On Tuesday, November 30, nature lovers can celebrate Giving Tuesday with a new donation opportunity to give back to the land. 

Visitors to the Hawai‘i Natural Area Reserves System (NARS) can take an online tour and then make a direct donation.  The online donation portal provides an alternative way to experience and support natural areas.  The new interactive tour showcases twenty-three NARS sites across Hawaiʻi. These lands and waters have been selected because they contain the state’s most diverse and unique ecosystems and geological features.  The NARS seeks to protect both endangered species and the ecosystems they rely on. The reserves have the highest levels of protection in the state to ensure that current and future generations can continue to experience these incredible places that make Hawaiʻi so unique.

The reserves range from the world’s only glaciated tropical alpine lake atop Mauna Kea to oceanic and coastal environments, such as anchialine pools. NARS also include tropical rainforests of towering trees alive with brightly colored birds, or strange stunted forests of “bonsai” ʻōhiʻa trees hundreds of years old but only growing knee-high. NARS units are home to numerous rare and endemic plants and animals, like the ʻakohekohe bird, whose striking head feathers resemble the ʻōhiʻa lehua flowers that it lives among.

Donations made through the portal are deposited into a state trust fund and will support conservation actions in the Natural Area Reserves including planting native trees or removing invasive species.

Those interested in taking the online tour and using the donation tool can visit  https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/ecosystems/nars/donate/ or scan the following QR code:

Photo credit: DLNR