Aloha and welcome to Home is Here.

we're here at world famous Alii Beach Park in Haleiwa on Oahu’s North Shore and every year, off this very beach, the best surfers in the world compete in the first leg of the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing.

The Triple Crown was started by two local surfers, Fred Hemmings and longtime event director, Randy Rarick.

Randy found surfing at a young age and has been involved with the sport ever since.

From fixing dings and shaping boards to competing professionally and putting on surf events, Randy’s life has centered around surfing for the last 6 decades.

Since he's retired as the director of the Triple Crown he's kept his passion alive, restoring historic and vintage surf boards.

I'm Randy Rarick from the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii.

I grew up here in Hawaii and surfing has been my life since I was a 10 year old kid.

Had my first surf at 10 years old when Rabbit Kekai the famous Hawaiian beach boy pushed me into my first wave.

And it was right in front of the old Royal Hawaiian.

And I remember riding that wave for about 20, 30 yards and the wave faded out.

It was probably a little one foot wave.

And I looked back and I went, Wow, that's amazing.

I propelled myself through the water with no propeller, no motor, no nothing.

It was just the pure aspect of nature, and I was just enthralled.

I said, I really want to be a surfer.

Back in the 60s, which was known the Golden Age of surfing.

They came out with foam which made the boards much lighter and much easier to ride.

And so they exploded the interest in surfing.

And being a young haole kid growing up in the islands.

Everybody took up surfing.

And it was really amazing because back then they had what they called surf bums.

It was kind of a spin off of the word ski bum.

And I always thought you know, it was unfair to call us bums just because we wanted to go surfing.

And the idea was, you know, we wanted to spend as much time as possible in the water in Hawaii was the perfect place to do it.

A funny little story, I was a boy scout, was troop ten in Kaimuki.

And I had perfect attendance.

And one week this movie came to town.

Back in the 60s the way you got your kind of fix on surfing was when a surf movie came to town.

And they came about every few months.

And this one came and I saw the posters go up on all the telephone poles.

And it said one night only and it was at the Princess Kaiulani down in Waikiki.

They were showing the film.

And it was on a Friday night and I had to make a decision.

Do I go see this surf movie?

Or do I go to my keep my perfect attendance and Boy Scouts, and I hemmed and hawed all week long.

And finally, Friday came around, and I said, You know what?

I'm going to the surf movie.

And that's when I said, I'm going to be a surfer for the rest of my life.

Before I became a full time surfer, I Before I became a full time surfer, I remember going into a surf shop, or it's actually a factory in Kakaako.

It was the old Velzy Surfboard Factory where they made the boards for the rental fleets in Waikiki.

And I walked in the shop.

And here's all these racks with all these surfboards.

And it's like, oh, my gosh, look at all this.

And the smell of the resin was just intoxicating.

And I smelled that and I watch the guys what like making these boards and I said to myself, I want to make surfboards.

So at 11 years old, I decided I was going to start making surfboards.

And shortly thereafter, I began to fix dings on boards and in and around their neighborhood.

By the time I was 12 years old, we moved out to Niu Valley on the the Southeast Shore.

And I said to all the guys in the neighborhood, I said, I’ll fix your dings for free, you just pay for the materials.

So I started fixing boards for everybody and I got so good at it.

That by the time was 14, I actually got hired at 14 years old to work at Hobi surfboards and surfline Hawaii and Honolulu.

And basically that launched my career in manufacturing and it pretty much every aspect of making surfboards.

This break out in front of my house was called toes reef and every day after school rain or shine wind or no wind no waves or whatever, we would paddle out to toes reef and surf it so I was dedicated to being a surfer.

Then on the weekends I would work at the surf shop, repairing boards.

And by surfing a lot you got it we got into competition and I got to be a decent surfer.

I probably culminated my teenage years by winning the Hawaii State surfing championships in 1967.

So that was a real honor to be the Hawaii State Champion in the junior division.

