There is a rare opportunity for non-profits to earn money and help Hawaii's environment at the same time.
With the help of The Nature Conservancy, Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods is trying to end an age old trend.
"And The Nature Conservancy is all about preserving the native forest and the upper forest. And what's nice about Hawaiian Legacy hardwoods is they're about returning the forest. We've lost over half of our native forests in Hawaii since contact with humans," says John Henshaw, The Nature Conservancy.
Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods offers koa trees for sale. Your non-profit sells the trees which are identified with the owner's name. Part of the sale money goes to Nature Conservancy.
"We then put that into our budget and use it to protect the upper forest, the intact forest at the same he's re-generating the lost forest in the lower elevation so it's a situation where it's a great partnership," says Henshaw.
Hawaiian Legacy Hardwood's Jeff Dunster likes the idea of a personalized donation to re-build the koa forest.
"We give individuals the ability to sponsor a single tree and they contract that tree and follow that tree. They can go on line, they can go and visit it. there's more of a personal connection as opposed to just i'm making a donation," says Jeff Dunster, Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods.
The koa forest re-planting is just a beginning.
"It isn't just the koa tree that we're interested in. It's the other native trees...we'll be planting mamani and naio and sandlewood, right down to the hawaiian raspberry," says Dunster.
Individuals may purchase trees and donate the proceeds to charity. Ms. Kawamoto's first grade class at St. Andrews Priory purchased a tree for me! I'll make sure they get books for the library.
"They can select what charity they want to sponsor and we will send a check and usually we end up hearing from the charities who ask us what's this all about, how does this work and suprisingly a lot of charities are starting to use this as a fundraiser themselves," says Dunster.
