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Chipper Wichman

For his entire adult 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 and retired in 2023. One of Chipper’s greatest accomplishments is the creation of the 1,000-acre award winning Limahuli Garden and Preserve in the early 1970s and 1980s where he and his wife Hauʻoli developed a biocultural management program based on traditional Hawaiian ahupua‘a practices and knowledge.

In 1998, Chipper and Hauʻoli with four other community leaders founded Hui Makaʻāinana o Makana (the “Hui”), a new nonprofit dedicated to protecting the cultural resources in Hā‘ena State Park and to reestablishing the rightful role of the community as the stewards of this wahi pana. For the past 26 years Chipper and Hauʻoli have served both as Directors of the Hui as well as members of the Hui’s ʻOhana Council.

As a globally recognized leader, Chipper was instrumental in leading the successful efforts to bring the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) World Conservation Congress to Hawaii in 2016, where he gave the closing speech to more than 10,000 delegates from 192 countries. Since his retirement in 2023, Chipper has been focused on helping the Hui and The Hanalei Initiative (THI) to implement a partnership that has transformed Hā‘ena into the leading example of “regenerative tourism” in the state.

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