At the same time it was making boards I apprenticed under George Downing under Dick Brewer and learn how to shape surfboards and I begin transitioning from repairing boards to shaping boards.

At the same time I was competing.

So I was surfing in the local amateur tournaments and towards the late 60s there began to be a little bit of sprinkling of actually prize money in these events.

And at that stage I was in my late teens.

And we all say God, wouldn't it be really neat if he got paid to be a surfer.

And that was just the very beginning of pro surfing it really, there was no such thing as a professional surfer yet, but they started giving a little bit of prize money away.

And it was like, Wow, imagine if you just went surfing and you got paid.

And that's all you had to do was go surfing.

I saw that pro surfing was going to be happening.

And I realized that was the future of where surfing was going.

Problem was, I was a little bit too late in the game to become really a good pro surfer.

Because I was out by those back in those days, by the time you hit 20 years old, you're over the hill.

And I was by that stage in my early 20s.

And I realized I had it.

If I wanted to keep making boards, that would have been good.

But if I wanted to be involved in professional surfing, I had to do something.

So I teamed up in the mid 70s with Fred Hemmings.

And we started what was called international professional surfing, which was the forerunner of what is now called the World Surf League.

And we started the pro tour in 1976.

And it legitimized professional surfing prior to that surfing, it was just basically considered a lifestyle sport.

And it wasn't really considered a professional or competitive sport, per se.

But by organizing a world tour, linking all these events around the world together and creating this world circuit, we created the credibility that professional surfing was there to stay, and back then there was hardly any prize money, and now it's a multibillion dollar industry.

I was a tour director from 1976 through 1982.

And after six years of going around the world, which was everybody thought it was just a romantic dream job.

It was a lot of work, a lot of pain in the butt and there was no money back in those early days, we're by hook and crook pulling the tour together.

And I would actually shape surfboards at each stop along the way to make enough money to get to the next stop.

I had to supplement my income by shaping surfboards still, well, the tour kept growing year by year by year.

And in 1983.

There was kind of a coup where the IPS that Fred Hemmings and myself had started, was overthrown by a group called the association of surfing professionals or the ASP.

And that was led by an Australian contingent of mainly Ian Cairns and Peter Townend.

So, in 1983, the ASP superseded the IPs.

I resigned my position as a tour director.

And I decided to dedicate my energy here to Hawaii.

They moved the tour finish from Hawaii to Australia.

So Fred Hemmings and myself decided, well, we need to have something here in Hawai’i.

So we grouped the three events, the main events, there was the Hawaiian Pro, there was the World Cup of surfing and the pipeline masters those three events.

We linked the three together and we created what was known as the Triple Crown of surfing.

At the time, we didn't realize it was going to grow into probably the most important title next to the world title.

We just wanted something to help promote Hawaii because the world tour was no longer being decided here.

That was back in 1983.

And here we are 40 years later, and it's the Triple Crown is still considered the series of events, almost more important than the world title, especially to the Hawaiians, I dedicated my life as a director of the Triple Crown events, to really building the importance, the credibility, and really projecting what Hawaii had to offer in the world of surfing.

Growing up here in Hawaii, your hearts in Hawaii.

And I always have wanted to promote Hawaii I mentioned earlier about I hated it when they called us surf bums when I hated it when they put Hawaii down in Hawaii has the best surf in the world.

And I've traveled through 170 different countries.

And I've surfed in 70 of them and I surfed the best waves and around the world.

And I guarantee you Hawaii has got the best surf in the world.

So we should have the best surfing competitions in the world.

Surfing is Hawaii’s gift to the world of sport.

I mean, there’s no question about it, It originated here, it’s spread the world wide.

And now they say there’s something like 32 million surfers in the world.

So it’s crazy how this little sport that started in Hawaii has blossomed around the world.

Really, my heart was always to promote Hawaii as the birthplace of surfing the place where surfing deserves to be recognized the most.

And, you know, I spent my entire professional career doing just that.

