Environmentalism is second nature for many

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Staff Writer

Some residents are thinking about the environment because Earth Day is coming up Thursday — but for many families across Hawai'i, Earth Day is every day.

Alice Imlay of Bryans Rd, Md., and her husband, Marc, spend their Hawai'i vacation clearing weeds in Kaua'i forests with the Koke'e Resource Conservation Program. Jan TenBruggencate • The Honolulu Advertiser

The Liggett clan, of Kaimuki, is an example of how Hawai'i teaches and acts on its environmental consciousness.

Reese Liggett, 62, and his wife, Suzan Harada, 44, have been taking their

7-year-old daughter, Alice, hiking since she was an infant carried in a sling. Liggett said he feels a duty as a parent to make sure Alice is aware of environmental issues.

"It is something my wife and I both believe in, and it is something we want her to understand," he said.

Liggett, who served in the Air Force as a bomber pilot, is now a real-estate agent and a committed environmentalist. He sees no conflict between military and environmental roles.

"I was in the military because I think it is very important to defend the country," he said. "I'm in the Sierra Club to make sure there is something worth defending."

Teens, parents team up

The family has always recycled, and Mike Lowrey built the family home in Hawaiian Acres largely out of recycled materials. Lowrey also takes it upon himself to occasionally haul away junked cars and old appliances that are dumped by the roadsides.

Lowrey, 49, said he tends to shy away from clubs and organizations — although he and his wife, Katie, belong to the Sierra Club and The Nature Conservancy — but he thinks nothing of carting away rubbish on his own.

"I guess I think we should all be more aware of the environment and we should all be more concerned about what we do with our trash," said Lowrey, a builder and property manager.

It was Emma, a self-assured and busy sophomore, who tapped her parents for environmental projects — like getting her mother to help out with a Junior Greenpeace rummage sale fund-raiser, and recruiting her father for a trip to Hakalau to volunteer at a native-plant nursery.

Last year, 15-year-old Maui student Ryan Nakagawa and his mom, Linda Castro, were intrigued by a program to help scientists learn about reefs.

"It was something we could do together," Castro said. "And I wanted to preserve (the reefs) for his generation."

Castro, spa supervisor at the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua, and Nakagawa, a freshman at Lahainaluna High School, together adopted three Kapalua-area reefs in Project S.E.A.-Link's Adopt-a-REEF program: Kapalua Bay, Hawea Point and Cliffhouse reefs.

Every so often — weather permitting — Linda and Ryan don their scuba gear and count the fish they see swimming at their adopted reefs. The numbers go to Project S.E.A.-Link for inclusion in the greater Reef Environmental Education Foundation database.

"They are such an inspiration," said Liz Foote, executive director of Project S.E.A.-Link. "Here, they found something they love and they can do together, and it's really touching to have them on board."

Working for the planet is becoming mainstream. Do a Google search on "environmental volunteer" and more than 1.7 million sites come up. Make it "Hawaii environmental volunteer" and 95,000 are returned. Many are repetitive and some are off-topic, but it's a significant presence.

Doing what they love

Linda Castro and son Ryan Nakagawa, 15, check out one of their three adopted reefs from the shore at Kapalua Bay on Maui. They also count fish in an effort to help scientists learn about reefs. Timothy Hurley • The Honolulu Advertiser

The Lowrey family on the Big Island volunteers to help clear trails and eradicate miconia infestations in selected areas. From left: Mike Lowrey, 49, daughter Emma, 15, and wife Katie, 47. Kevin Dayton • The Honolulu Advertiser

"It's rescuing what you love," said Marc Imlay, 65, a tourist from Bryans Rd, Md. Imlay and his wife, Alice, 67, come to Kaua'i on vacation every couple of years. And when they do, they spend nearly the entire holiday working in the forest.

"It started when we were on vacation and we saw a group of about 20 people clearing invasive weeds on the Iliau Nature Loop," Imlay said. The Imlays began volunteering with the Koke'e Resource Conservation Program, which provides rustic housing for workers at a restored 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps camp near the Koke'e State Park headquarters. Volunteers pull weeds, clear trails and occasionally use selected herbicides to kill invasive weeds in the native forests.

"The volunteer resources are there. If you have time to solicit them, you can have unlimited volunteers," said Ellen Coulombe, the Conservation Program's volunteer coordinator. The program gets about 10,000 hours of volunteer labor a year, she said.

One feature of environment volunteers is that their commitment is often broader than one program.

The Liggett clan does beach cleanups, recycles and leads trail hikes for the Sierra Club — a form of environmental education.

"We like getting other people into the out-of-doors so they appreciate it and understand why the Sierra Club is fighting so hard for it and why they should," Liggett said.

The Big Island's Lowrey family clears trails, and works to eradicate miconia infestations in selected areas. And young Emma is looking for new ways to help.

"She's a very strong-willed person, and she feels strongly for the environment," said her mother, Katie. "I don't nudge her at all, she doesn't need me nudging. I tell her not to sign up for stuff. ... How much can one person do?"

In fact, Emma has plans to do more. In particular she is concerned with deforestation around the world and the effect that has on animal habitat, and she has been considering writing an article that would outline which companies are serious about conservation.

"I know there's some companies out there that just cut some trees (instead of clear cutting), and I really like that, so I want to find out which companies do that and which don't," she said.

Ryan Nakagawa and his mom are committed to the ocean, and when they're done with their fish tallies, they sometimes launch beach cleanups. He has been particularly concerned about the number of cigarette butts he's finding on beaches and is mulling starting a petition drive to make Maui's beaches smoke-free.

There are a lot of toxins in those cigarette butts, he points out.

"It's bad for the ocean."

Advertiser writers Kevin Dayton, James Gonser and Tim Hurley contributed to this story. Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.