“We are the Kānaka. We are the Hawaiians. We are the ones who, if you screw it up, have nowhere else to go. Whose mana, whose ancestors, whose everything, will be lost.” - Testimony from one uncle from Oʻahu to the Ocean Policy Task Force members.
So, I only made it to the last hour or so of the Ocean Policy Task Force Honolulu “listening” session yesterday, but here are a few of my observations from the time I was there (The amazing Marti and our board member Kealoha Pisciotta were there throughout the afternoon):
Despite the tsunami warning in the AM, it was still a pretty packed room with people from around the islands. (Brothers and sisters in Samoa, in our thoughts.) Thanks to all who heard the kāhea and came out!
In June, the President made a commitment to dramatically improve the health of the ocean. As per usual, however, the push towards a unified U.S. ocean policy may get hijacked by corporate interests seeking to exploit our oceans and may end up undermining local management efforts. Original plans by the Feds were to hold this session in San Francisco only, meaning a 3,000+ miles trek and thousands of dollars in travel costs for concerned Hawai’i (and other peoples of the Pacific) residents. We fought hard to have this “listening session” in Honolulu.
So first, let me say that it was great to actually see administration officials IN Hawai’i, face-to-face with people of the Pacific. In principle? Listening Session = Awesome. In practice? It was sort of more like a “we’ll-listen-to-the-guys-we-want-to-hear-from, and-then-the- rest-of-you-can-talk, at-least-until-we-have-to-leave-for-dinner” session.
There was a hand-picked panel of “stakeholders” up first, ostensibly representing different “stakeholder groups.” Administration officials were about 6 feet above the audience, lined up at a table on a stage, listening. After the panel, the floor was opened up to “everyone else.” At six o’clock, administration officials called it quits. Approximately 35 people who had waited hours to testify, were sent away.
I argued against this kind of “listening” model a lot when I worked in government. The problem I have with this kind of “stakeholder representation” process–the problem I’ve always had with this kind of process–is that it allows a small group of government officials to arbitrarily elevate the voices of a favored few, while demoting the voices of others.
Officials and government staff and consultants favor this kind of model because it gives them a sense that they are being “fair”–through the stakeholder panel, different groups are “equally” represented (e.g., this guy represents business, this guy represents Hawaiians, this guy represents surfers, this guy represents conservation interests)–in an orderly fashion that doesn’t take up a ton of their time and minimizes their being yelled at.
These are all understandably human desires. Orderly = good. Being yelled at = bad.
The problem, is that this is a false sense of order. In reality (where all of us actually live), the world is messy, it is complex, it is imbued with people’s passions, guided by what they care about, filled with uncertain choices, and sometimes charged by their righteous outrage.
Being listened to by government on the fate and future of resources in the public trust should not be a privilege, but a sacred right.
Kealoha noted how much of the public testimony (outside the panel) really focused on the unique needs of Pacific Island nations, sovereignty, the need to acknowlege Hawaiian right-holders, and the imperative to respectfully seek and request indigenous knowledge and ways-of-knowing.
For Hawaiʻi, the stakes are incredibly high. In Hawai’i, we are a place of ocean. The future of Hawaiian waters is the future of Hawai’i. And, (I say this with all due respect) if you must be late to dinner, Dr. Lubchenko, because you are listening to what citizens in Hawai’i have travelled miles to say about their own future, I think maybe that should be okay.
But as a beginning, I left this “listening session” feeling… hopeful. This process will continue over the next year or so, and with more opportunities for Hawaiʻi communities to meaningfully speak to the future of our public trust Hawaiian waters. Please be on the lookout for the next kāhea to participate!
You can still submit written testimony to the Task Force online here.
]]>Tomorrow, we along with others will plead our case at the Board of Land and Natural Resource meeting for a contested case hearing on the Mauna Kea Comprehensive Management Plan.
Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, The Sierra Club-Hawaii, The Royal Order of Kamehameha I, KAHEA: The Hawaiian Environmental Alliance, Dwight J. Vincente and Clarence Kukauakahi Ching have submitted a request for a contested case hearing on the plan.
Robert Harris, executive director of the Sierra Club, said that after the plan was approved in April Mauna Kea was chosen for a $1.2 billion Thirty Meter Telescope project.
“Our position is we’re not sure you should be approving new telescopes until this comprehensive management plan is finalized,” Harris said. “If you are going to call this a comprehensive management plan, I think you’re going to have to take into account future development and this plan specifically doesn’t address any development whatsoever.”