And I think it's great that the Australians had super good waves, the South Africans have great areas.

Europe's amazing how many good waves they’ve found in Europe, South America, of course, and but everybody wants to come to Hawaii, Hawaii is Mecca.

If you're a surfer, and you want to be considered complete, you have to come to Hawaii.

And if you're a competitive surfer, you have to come and win in Hawaii.

Iʻm really proud to present to the 2013 Vans Triple Crown of Surfing champion John John Florence.

When I was 16 years old was in Waikiki for the opening ceremony of the Duke Kahanamoku Invitational.

This was 1966, 67.

And Duke was there.

And here I was, I was a helper for Fred Van Dyke who was running the tournament.

And the Duke saw me and he was kind of standing alone all these other people, these luminaries and famous surfers and everything.

And he looked at me said, Hey, boy, come sit down next to me.

And I was like, Oh my gosh, here's Duke Kahanamoku.

So I sat down next to Duke.

And we had about 10, 15 minutes, which was a long time for an evening would go and nobody bother us.

And he sat and he asked me, he says, Well, what do you do?

And I said, Well, I'm helping, you know, to put this event together.

And I'm really, you know, like, starry eyed looking at the Duke and he says, he says, I want to tell you something.

Whatever you put back, you will get 10 times over.

So he says, Do as much as you can, and do as much as you can for surfing You, and you will enjoy the fruits of your efforts.

And that's stuck in my brain.

And I took that as sort of my mantra that I am going to be whatever I can do for surfing, and particularly Hawaii to promote in the best way I possibly can, whether it's shaping a surfboard running a surf contest, putting on a surf movie, conducting anything it was, the more you can put a good positive effort forward, you will get that in return 10 times over and that's been my philosophy over the last six years and it's allowed me to really travel the world and use surfing as a metaphor for life.

Almost 40 years of running tournaments here in Hawaii, but you get to a point where you eventually have to stop doing what you're doing and and the mid 2020 teens, I decided it was time for me to retire, the staff that I built working at triple crown, I kind of handed the keys off to them.

And I said, you know, take the take the ball here and run with it.

And they've done a really good job of continuing to keep the events.

And so now I've come full circle after 60 years of being involved in the surfing industry.

65 years.

I'm back to what I started off as when I was a teenager.

I'm now back to what I call a glorified ding repair.

And what this is, is taking old surfboards, stripped them down and basically rebuild them the way we did back in the 60s.

So the art of surfboard restoration is just that it's an art because basically what you're doing similar to a car restoration You take an old blank that is now brown and dinged and beat up and seeing the ravages of time and being written so much.

And we actually have a technique where we sand it and we peel the fiberglass off.

So you're exposing back to the raw foam now.

Now that film was usually browned out from the sunshine because they didn't have ultraviolet inhibitors back in those days, and there's dings on it from being run into by other surfers or hitting the reef or what have you.

The fin on it is usually broken off You try to keep the integrity of the shape bring it back to clean white foam and then you fix all the dings where you put a patch in it or you repair to plug a hole or whatever it may take to damages.

Then we fiberglass it again like we did in the 60s back then we use two layers of 10 ounce fiberglass.

And then you put some color we're kind of we use what we call gel coat pigment where you mix different colors and you put stripes or bands or different kinds of badging on it and you try to make it look as original as you possibly can to what the board looks like when it came out of the factory you new.

I've been a I've been a lifelong surfer since I was 10 years old.

So we're talking 65 years ago now.

And that what we call Stoke.

And it's really hard to explain to someone who has never surfed, what it is to experience surfing.

It's just the thrill, the excitement, and the fact that it's different every time keeps it just that thrilling and exciting.

That first wave when I was 10 years old, I rode that 20, 30 yard wave and look back and went wow, it was amazing to be able to move through the ocean on this this moving wave and capture that spirit.

I'm still happy to just be able to paddle out and experience that essence of what mother nature can give to you.

