Rene Sylva was a native Hawaiian botanist from Paia, Hawaii

Paia, Hawaii

Pāia is a census-designated place in Maui County, Hawaii, on the northern coast of the island of Maui. The population was 2,499 at the 2000 census. Pāia is home to several restaurants, art galleries, surf shops and other tourist-oriented businesses. One business, Charley's, is frequented by...

. He was among the only native Hawaiian fishermen to speak in favor of a ban on fishing green sea turtles. After giving up a career in turtle fishing, he became involved in the conservation of native Hawaiian ecosystems. He assisted renowned botanists Otto Degener

Otto Degener

Otto Degener was a botanist and conservationist who specialized in identifying plants of the Hawaiian Islands.-Life:Otto Degener was born May 13, 1899 in East Orange, New Jersey. Degener graduated from the Massachusetts Agricultural College...

  and Dr. Harold St. John

Harold St. John

Harold St. John was a professor of botany at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa from 1929 to 1958. A prolific specialist in field botany and systematics, he is credited with discovering about 500 new species of Pandanus, along with many other species, especially in the Pacific Islands.Born in...

 in surveying remote regions of the Hawaiian Islands

Hawaiian Islands

The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll...

 for native plants.

In 1976, Sylva became the caretaker of the Maui Zoological and Botanical Gardens in Kahului, Hawaii, which later became known as the Maui Nui Botanical Gardens

Maui Nui Botanical Gardens

The Maui Nui Botanical Gardens , formerly known as the Maui Zoological and Botanical Gardens, are botanical gardens located at 150 Kanaloa Avenue, Kahului, Maui, Hawaii. They are open Monday through Saturday...

. Gradually he shifted the garden’s emphasis from exotic animals to plants unique to Maui

Maui

The island of Maui is the second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands at and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is part of the state of Hawaii and is the largest of Maui County's four islands, bigger than Lānai, Kahoolawe, and Molokai. In 2010, Maui had a population of 144,444,...

, Moloka‘i, Lana‘i, and Kaho‘olawe--creating the first botanical garden in the state to focus on endemic plants. He personally collected and cultivated over 200 native coastal and dry forests

Hawaiian tropical dry forests

The Hawaiian tropical dry forests are a tropical dry broadleaf forest ecoregion in the Hawaiian Islands. They cover an area of on the leeward side of the main islands and the summits of Niihau and Kahoolawe. These forests are either seasonal or sclerophyllous. Annual rainfall is less than and...

 species. He was widely considered the authority on the native flora of Maui County.

Throughout his life, Sylva passionately defended native Hawaiian ecosystems. In an essay for the Native Hawaiian Plant Society, he wrote:

“It is a good thing to classify plants as endangered, but we must realize that this does not save them from becoming extinct. It merely gives them paper protection. I recall when the first plant was entered on the endangered species list on April 26, 1978. It is still on that list today. As far as I know, no plant has ever come off the Endangered Species List. The only way for a plant to be removed from that list is to become extinct. To me, this is a disgraceful and insulting way of saving Hawaiian plants.”

He was active with many volunteer organizations, including the Honokowai restoration project, and the reforestation of Kaho‘olawe until suffering from a stroke in 2006. He is credited with mentoring numerous conservationists, including native plant nursery owner, Anna Palomino, and parataxonomists Forest and Kim Starr. For his efforts to conserve rare and endangered flora and fauna in Hawaii, Tetramolopium sylvae, an endangered species in the Asteraceae

Asteraceae

The Asteraceae or Compositae , is an exceedingly large and widespread family of vascular plants. The group has more than 22,750 currently accepted species, spread across 1620 genera and 12 subfamilies...

 family was named in his honor.

Sylva served as a tank driver for the U.S. military during the Korean War

Korean War

The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

.

External links

• "A Force of Nature" Article highlighting Mr. Sylva's accomplishments. Maui No Ka 'Oi Magazine
  Maui No Ka 'Oi Magazine
  Maui Nō Ka Oi Magazine is a bi-monthly regional magazine published by the Haynes Publishing Group in Wailuku, Hawaii.The phrase Maui nō ka ʻoi means "Maui is unparallel" in the Hawaiian language. Maui Nō Ka Oi Magazine features stories relating to the culture, art, dining, environmental issues,...
  
  Vol. 11 No. 2 (March 2007).
• "Inspirational Force Dies"