More than 90% of the native species on the Hawaiian Islands are found nowhere else, making these populations more vulnerable to extinction; if they are lost there, they are lost forever. The smaller the island, the smaller the population of a given species, another vunerability for extinction. Here, botanists work through the night setting up a protective fence around the last specimen of Delissea undulata found in the wild. This endangered plant was growing on the side of a collapsed lava tube, but had been knocked over by wind or animals and was dangling from its roots.
CHRIS JOHNS/National Geographic Creative