Pacific healers race to protect traditional medicine plants threatened by climate change

For generations, families across the Pacific have used plants to treat sickness and keep their communities healthy. Traditional healers in Hawaii, Samoa, and Tahiti know which leaves, barks, and roots can fight pain and heal wounds. But climate change, severe storms, and invasive plant species are making these medicinal plants harder to find. Healers and community leaders are now racing to protect this ancient knowledge before it disappears.

In Hawaii, traditional medicine is called lāʻau lapaʻau, a sacred healing practice passed down through families for hundreds of years. Keoki Kīkaha Pai Baclayon is one of its practitioners, and he works at the Waimanalo Health Centre alongside modern doctors. He learned to heal from his father's side of the family and also teaches at the University of Hawaii. His work shows how traditional and modern medicine can support each other.

Keoki remembers a family story that shows how powerful traditional healing can be. His father fell out of a mango tree as a boy and fractured his arm, but the hospital was too far away. His grandmother made a cast from the bark of a hao tree, which worked well enough to heal the arm. Keoki says he has used that same technique for patients who could not afford hospital care.

Climate change is making healing plants very hard to find in Hawaii. Keoki says 90 percent of Hawaii is experiencing more drought than ever before, with heat that lasts longer and rain that does not stay long enough. Native plants are being crowded out by invasive species and pushed into mountain areas where they struggle to grow. New buildings and roads have also destroyed many places where medicinal plants once thrived.

In Samoa, a healer named Saumalū has spent decades caring for her village using plant remedies and traditional massage. She learned everything from her mother and focuses especially on treating children and babies. Extreme heat and long dry spells are now killing off the native plants she depends on, leaving them weak and less powerful as medicine. She travels to other villages and pays for rare plants when she cannot find them on her own land.

Researchers in Samoa recently found that a native plant called matalafi fights inflammation in a way similar to the painkiller ibuprofen. For Saumalū, this plant has always been one of the most important in her practice. She believes traditional medicine deserves the same respect as modern medicine. She hopes a programme or school can one day teach young people how to heal properly.

In Tahiti, traditional healers are called Taata Raakaau, and much of their knowledge depends on plants from Papenoo Valley. Johann Hironui Bouit is a cultural custodian who has spent about 30 years protecting this valley from climate damage and development. His grandmother was a traditional healer and his grandfather was a naturopathic doctor, so he grew up learning both types of medicine. Today, his nonprofit organisation Haruru keeps the valley as a place where healers can grow and gather medicinal plants.

Hironui says that climate change is bringing stronger cyclones and heavier rains to Tahiti, threatening the plants in the valley. He recalls that a cyclone around 2004 completely wiped out a type of breadfruit on one of the Tuamotu Islands. Luckily, a botanical garden in Hawaii had preserved 128 varieties of the plant, and the community could replant. He says governments across the Pacific should invest in nurseries and botanical gardens to protect plants from future climate disasters.

The story of traditional Pacific medicine is one of incredible strength. Through colonisation, cultural bans, and now climate change, healers have found ways to keep their knowledge alive. Young Pacific Islanders are encouraged to seek out the healers in their own families and listen to their stories. Writing down what they share and spending time with them are ways to make sure this living knowledge survives.

Traditional healing cannot be learned from a book or the internet alone — it is a way of life. Keoki says the best first step is to look within your own family to find the healers and sit with them. As long as people continue to pass down this sacred knowledge and protect the land it grows from, the remedies will always find a way to endure. The future of traditional medicine depends on the choices young Pacific Islanders make today.