economy and the opportunity to increase interest in research on the Big Island, Fox-Goldstein said.
Because of the World Conference on Hula Sunday through Aug. 4, Hilo hotels and rental cars are scarce. UH-Hilo will house 400 biology delegates at its dormitories.
Biology conference delegates will benefit from the Big Island's natural "laboratory" that includes such varied landscapes as Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge and the dryland forest at Ka'upulehu in North Kona, said Paula Helfrich, president of the Hawai'i Island Economic Development Board.
"The conference will raise awareness worldwide for one of Hawai'i's special characteristics, its natural beauty," Helfrich said.
Among the 497 papers to be presented at the conference, which is not open to the public, are a number on Hawai'i topics, including:
• The recovery plan for the threatened palila, a honeycreeper bird that has altered the use of Mauna Kea over the past three decades after federal judges ordered all game animals removed from the mountain.
• Control of the red fire ant, which has been called "a severe and imminent threat to Hawai'i" by Maui researcher Ellen VanGelder of Haleakala National Park.
• A review of the conservation efforts for Hawaiian ecosystems to be presented by James Jacobi of Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park's Kilauea Field Station.
• An outline for dealing with alien reptiles and amphibians, such as the brown tree snake and Caribbean tree frog, by Earl Campbell of the Hilo-based National Wildlife Research Center.
