Caring for Hawai‘i, One Animal at at Time
Working as a veterinarian for the state is a demanding and multifaceted job, but CTAHR folks are up to it. Coincidentally—or maybe not so coincidentally—the college is associated with at least two intrepid and caring state vets. Formerly a Hawai‘i state veterinary medical officer, Jenee Odani left the post to become CTAHR’s Extension veterinarian. As she explains, this has entailed a ... more >>
A Dog’s Best Friend
“Happiness is a warm puppy.” Loriena Yancura quoted Charlie Brown creator Charles M. Schulz on one of the many benefits of interacting with pets in the syllabus of her class “Going to the Dogs: Companion Animals in Social Science, Medicine, and Humanities.” This innovative Honors course drew students with multiple disciplinary interests to explore myriad aspects of the universal ... more >>
Breeding Success
Mealani Research Station on the Big Island is the perfect living lab for researching cattle production in the tropics and subtropics. In this field, genetics is key, and now the college is researching how to match cattle qualities with the areas where they’ll be raised, including fitness for the amount of rain and sun, the temperature and humidity, and the types of forage growing there. In areas wit ... more >>
Eat (Very) Local
David Fuertes understands two things that bring a community together: meaningful work and food. The nonprofit Kahua Pa‘a Mua, Inc. (KPM), of which he is executive director, works to strengthen his North Kohala community through these, offering educational and cultural programs for youth and adults based on growing food and caring for the land. After earning his undergraduate degree in ... more >>
A Change for the Better
It’s been said that we don’t inherit the land from our parents; we borrow it from our children. And there’s no doubt that it’s being returned in worse shape than when we borrowed it. So it’s only right that we give the next generation the tools needed to help them face the challenges they will encounter when addressing natural resource management in a changing world. ... more >>
Greening Agriculture
When we think of the biggest culprits in pollution and climate change, we may envision cars and factory smokestacks spewing exhaust, not green fields and healthy plants. But actually, agricultural crops and livestock release up to a third of human-generated greenhouse gas worldwide. And this means that any efforts to mitigate climate change must address agricultural emissions. Some types of ... more >>
Pacific Change
The Pacific islands contribute less that 0.03% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet they suffer some of the greatest threats of climate change. This point was made at the Hawai‘i Extension Climate Forum organized by CTAHR’s Cooperative Extension Service and bringing together other university and community partners. The question addressed by participants was how, as Extension ... more >>
Human Poop: An Unexpected Ally in the Fight Against Climate Change
Whether you call it night soil or humanure, human feces, when released to the environment, can cause severe problems to human health. But if managed ecologically, it can potentially be a solution for climate change and sustainable development, as research by assistant professor Rebecca Ryals and postdoctoral researcher Gavin McNicol shows. The two are partnering with the Haitian NGO Sustainable Organic ... more >>
4-H, for Hawai‘i
“It’s not just livestock,” State 4-H coordinator Jeff Goodwin emphasizes, for perhaps the thousandth time during his career. 4-H includes a variety of activities to increase youths’ health, well-being, leadership skills, and community engagement, and it continues to add to its repertoire, incorporating STEM-focused activities such as rocketry. Rearing and showing cows, pigs, ... more >>
The Gathering Place
Everyone else is doing all the work. This is the refrain of the retired faculty volunteers at Poamoho Research Station: they’re just hanging out, at most doing what they’re told. All the others are worthy of praise—farm manager Susan Migita, Extension agents Jari Sugano and Jensen Uyeda for their projects and for managing the volunteer programs, fellow helpers. But the volunteers ... more >>
Between the Earth and the Clouds
Everyone’s heard of the rainforest…but what about a cloud forest? These tropical or subtropical areas characterized by high humidity and persistent cloud cover provide habitat and protection for a variety of species, including native plants and animals, found nowhere else, and they are essential for supplying rainfall to the watersheds beneath them. The most accessible cloud forest in ... more >>
Growing the Future
Not only committed to sustainability but triumphantly sustainable itself, the Sustainable and Organic Farm Training (SOFT) CTAHR student organization is now in its tenth year and still going strong. This group of student volunteers and faculty mentors is dedicated to creating a place for student exploration and leadership in agriculture and highlighting the role of ecological processes in sustainable ... more >>
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