And as I said it's super hard to put into words super hard to describe it's really an indescribable experience that you get when you ride a wave.

As much as Hawaii is recognized for its surfing, the islands have long been admired for their natural beauty.

But in recent decades, our native species have struggled to survive.

The Laukahi Network is looking to change that through a coordinated effort to help save Hawaii’s native plants before they disappear.

With Hawaii's native plants, they're in a rather dire situation.

There's a multitude of threats facing our native plants.

Hawaii's native plants occupy 44% of the list of endangered species in the US.

So we're facing a real uphill battle right now.

The Laukahi Network is an alliance of organizations, individuals and agencies all aiming to protect Hawaii's native plants through coordinated conservation.

Our network consists of all these partners, the state and federal agencies, other nonprofits, the Botanical Gardens, and land managers.

Every one that has a component of plant conservation mission.

And so we try to align all of our work together to try and advance plant conservation in the state of Hawaii.

Yeah, so the seed Conservation Lab is a repository seed bank for the entire Hawaiian archipelago.

So we bank seeds from all the other islands.

And we put them in long term storage, whether it's a freezer or refrigerator, depending on the storage behavior of that species, in the hopes that we can preserve that genetic diversity long term for propagation, restoration and restoration efforts later on.

We have little over 31 million seeds banked in our collection.

It covers about 550 of the total taxa.

And then we have about 315 rare, endangered species.

The seed bank’s really important because in these kinds of extinction events, or rapid population decline, even population shifts, we have these individuals in a safe location.

And so part of our a big part of our work and research is pulling these in germinating them and providing individuals to go back out into the wild to restore populations.

Between species, between genera, there are different storage behaviors.

So we have orthodox species and they can tolerate freezing in a conventional freezer.

What we would consider intermediate species are ones that freeze sensitive.

And so instead, we put those in the refrigerator.

Ideally, we want to get them as cold as possible if they can handle it, because the colder we get them, the longer we can, we can slow the metabolic rate of the seed down to extend its shelf life long term.

The third category are seeds that we consider recalcitrant.

So that means I can't put them in a standard refrigerator or freezer.

So it's very difficult for us to maintain those in the seed lab, for the most part.

At this time, we don't, and a lot of those species are represented in our micropropagation lab.

So this room contains our tissue culture collection.

And so all of these plants are being grown in sealed test tubes in tissue culture.

And so the vast majority of these plants are actually critically endangered.

So that means they have less than 50 individuals in the wild.

And we also have a handful plants that are currently extinct in the wild.

So they're not found anywhere else in the wild or in any other facilities.

We currently have 43,000 plants growing in tissue culture.

And so it's an incredible amount of work for us to maintain this collection.

We have about 220 rare and endangered taxa of native wind plants.

But in addition to that we also have a lot of culturally significant plants like taro, sweet potato, and banana.

We currently have 89 different varieties of taro that we grow and maintain here in culture and provide to other loi farms for them to grow and perpetuate those specific varieties.

So over the course of a year, these plants will outgrow their test tubes, they'll grow to the top, they'll suck up all the nutrients in the media.

And what we have to do is take them out, take cuttings from them, and plant them back into fresh media.

So that they can continue to grow for the next year.

The work that we do here in the lab is extremely important because a lot of these plants don't exist anywhere else in the world outside of Hawaii.

So if we were to lose the species, they would be lost forever.

The micropropagation lab doesn't actually own any of these species.

These are all species that are owned by the different land managers such as DLNR DOFAW, or the National Army Resource Program, who then give us the task of taking these plants and preparing them for outplanting when they determine that they have enough resources available to put those plants back out into the wild.

So today we're gonna be out planting lobelia oahuensis.

This is part of a larger project.

We've grown 2,500 of this species to help restore it.

There are only 20 left in the wild.

So we're hoping that by outplanting these individuals, all of different founders, so that we have a good genetic mix that we will start to see some natural recruitment .

