Best Plant Manager

Dangling from a rope over the cliffs of Kauai’s lush Kalalau Valley, Ken Wood, 53, gathers pollen from a sole male plant and, armed with a Q-tip, rappels to find a surviving female. A biologist with Hawaii’s National Tropical Botanical Garden, he wages a daily battle to protect the islands’ endangered plants. The state leads the nation with 264 dwindling species, threatened by real estate development, the loss of pollinating birds and insects, and invasive plants and animals. Wood, who has also helped discover 50 new species in the Pacific, is one of the few things standing between many plants and extinction. Says Wood, a father of two girls, “The earth is a gift, it’s precious, and it’s in a balance.”