When it comes to preserving and protecting nature in Hawaiʻi, one man has committed nearly half a century towards making conservation his career.
Sam Ohu Gon III is the senior scientist and cultural advisor with The Nature Conservancy, and after dedicating nearly 50 years of his life towards their conservation efforts, he'll be stepping back from full time work.
Interview Highlights
On conserving nature
SAM OHU GON III: When you're in native forests like up in Kaʻala, it's like being hurled back a thousand years, right? And you're surrounded by almost all native species, and just the structure of the vegetation is different. It's immediately recognizable … and yet it's an illusion. It's an illusion of decades of efforts to keep the weeds away, to protect them from invasive animals, and to deal with all of the threats that would normally degrade that place. … So that's part of what conservation is all about. … That's a dedication that I think everyone should have a piece of.
On his experience and advice
GON: If I were to give advice to a young person, I would say keep your interests as broad as possible within the natural world. In the old days, they would have been called naturalists, right? They didn't specialize in birds or insects or botany or the like. … Be fascinated by everything that you see when you're out in a place, a unique place. Hawaiʻi offers lifetimes of experiences for folks. The things that I've seen in my 50 years of work in Hawaiʻi enriched me so much. It's just mind-boggling.
On conserving Hawaiʻi's land and culture
GON: Other places in the world, if you look at Indigenous people, sometimes they've lost their language altogether. They've been moved from the place that they originally lived, and asked to, you know, assimilate into modern society. But in Hawaiʻi, our place names are still Hawaiian names. The language is still alive. The culture is growing so much that it's now entered into the realm of conservation, and that juncture of culture and conservation is the future of not only Hawaiʻi but probably the world.
This story aired on The Conversation on Oct. 22, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
