Division of Forestry and Wildlife

Why Trees? Tree benefit data from Kaulunani

Learn how community forests support our environment, human health, economy, and education. Our Kaulunani Urban & Community Forestry Program has compiled statistics and references to help you research and learn about tree benefits in communities.

Click here to learn about tree benefits with Kaulunani

Meet Hawaiʻi’s Plants

If you’re researching plants in Hawaiʻi, start with our species profiles for canoe plants and common native species. Each profile has information about distribution and life characteristics, with references for further learning. Once you’ve checked out those species, you can learn about Hawaiʻi’s rare plants or landscaping plants with the GoNative or Plant Pono resources below.

Plants in Hawaiʻi: Species Profiles

Go Native: Choose native plants for landscaping

This site helps you pick native species and Polynesian-introduced plants for landscaping based on your specific climate and growing conditions. By growing these species across our communities, we can create kīpuka for other native species to use as habitat and food for Hawaiʻi’s people. Go Native is a project of the Hawaiʻi Forest Institute and Grow Good Hawaiʻi.

Visit Go Native

Plant Pono: Find alternatives to invasive plants

Plant Pono uses the Hawaiʻi-Pacific Weed Risk Assessment to determine how likely a plant species is to be invasive in Hawaiʻi. If you’re thinking of planting a particular landscape species, check it out on Plant Pono first. If it’s likely to be invasive, Plant Pono will suggest alternatives for you that are a better fit for Hawaiʻi.

Visit Plant Pono

What’s your tree worth? Calculate benefits with iTree

Tree benefits can be assigned a monetary value. While your favorite tree might be priceless to you, you can use iTree to calculate the specific monetary benefits associated with carbon dioxide uptake, stormwater mitigation, air pollution removal, energy reduction, and avoided emissions. Tell the app your tree’s species type, location, trunk diameter, and condition to get started.

Visit iTree

Hawaiʻi Backyard Conservation: Ideas for Every Homeowner

This downloadable book gives homeowners ideas for how to turn their backyards into conservation opportunities. Learn how to plant native plants, help beneficial insects, create wildlife habitat, manage stormwater, mulch, compost, control weeds, and more.

Hawaiʻi Backyard Conservation: Ideas for Every Homeowner

Find Exceptional Trees across Hawaiʻi

The Outdoor Circle created this interactive map to explore Hawaiʻi’s exceptional trees. Find trees on each island and click to see what makes it exceptional, alongside info including age, height, diameter, and species profiles.

Exceptional Tree Map of Hawaiʻi

Why Hire an Arborist?

Proper tree maintenance and care is a critical part of stewarding community forests. A trained, certified arborist is a professional with knowledge about tree biology, diagnosis of tree issues, safety, and proper pruning and tree care. Learn about how arborists are trained at treesaregood.org. You can find certified arborists through the Aloha Arborist Association or become a certified arborist through educational programs at institutions like Windward Community College.

Why Hire an Arborist? (treesaregood.org)

How to properly care for trees

As a tree owner, you have the responsibility to properly care for your trees. Visit Treesaregood.org to learn how to manage tree hazards and risks, address plant health issues, and prune trees.

We also have Best Management Practices for invasive species to help prevent the spread of little fire ants, coconut rhinoceros beetles, and coqui frogs.

Tree Canopy Viewer Hawaiʻi

You can research tree canopy data for different parts of Hawaiʻi using our interactive map. For additional research, overlay data including heat severity, tree inventory, population, Native Hawaiian Population, stewardship organizations, income, asthma, cardiovascular disease, and more. 

Visit the Tree Canopy Viewer

K-5 Forestry Educational Activities from City & County of Honolulu

Learn about biodiversity, how to measure tree height, leaf shapes, roots, and more with this colorful activity book. The book is an excellent accompaniment to learning with trees on your school campus or during a field trip to a community forest. The booklet includes an answer key for educators.