Department of Land and Natural Resources staff are recommending against a contested case hearing, saying there are no laws or rules requiring one because of the board’s approval of the plan and that the petitioners have no property interest in the project.
“The (comprehensive management plan) does not permit or authorize any new land use of development on Mauna Kea, including telescope projects,” the recommendation said.
Marti Townsend, program director for KAHEA, said there is a public interest in the protection of public trust resources. More time is needed to develop the plan and get public input, she said.
The DLNR says the acceptance of the plan doesn’t facilitate new construction but Townsend said she thinks it does, especially in light of the recent announcement of the Thirty Meter Telescope project.
“That was our concern all along — that we’re rushing through the management plan process in order to accommodate the TMT and so it’s really a development plan,” Townsend said.
To read full article click here.
The meeting will be held tomorrow (August 28, 2009) at 9:30 in the DLNR Board Room 132 on the first floor of the Kalanimoku Building at 1151 Punchbowl St. The Board Room is located on the makai (ocean) side of the building.
]]>From Alana:
Too often loko i’a are talked about as things of the past, and somewhat obsolete. They are spoken of like memorials of a time past, a time when Hawaiians could essentially farm huge amounts of fish without even needing to feed them. But those days are over, right? No, they don’t have to be.
On Saturday at He’eia fishpond in Kaneohe, a bunch of people got together to help fish some of the predators, like baracuda, out of the fishpond. He’eia is an estimated 800 years old. It is owned by Bishop Estate, and is cared for by Paepae o He’eia, a private non-profit organization. It has taken them years to clear destructive mangrove trees off of about half the fishpond wall, and they are still working on fixing a hole in the wall, but they still manage to produce and sell moi. He’eia produces anywhere between 300 and 700 pounds of moi each year and that number is expected to increase when the wall is fixed and the fishpond is completely restored. About 100 years ago there were many more fishponds all around the island, but most of them have either been filled in completely with mangroves, or are in ruin.
He’eia, though, is a beautiful example of how community effort can lead to something meaningful and productive. Although many fishponds are privately owned now, they could still serve as productive entities of society. He’eia and Moli’i on O’ahu both manage to. Hawaiian fishponds utilized a system that was not found anywhere else on the planet. It was probably the most efficient and sustainable way of raising herbivore fish ever. Fishponds are not the remnants of an ancient culture. Hawaiians are still here, and Hawaii can still benefit from fishponds.
From Alana:
As a result of many letters being sent to state representatives, Rep. Mazie Hirono has decided to co-sponsor the “Offshore Aquaculture is not Fishing Act of 2009″. The bill asserts that under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the Secretary of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and regional fishery management councils do not have the authority to permit or regulate the commercial ocean fish farming industry, because it is not fishing.
The federal law that gives the Gulf Council and NOAA authority to regulate fish and fishing region-by-region was not intended to govern risky industrial enterprises like ocean fish farms.
This is a step in the right direction for the regulation of offshore aquaculture, which might soon happen in the Gulf of Mexico, and expand in places like Hawaii.
From Melissa:
Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) was denied approval by the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) of it’s Amended Biofuel Contract with Imperium Renewables on August 5, 2009. The amended contract would have Imperium import biodiesel from a West Coast refinery to power HECO’s new 110-megawatt generating plant, instead of a refinery built by Imperium.