This is a monocarpic species.

So when it flowers it dies, you know, so we're putting out high numbers in the hopes that we'll see more growing in the future.

So for Extinction Prevention Program - PEPP - we deal with plants that have 50 or fewer founders remaining in the wild.

So the founder is the mature individual plant that's in the wild that we go and survey for and monitor and we’re making those collections from.

So it's really important that we know exactly all the different founders where they came from.

We follow them through when we collect the seeds, we labeled them down to know where these individuals came from.

And, and so when we plant them out into the wild, we know which mama plant they came from.

And so when they go back into the ground, we'll track it.

And then when those baby plants produce seeds of their own, we'll collect that information as well.

We are seeing some trends of maybe like some, like some of the plants are put out.

Environmental factors are making them flower or mature a little bit quicker.

So we're, it is maybe a little bit of a rush for us to try and go back to these different individuals to make sure that we're making collections from these, these plants before they die off.

So that we have those founders, those, the genetic information kind of represented for the future.

Challenges that we're seeing are the degradation of their natural habitat by invasive species, such as ungulates, pigs and goats, as well as invasive weeds.

Additionally, recently, we've had more human visitation of these habitats.

So as you're enjoying the natural environment here on Oahu, I recommend that you stay on the trail.

Going off trail really makes a big impact to the surrounding habitat by introducing weeds on your shoes, and degrading the habitat by stepping on sensitive plants and in the area and it also invites other animals such as rats, to follow you into the forest or pigs even.

So, stay on the trail.

Be aware of your surroundings.

These are a lot of times sacred places and coming to the forest with the mindset of doing no harm.

You were ready.

Here you go.

When we plant them, we learned from our partners in the Big Island that we have been saying, “E ola oe.

E ola makou nei.” Because of you we all live, if you live, we all live.

So it’s really cool to give purpose when you’re doing it.

And to give them a little blessing on their way.

Here you go.

The best part is that every species has a story from start to finish from either it was culturally used or that it is, you know, recognized worldwide for its evolutionary history, or that it has a really unique breeding system or that they have an interesting seed storage behavior, or, I mean, there's always an interesting aspect.

So every day, all the plants have something to tell you, if you're there to listen.

Something that I want people to take away we really care.

This is something that is from our heart, and we become intimately connected with the plants that we collect, and then rear up and then plant out.

And we really have the best intentions to see them through and to see them recovered, so that our keiki and their keiki and generations to come can still come out and to see these plants or to know that they are there and that they are part of an ecosystem.

There's always hope, you know, we wouldn't come to work if we thought that it was hopeless, you know.

So, we, we hope every day that we're making the best difference that we can make, and we show up thinking we're gonna give 100% and I see my team giving 200%, 500% They're working super hard, every day.

Something that I think is really special with the Laukahi Network within these partnerships, is when I hear people say that they feel like they're being brought up.

And it's because some of these shared resources that they have the tools to succeed now.

You know, every single one of them in the greenhouse and the seed bank out in the field.

I'm just always so impressed and motivated by everyone's dedication, that this community, they make it possible for Laukahi Network to exist.

And for us to do what we do.

Everyone's agenda is the plants.

So we can, through collaboration, advance plant conservation in Hawaii.

Mahalo for joining us.

Please visit PBS Hawaii dot org or the PBS Hawaii YouTube for digital exclusive content from this episode.

For Home is Here, I’m Kalai Miller, a hui hou.

There's no place like Hawaii, we have the best weather in the world.

We have you can surf every single day of the year in Hawaii, there was a wave somewhere on one of the shores of each island that may not be the perfect surf, but you can get wet, you can ride a wave.

Some different ways that the public can be engaged with the Laukahi network.

I think, first of all, is just listening to plant stories.

Maybe it sounds a little bit silly, but I think just trying to learn a little bit more about the wonderful, beautiful native plants that we have in Hawaii, learning more about the institutions and the people that are working so hard to protect them.