Download K-5 Forestry Educational Activities 

ʻUlu Curriculum from the Breadfruit Institute

This downloadable PDF includes lesson plans targeted for 3rd and 4th graders about the cultural and nutritional value of ʻulu (breadfruit). The unit includes moʻolelo about the origins of ʻulu, coloring sheets, and learning about different parts of plants. Educators can find standards alignment descriptions within the PDF. The Breadfruit Initiative is part of the National Tropical Botanical Garden.

Download the ʻUlu Curriculum

Symphony of the Hawaiʻi Forests: Teaching Resources

The Symphony of the Hawaiʻi Forests is a music, art, and nature collaboration celebrating forests and trees in Hawaiʻi. Teaching resources about trees and forests in Hawaiʻi were compiled for this project by Mālama Learning Center. 

Teaching Resources

Community Forests Coloring Page

This printable coloring page allows your students to create their own community forest. They can use their imaginations to provide colors for the flowers and fruits of kou, ʻulu, and mango trees, or you can help them explore our website to learn about these species.

Download the Community Forests Coloring Page

ʻŌhiʻa Finger Puppet Craft

Your students can become the community forest when you download and print this easy craft activity. Each student will cut and tape together a single ʻōhiʻa lehua blossom that will perch on their finger. If you’d like to add to your forest, you can have some of your students create native bird finger puppets that can visit the ʻōhiʻa lehua for nectar. This is a great opportunity to discuss as a class how having more ʻōhiʻa and other native plants in our communities could help create more habitat for our native animals.

Download our ‘Ō’hiā Finger Puppet

Craft Activity: ʻŌhiʻa Lehua Crown

Be the queen or king of your community forest by creating your own crown. Our downloadable craft can be cut and taped together to create a crown of lehua stamen (youʻll likely need to print multiple sheets per student, depending on head size).

Download our Lehua Crown Activity.pdf

Little Flora Paper Doll Activity

Students can cut out and arrange different native plant parts into outfits for Flora. As part of the activity, make sure to learn about the plants that Flora is wearing through our species profile pages for loulu, pōpolo, koʻoloaʻula, and naupaka kahakai.

Download our Flora Paper Doll Activity

Tree and watershed activities from Three Mountain Alliance

Your students can learn about Hawaiʻi’s watersheds, trees, and plant parts from Three Mountain Alliance on Hawaiʻi Island. Their downloadable resources incorporate ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi and guiding questions for student learning.

Learning Activity Guides (Three Mountain Alliance)

Pono STEAM kits from The Nest Makerspace

Download instructions to create STEAM kit activities for your students, including several activities related to trees and community forests: making hua moa and kukui nut chalk; learning about lau and light by making chlorophyll prints; and making leaf nametags using autograph tree leaves. These kits are designed locally by Corinne Takara and come with detailed lesson plans to align your work with standards, including Hawaiian Core Social Studies standards.

Download Pono STEAM kit instructions from The Nest Makerspace

Request a classroom presentation about trees and community forests

Invite a guest speaker to talk to your students about the benefits of trees. You can use our presentation request form if youʻd like a speaker from Forestry & Wildlife, or you can contact our campaign partners to inquire about classroom presentations. You can find a full list of campaign partners at the top of this page, or jump straight to partners like Aloha Tree Alliance, Grow Good Hawaiʻi, Trees for Honolulu’s Future, and Koʻolau Mountains Watershed Partnership.

Get a technical consult from our Shade Trees in Schools program and build your school’s campus tree resources

The Shade Trees for Schools program provides technical assistance to schools, aiding them in selecting the “right tree for the right place”- ensuring trees are planted with long-term health in mind. We provide educational resources to connect DOE campus communities across the state to trees already living on their campus, as well as future trees they may add to their campus ʻohana.

As Kaulunani’s Campus Forester, Malia Staab visits schools to create connections to trees within communities. Passionate about native species, she encourages schools to build a relationship to place through native plant restoration on their campuses.