Costs brought on by this amended contract would have shifted costs from Imperium to HECO’s customers, as it would have to import the fuel from the West Coast of the Continental US. The PUC ruled,
“…the Amended Contract limits Imperium’s potential liability for failure to perform, but HECO failed to provide credible evidence that such a provision, which substantially shifted risk from Imperium to HECO and its ratepayers, was necessary.” Given the substantial amendments to the Original Contract, which were not subject to a competitive bidding process (or some other process that would provide the commission with some assurance that the amended terms are reasonable), the commission finds that HECO failed to demonstrate that the Amended Contract is in the public interest…”
Although this is a win for HECO’s ratepayers, they must also ask themselves if biofuel is right for Hawaii. As stated in the testimony of Henry Curtis, Executive Director of Life of the Land, against the Amended Biofuel Contact,
Life of the Land’s position (on HECO’s application requesting the Public Utilities Commission’s of the State of Hawaii’s approval to commit funds estimated at $134,310,260 for the purchase and installation of the Campbell Industrial Park Generating Station and Transmission Additions Project) was that biofuels negatively impact climate change in a number of ways: producing ethanol and biodiesel requires the use of large amounts of fossil fuels, water, and land. Hawai`i is parceling off its agricultural land and where we would get the water remains a huge issue. Will Hawai`i ever be able to grow enough biofuel to satisfy our needs? Life of the Land doubts it. After one hundred plus years of plantation-style monocropping, is this what we really want to do? Growing biofuels is not about small farmers, it is about big agribusinesses and corporate farming. How will this help Hawai`i’s struggling family farms? Should Hawai`i be using our precious agricultural lands to grow energy crops or food? Since Hawai`i imports 90% of our food, wouldn’t promoting food security and feeding our people be a more prudent use of these lands? Biofuel production competes with food products for resources. In the US, corn that could be used to feed people and animals is siphoned off for fuel. In Brazil ethanol production displaces other crops which are then grown in newly decimated Amazon rain forests. The most productive source of biodiesel is palm oil. Most of the world’s biodiesel is grown in Indonesia and Malaysia on recently destroyed rain forests. … Indonesia ranks third in the world in greenhouse gas emissions from the carbon emitted by burning forests and peat soils to make room for mono-cropped palm oil plantations. In essence, we are substituting the greatest source of global warming – the burning of fossil fuels – for the second greatest contributor – deforestation. …
Also provided in the testimony of Henry Curtis, Dr. Tadeus Patzek, Chairman of the Petroleum & Geosystems Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Austin, states:
Now I am predicting the diverse negative consequences of intensive biofuel use in Hawaii and dare the defenders of the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO’s) decision to burn palm oil from Malaysia in an electrical power plant on Oahu to laugh at me. What seems to be at stake here is a tragically misguided decision by HECO to secure a new source of fossil fuel for its electrical power station. Their thinking seems to be that as long as the new fuel is not crude oil, somehow its flow will increase the strategic security of energy supply of Oahu. This type of linear, unimaginative thinking is characteristic of large bureaucracies under pressure to come up with a quick fix of a perceived problem.
Are monocropped agrofuels the fix to our dependence on petroleum, or should be be looking other places such as renewable energy systems? As HECO moves to solicit bids for alternative biofuel suppliers, that question should be in the back of everyones mind.
From “Hawai’i has a lot to gain from open ocean aquaculture” in today’s Honolulu Advertiser:
Just as we need to be off imported oil, we need to be off imported seafood. This opportunity can be an economic engine for Hawai’i, and hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake.Let’s not stand in our own way. There’s a lot to gain for everyone.
Absolutely.
The amount of seafood that we import is really astounding. It is upsetting, though, that in the wake of a very large aquaculture operation, which would export up to 90% of its ahi products, statements like the above, are used to defend it.
The article, by Jay Fidell of ThinkTech Hawaii, goes on to say that:
There are anti-aquaculture groups who don’t want “greedy” corportations to make a profit and export aquaculture products to outside markets. Those groups don’t acknowledge andvancements in the technology, and regularly diseminate disinformation about the industry. They’ve been pulling out all the stops, apparently bent on wiping out open ocean aquaculture in Hawai’i. Theyre’re completely wrong. Without open ocean aquaculture, Hawai’i would have to depend on foreign unregulated producers and overfished wild stocks. Those options are not nearly as secure or sustainable as the development of homegrown open ocean aquaculture.
I do not think of myself as entirely “anti-aquaculture”, I just think it should be done right. My cause is not to “diseminate disinformation”, it is to let people know that there are serious implications that multiple aquaculture ventures could have on Hawaii’s marine ecosystems. It is also to open peoples eyes to aquaculture in other parts of the world, and to how it has affected those places. This article makes it seem like there is some hidden agenda beneath fighting these giant open ocean aquaculture projects. But really, I have nothing to gain from this. I have neither read nor heard anything pro-open ocean aquaculture, aside from the people who would benefit direcly from it.
]]>For the past few weeks there have been numerous articles, editorials, and letters to editors in several local newspapers regarding open ocean aquaculture. A recent editorial in the Honolulu Advertiser states that
the large size and experimental nature of the [Hawaii Oceanic Tech] project demands that state regulators, and the public, keep a critical eye on the project as it moves forward.
The article goes on to say that the objective of this project is an organic, ecologically sustainable fish.
PROBLEM #1: Organic. The problem with this is that there are no organic standards for fish farming. It would also be especially hard to develop one for open ocean aquaculture, because the cages are not closed systems. Anything that is in the water will wind up in the bodies of the fish.
Hawaii Oceanic Tech also hopes to use “organic feed” for their fish. The main ingredient in HOTIs feed will be “sardines from sustainable fish stocks”. But, this goes back to what I said above: there are no organic standards for fish, so any claims of their feed being so are false.
