Malama O Puna is a Hawaiian nonprofit corporation that aims to provide a critical habitat for the region's native species and also to teach future generations about how to preserve the environment.
"We have a proven track record of being fiscally responsible to our mission and effective in our advocacy. If people are interested in preserving environmental quality in Puna and having an effective group to support community causes that are being ignored, Malama O Puna is the organization to support," Eileen O'Hara, executive director of Malama O Puna, told Big Island Times. "We are in the trenches and have an extremely knowledgeable and diverse board of directors and membership. We're also involved in our local schools with environmental education."
Malama O Puna works to protect Hawaii's natural heritage through educating, consulting and partnering with community organizations and individuals to increase public awareness about the importance of protecting Hawaii's unique ecosystem. In addition to the environmental focus, the organization has a social mission to improve the safety and livelihood of the community.
"We’ve done various environmental protection projects, still support a couple of large forest restoration projects and serve as a financial host for community groups seeking grants that are not 501c3s," O'Hara said. "We’ve played a big role in restoring private roads lost to the 2018 lava flow that inundated large areas of Lower Puna. We also assisted with COVID food programs and dissemination of masks and sanitizer in 2020. We did a video on the Lava Recovery efforts that is on our website. We’ve done projects to control invasive species and sponsored a high school science project."
Malama O Puna offers a free consultation to property owners who want to learn about plants and trees on their lot before they make the costly mistake of removing them. It provides a learning center with a library of books and two computers for conducting environmental research and for submitting testimony to political bodies. Additionally, the organization has meeting space available for group meetings.
Malama O Puna is a Hawaii 501(c)(3) volunteer service organization that focuses on the environment. Its mission is to assure the proper upbringing of future generations through environmental education, hands-on projects, advocacy, watch-dogging and land trusting.