LANDFIRE team and local ecologists developing descriptions and models of Hawaiian ecosystems.
Hawai`i welcomes the LANDFIRE team to our islands. This week we are in the middle of a three-day workshop to develop our ecosystem descriptions and our base models. The descriptions and models will be used to produce a whole suite of products that should prove to be very useful for our StARS.
These LANDFIRE people are really really smart, and this workshop brings together some of our best ecologists. Hawai`i is among the last of the states for LANDFIRE to complete, and so we have the benefit of a very experienced team. The LANDFIRE team also recognizes some of our unique issues (high degree of endemism, impacts of invasive species, boutique ecosystems, cultural impacts, etc.), and they are willing to think outside the box to produce products that will be of use to us locally, while fulfillling the national requirements for data consistency.
Yeah, LANDFIRE is yet one more “national” dataset that is finally incorporating Hawai`i!
Mahalo to the LANDFIRE team.
