Hawaii has had trouble with this type of thing before... back when there were still "wild" kava stands (long-forgotten native gardens) in the forests. Because

Hawaii has had trouble with this type of thing before... back when there were still "wild" kava stands (long-forgotten native gardens) in the forests. Because of the high value of those decades old plants, they were often poached. Even micro-chipping couldn't prevent their eventual complete loss from the forests. Kava (or Awa, as it's called in Hawaii) is a "canoe plant", meaning it was one of the original plants the Polynesians brought with them when they first settled Hawaii. But then the Christians arrived and put a complete stop to Hawaiian kava culture and farming. They had to revive the practice from almost nothing, had to trek through forests looking for old lost kava from which to propagate and save Hawaiian cultivars (kava doesn't seed and cannot grow without human intervention).