Winner 2009 "Best Travel Guide" Merit Award from the North American Travel Journalists' Association (NATJA)

Paradise is an ideal. It’s somewhere other than where you spend your busy days. It’s soaked in beauty, and the sight of it stops your mind. It lifts your heart.

But there’s more beneath the surface of a pretty picture. There are struggles to keep Hawaii’s coastlines from being developed, desperate battles to protect endangered plants and wildlife against invasive species. And there are the tireless folks, who wake up obsessing about some cherished piece of wilderness or some underwater sanctuary or some species in danger of falling off the map.

You’ll meet them in Preserving Paradise—hopefully soon you’ll be standing next to them. A response to both our economic and environmental crises, the book features over 65 organizations in Hawaii that offer short-term volunteer opportunities with the islands’ land, ocean, and wildlife. Going beyond "green tourism" or ecotourism, it’s a way to experience the Hawaiian Islands that doesn’t just have less of an impact, but actually gives something back.

Directly in line with President Obama's "call to service" to the American people, his Service Agenda, and the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, these inspiring service projects provide a way to help make our nation a better place, starting at the grassroots community level. For visitors whose travel budgets have been cut considerably, these free voluntourism opportunities also provide an antidote—they allow you to travel in Hawaii inexpensively while providing a hands-on way to help preserve the islands for years to come. For residents, these Hawaii volunteer opportunities allow you to explore some amazing projects happening right in your own backyards, encouraging you to rediscover your own islands while at the same time protecting them.

Some Hawaii volunteer projects even take you to places otherwise inaccessible, promising a one-of-a-kind experience in a remarkable locale. And most require less than a day’s commitment (and none more than three months), so you can try projects out in the short term to discover where your passions best lie—a perfect fit for our busy lifestyles.

We all need a paradise to come home to. But we need to consider our impact on this paradise. More importantly, our responsibility to it. The Hawaii volunteer opportunities in this book—the first of its kind for any U.S. region—are one way to begin. Let's let every day be Earth Day in Hawaii.

[photo credits, top to bottom]

Maxine Graham, Surfrider Foundation Kauai
Liz Foote, Project S.E.A.-Link
Kirsten Whatley, Maui Coastal Land Trust
Maxine Graham, Surfrider Foundation Kauai

Mark Your Calendars!

2009 Earth Day—April 22
2009 National Volunteer Week—April 19–25