HONOLULU, Hawaii David Helweg has been selected as the first permanent director of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Pacific Islands Climate Science Center, headquartered at the University of Hawai’i, Manoa. The center is one of eight regional DOI Climate Science Centers established and managed by the U.S. Geological Survey, to provide federal, state and local land managers access to the best science available on climate change and other landscape-scale stressors of the nation’s natural and cultural resources.
Among the many regional climate change challenges for the Pacific Island communities are freshwater resources, coral reef health, fish and wildlife response to climate change, ecosystem restoration, invasive species, marine and coastal resilience, sea-level rise and coastal erosion, and wildlife disease, and the implications for community and cultural continuity.