Become a Tree Campus

Growing trees on campus builds pilina between students and trees and can improve students’ educational experience and performance. Kaulunani is the local coordinator for the Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree Campus K-12 and Tree Campus Higher Education programs. Learn how to become a Tree Campus and get recognition for your school’s efforts to integrate trees into your curriculum.

Tree Campus K-12 and Tree Campus Higher Education programs

Build a School Garden or participate in the Farm to School program

Hawaiʻi’s public schools can be home to fruit trees an other garden plants that allow your students to engage with nature and grow their own food. Learn more from the Kauaʻi School Garden Network, the Hawaiʻi Island School Garden Network, the UH College of Tropical Agriculture & Human Resources, and the Hawaiʻi Farm to School Hui.

Activities and art from Trees for Honolulu’s Future

Trees for Honolulu’s Future provides multiple educational opportunities, including a keiki art contest celebrating community forests, and multi-sensory curricula to help students connect with threes. Their curricula are available for preschoolers and for K-2 students. 

Video: Ke Kaluʻulu: Bountiful Breadfruit Groves of Kona

Learn about ancient food tree groves grown throughout the planting zones of Kona. This 5-minute video from the Amy Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden teaches students about different types of plants farmed by Native Hawaiians including kalo, ʻuala, uhi, maiʻa, and ʻulu.

Watch Ke Kaluʻulu: Bountiful Breadfruit Groves of Kona

Video: How to Properly Plant a Tree

Planting a tree can be one of the best things you can do for your property, the natural environment, and your community. This video from the Honolulu Department of Parks and Recreation teaches you the 10 steps to properly planting a tree.

Watch: How to Properly Plant a Tree

Kumulāʻau: the Card Game

From Trees for Honolulu’s Future, this new card game is about Hawaiʻi’s trees and climate change. Kumulāʻau translates to “tree” in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. This game explores Hawaiʻi’s trees, the many benefits they provide, the threats they face due to climate change, and their needs for growth and survival.

Get your deck from Trees for Honolulu’s Future

Tree Stickers!

Decorate your water bottle or computer with our stickers celebrating trees and the benefits they provide to communities. We have stickers featuring ʻōhiʻa, wiliwili, monkeypod, kukui, ulu, niu, and activities like carving, weaving, planting, and birdwatching.

If youʻre a Hawaiʻi resident, we’ll send you 1-3 stickers for free. If you’re a teacher, we’ll send you a sticker pack for your class. Email [email protected] (and include your address) to request stickers. Type “Tree stickers” in your email subject line to help us process your order separately from our other sticker offerings for manu, kāhuli, etc. If you are a teacher also ordering a classroom poster, please send us a single email with the subject line “Tree poster and stickers”.

Classroom Posters

Add Hawaiʻi’s trees to your classroom. The text at the bottom educates students about the benefits of trees to health, education, and the environment. Posters are free to Hawaiʻi teachers. We do not ship on Oʻahu due to postage costs, but you can pick up a poster at 1151 Punchbowl St, Rm 325, Honolulu during regular business hours, no appointment necessary.

For teachers on Kauaʻi, Molokai, Maui, or Hawaiʻi Island, email [email protected] with your mailing address. If you are also ordering stickers, please send us a single email with the subject line “Tree poster and stickers”.

Virtual meeting backgrounds & device wallpapers

Bring trees along to your next virtual meeting. Bring the whole forest, or choose your favorite tree or activity. You can also use our backgrounds as computer wallpapers. We have vertical wallpapers for smartphones and watches.

Download them from our website here.

Spotlight: Monthly plant adoptions with Grow Aloha

Grow aloha with Hawaiian native plants and heritage crops at monthly plant adoptions! Grow Aloha is a hui of plant adoption partners with monthly, recurring adoption events across Hawaiʻi.

Adoption partners include the National Tropical Botanical Garden, Bishop Museum, Molokaʻi Land Trust, Maui Nui Botanical Gardens, and Amy Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden.

For adoption event details and contact information, visit growaloha.org. Some adoptions require reservations. Grow Aloha is managed by the National Tropical Botanical Garden.