Moku
Māhuahua
Building native seed production systems
Increasing accessibility to seed and plant materials of common native species to support ecosystem restoration and wildfire recovery at scale.
Native ecosystems are under threat. One of the greatest challenges to their restoration is the lack of native seed.
Most restoration in Hawaiʻi still depends on collecting seed from wild plants. The need for seed exceeds what exists in the wild.
To address this shortage, Moku Māhuahua is supporting local seed collectors, native plant propagators, and researchers within Hawaiʻi. The purpose is to begin establishing and storing bulk wild seed collections of common ʻworkhorseʼ plant species.
Collecting Seed Responsibly
Dedicated staff carefully collect, process and store seed from healthy wild populations to represent species across their ranges and avoid harming plant communities. We allocate portions of each collection for near-term use by landowners, long-term backup for wild populations, and for some species, the building blocks for seed production.
Growing More Seed
Instead of relying on wild collections alone, the program employs seed production strategies that maintain native plant population diversity and increase seed quantities available for restoration and disaster response within given geographies.
Working Together
We depend on partnerships and collective decision-making. We work with private landowners, government agencies, conservation organizations, farmers, and community groups to build seed production and sharing networks that support restoration where it is needed most.
UH Land and Ocean Conservation Futures, Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation
tchambers.oanrp@gmail.comUH Mānoa Ecosystems and Landcare (UHELP), Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, College of Tropical Agriculture & Human Resilience
trauerni@hawaii.edu