Santa Barbara Botanic Garden Special Event:
Saving Hawaii's Vanishing Flora with Chipper Wichman

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Wed, December 5, 7pm
Reservations required, 682-4726, ext. 102
Fee: $5 members/ $7 non-members

Hawaii has the most endangered flora of anywhere in the United States due to the extreme isolation of the islands and the rapid change Hawaii has undergone in the past 200 years.

Chipper Wichman, Director of the National Tropical Botanical Garden, will share with you the story of how this organization was chartered by the United States Congress in 1964 as a non-profit organization dedicated to conservation, research, and education, and how it has grown over the past 40 years to become a national and international resource and a primary force in saving Hawaii's vanishing flora.

Witness intrepid botanists who stop at nothing short of the end of their rope and the beautiful and fragile tropical plants whose future depends on them. Watch as plants are plucked from the edge of extinction and nursed back to healthy populations through in situ and ex situ conservation programs.

You will learn how the scientific discoveries at NTBG have changed the way ecologists view evolution in the Pacific. NTBG scientists are also helping humankind through anti-HIV research and finding innovative ways to feed starving populations of the tropical world. In addition, innovative educational programs for medical MDs, college professors, and environmental journalists are provided. Wichman, who has been at the Garden for 31 years, will share with you in his unique and passionate way, the story of the NTBG and how it is working feverishly to save our nation's most endangered flora.

Event Location
Blaksley Library, Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, 1212 Mission Canyon Rd
805 682-4726, ext. 102
www.sbbg.org


Chipper Wichman, Director and Chief Executive Officer
National Tropical Botanical Garden

For most of his life, Chipper has worked to preserve the precious natural and cultural resources of Hawai`i where he was born and raised. He began work at the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) in 1976 where he worked with well-known botanists to conduct botanical surveys of Limahuli valley and the N? Pali coast. During these exciting expeditions Chipper discovered several new species of plants and helped to pioneer methods of rappelling down cliffs to hand pollinate the species threatened with extinction.
Over the past 20 years, Chipper and his wife Hau'oli, who is his Executive Assistant, have developed an integrated resource stewardship program in the 1,000-acre Limahuli valley which Chipper had inherited from his grandmother, Juliet Rice Wichman. This Ahupua'a Stewardship Program is based upon the traditional values that were the foundation of Hawaiian society and helped Chipper and Limahuli Garden and Preserve garner a prestigious award in 1997 for The Best Natural Botanical Garden in America from the American Horticultural Society in commemoration of the AHS's 75th anniversary.