Keith Robinson (environmentalist)
| Keith Robinson | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of California Davis |
| Known for | Co-owner of Niʻihau |
| Relatives | Aubrey Robinson (grandfather) |
Keith Robinson is an American environmentalist who is the co-owner of Niʻihau, the second-smallest of the eight principal Hawaiian Islands.
Robinson was born c. 1941 to Lester Beauclerk Robinson (1901–69) and Helen Matthew Robinson (1910–2002). He attended the University of California Davis, graduating with a degree in agronomy and ranch management. After college, he served in the US Army before returning to Hawaii, where he initially worked at the Koolau Ranch on Kauaʻi seven years and then operated a commercial fishing vessel on Kauaʻi for another seven years.
Robinson and his brother Bruce own the approximately 70-square-mile (180 km2) island of Niʻihau in the Hawaiian island chain, which has been in the private possession of their family since their great-great-grandmother Elizabeth McHutchinson Sinclair (1800–92) purchased it from King Kamehameha V for US$10,000 in gold. He is also the manager of a private botanical garden on the Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi. Robinson makes his home on Kauaʻi, but visits Niʻihau at least once per week on average.
Robinson has been credited for keeping numerous Hawaiian plants from becoming extinct, including Cyanea pinnatifida, which is considered extinct in the wild.
I've spent eighteen years and more than $250,000 doing this work, and I estimate it would cost the government or environmental groups $10–20 million to create a comparable reserve. I've done all phases of it myself; scouting, seed collecting, seed germination, planting, transplanting, watering, growing, fencing, fertilizing, and insecticide spraying. In most environmental groups or botanical gardens, the work is highly compartmentalized. You get your plant scouts, your seed collectors, your nurserymen, and people on the grounds. They all have different duties, and their duties never change, so none of them has a broad overview of what's going on. They don't know what specific problems there are at various stages where you're trying to produce the plants.
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