Awards underscore Army’s commitment to the aina

The aina in Hawaii is a finite and irreplaceable resource, and its importance in Hawaiian culture is without question. The aina holds that same importance for U.S. Army forces stationed here. The training of ground forces requires our use of the land, yet with that training comes a critical responsibility to care and protect the aina. Here in Hawaii, the Army takes that obligation very seriously.

We are bound by federal law to fully comply with numerous environmental statutes: the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Protection Act and National Historic Preservation Act, among others. We work closely with the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Hawaii Department of Health and the state Historic Preservation Office. We invest more than $16 million annually in Hawaii on environmental protection, with a staff of more than 130 experts — professionally trained biologists, archeologists and others — to protect more than 100 threatened and endangered species and numerous cultural and historic sites entrusted to our care.

We grow endangered plants in three greenhouses on Oahu and one at the Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii island, and reintroduce plants back in the natural environment to bolster population numbers. We fence native habitats to protect endangered animal and plant species from threatening non-native mammals and plants such as rats and invasive weeds.

Our cultural protection staff locates, documents and evaluates hundreds of archaeological sites. We design and construct training ranges and facilities that shield and preserve archaeological sites. We implement protective measures for range use, and mandate awareness briefings to educate our soldiers on sensitive range areas before any field training.

We partner with the Trust for Public Land, Waimea Valley, Moanalua Valley, Pupukea-Paumalu, Honouliuli Preserve, Koolau Mountains and Waianae Mountains Watershed Partnerships, and the Hawaii Sustainability and Pollution Prevention Partnership to establish buffer zones between our training areas and public and private lands.

For these efforts, the secretary of the Army awarded this year’s Environmental Award for Best Natural Resource Management Team — an Army-wide competition — to the Army in Hawaii. What’s more, the secretary of Defense just awarded the Department of Defense award for the same achievement to the Army in Hawaii — chosen across all four military services.

These awards underscore our commitment to protect the aina while simultaneously training on the land we work so hard to protect. And that training of America’s sons and daughters for the dangerous rigors of combat remains one of our most solemn responsibilities.

With our robust and unmatched environmental programs, we can accomplish our critical training mission while preserving the precious aina for generations to come.