Hawaiʻi joins mission to preserve Pacific biodiversity through biobanking

Hawaiʻi is now the focus of an ambitious global initiative to expand “biobanking” to all endangered species by 2075.

Biobanking is the process of collecting, processing, storing, and distributing biological samples — including living cell lines — and associated data for research purposes. It is a vital tool for biodiversity conservation.

Bishop Museum, the State of Hawaiʻi Museum of Natural and Cultural History, and the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance are collaborating to expand biobanking capacity in Hawaiʻi and across the Pacific to protect the islands’ unique biodiversity and cultural heritage.

The partnership, unveiled at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi, places Hawaiʻi in this movement along with three other facilities in Kenya, Vietnam, and Peru to create a global biobanking network. All locations are areas with significant levels of biodiversity threatened with high levels of extinction.

The partnership leverages more than a century of Bishop Museum leadership in Pacific collections, research, and community engagement, along with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s pioneering years of the Frozen Zoo — the world’s most comprehensive wildlife biobank.

Together, the institutions will train local conservationists, expand facilities, and safeguard the legacy of Hawaiʻi’s most imperiled species, from rare forest birds to the ancient kāhuli (Hawaiian land snails).

“Hawaiʻi is home to some of the most endangered species on Earth, many found nowhere else,” said Dr. Norine W. Yeung, Bishop Museum curator of Malacology. “Biobanking represents both a scientific and cultural commitment: it ensures that future generations will not only inherit the legacy of these species but also the ʻike (knowledge) and moʻolelo (stories) tied to them.”

The Bishop Museum is widely regarded as the world’s premier institution for Hawaiian and Pacific content with the vast collections of more than 22 million biological specimens, over 2 million cultural objects, 115,000 historical publications, and 1 million photographs, films, works of art, audio recordings, and manuscripts.

“Protecting biodiversity in Hawaiʻi is inseparable from protecting cultural heritage,” said Dr. Kenneth A. Hayes, Bishop Museum director of the Pacific Center for Molecular Biodiversity. “Every species stored in the biobank represents not only an evolutionary lineage millions of years in the making, but also a relationship between people and place that we have a kuleana (responsibility) to safeguard.”

With support from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, Bishop Museum is advancing biobanking initiatives through its Pacific Center for Molecular Biodiversity and is soon expanding to include the Waihona Ola Pacific Biobank, which houses more than 95,000 samples of Pacific biodiversity.

The collaboration will further biobanking efforts to include living cell lines, tissues, and reproductive materials, critical tools for future restoration and conservation.

“Biobanking efforts provide hope by increasing species’ resiliency, which benefits both people and nature,” said Dr. Nadine Lamberski, chief conservation science and wildlife health officer for San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. “By linking Hawaiʻi’s biobanking initiatives to a global network of distributed repositories, Bishop Museum and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance are ensuring that the Pacific plays a vital role in safeguarding Earth’s living heritage for generations to come.”