On a Hawaiian mountainside, RFID tags are being planted alongside saplings of an indigenous tree, to track their care and eventual harvesting. The RFID system, being used by Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods (HLH), also enables the grower to track each sapling's lineage, by storing data not just about that tree (linked to a tag's unique ID number), but also the mother tree (the source of the tree's specific seed). In that way, the company can better manage forest diversity, and thus ensure a healthier crop of trees.

HLH selected Confidex Pino, passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) tag, designed specifically for tracking trees and wooden objects. When a seed is first planted in a biodegradable pot at the company's nursery, it is accompanied by an RFID tag encoded with a unique ID number linked to the date and information about its mother tree. In that way, when the trees are planted, the staff has a record of each sapling's lineage and can thus ensure they do not exclusively plant trees from a single mother tree in one area, which would reduce the forest's diversity and, therefore, the general health of the trees within it.

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