PROBLEM #2: Ecologically Sustainable. This is a tricky one, just because it is so undefined. What is ecologically sustainable? Everything humanity does will impact the environment in some way. Perhaps ecologically sustainable means there is a balance of pros and cons for the environment. But what are the pros in this situation? Proponents of aquaculture say that farming fish gives wild populations a chance to repopulate, but this is easily proven wrong by the environmental havoc that fish farming has caused in British Columbia and other places where fish farms are popular. Many Canadians are embarrassed that their government has let the caged farming industry expand because of its serious impacts.
More information about ocean fish farming’s impact on wild stocks can be found here: Science Daily: Ocean Fish Farming Harms Wild Fish, Study Says (Neil Frazer-UH)
Keep your eyes open for more aquaculture in the news in the coming weeks.
]]>As a former telescope system specialist on Mauna Kea, I value both Polynesian and modern astronomy. Unfortunately, the West Hawaii Today editorial endorsing the Thirty Meter Telescope Board’s selection of Mauna Kea over Chile contained several inaccuracies—and one insult to Hawaiians.
Portraying modern astronomy as an extension of traditional Native Hawaiian star and navigational knowledge is inaccurate and obscures the fact that modern astronomy now threatens to displace traditional astronomy on Mauna Kea and the people who practice it there. Hawaiians use Mauna Kea’s high elevation landscape for ceremonies that contain star and other knowledge essential to modern Hawaiian voyaging, knowledge our ancestors used to discover thousands of tiny islands spread over ten million square miles of the vast Pacific Ocean, before the time of Christ and millennia before modern astronomy.
But the constant building of new telescopes has destroyed critical landmarks and obstructed essential view planes that reveal star paths and astronomical alignments. Too much of Mauna Kea’s landscape has already been leveled, and TMT plans to bulldoze more. Eventually, thousands of years of traditional knowledge codified in the landscape will be lost, and practitioners will no longer be able to keep the knowledge alive. With TMT may also come nighttime access restrictions to areas we now use for traditional astronomy. These are among the reasons Hawaiians urged the TMT Board to build in Chile, which their own analysis suggests will inflict less environmental and cultural damage.
]]>Haleakala National Park is being invaded by Yellowjacket wasps as you are reading this blog.
Invading wasps in Haleakala National Park, which usually make nests the size of a football, have grown nests “the size of a ’57 Buick,” according to a new study.
Research just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows a fascinating interplay in which the invaders are being shaped by their new environment, just as they are drastically changing the native ecosystem. Not only do the aliens — western yellowjacket wasps, Vespula pensylvanica — take advantage of the lack of cold winters to grow huge nests, they have taken to eating vertebrate meat as well as other insects, geckos and native shearwaters.
Erin Wilson, who has just completed a doctorate in biology at the University of California, San Diego, studied the yellowjackets at Haleakala and Hawaii Volcanoes national parks in 2006 and 2007. The yellowjackets have been a problem in the parks for years, but their new diet and their numbers were a surprise.
In a telephone interview from Acadia National Park in Maine, where she is vacationing, Wilson said yellowjackets like high, lonely places.
They are hard to find, which is why the size of the nests — up to 600,000 individuals compared with a few thousand in a usual nest — escaped attention.
Along with Argentinian ants, the yellowjackets are among the most dangerous alien arthropod invaders of the park.
“It’s not just what they’re killing,” Wilson said. “They’re also collecting great amounts of nectar, drawing down the resources for anything else that might want to feed on it, whether it’s native insects or birds like the Hawaiian honeycreepers.”
The wasps do not attack and kill vertebrates. They scavenge the protein-rich remains of dead animals. But even that could help unbalance the native ecosystem by usurping the food supply for native scavengers, like the pueo.
To read full story, click here
]]>Instead of having a limit of 2,120 sets of fishing gear deployments annually, Wespac thinks it’s a better idea to just catch swordfish until a sea turtle gets tangled in the net… WHAT?
Green sea turtles, loggerhead turtles, and leatherback turles are all endangered species that live in Hawaii. This new rule puts all three of these species at an even higher risk, along with dolphins, sharks, seabird, and whales.
There is a lot to lose when less stringent rules are introduced in commercial fishing:
Hawaiian longliners have historically hooked two to 10 sharks for every swordfish. At least 60,000 sharks–and more often around 100,000–are caught each year by swordfish crews, who often cut off the fins from live animals and then allow them to slide off the deck and drown…[furthermore] If this proposal goes forward, Fisheries is estimating a humpback will be killed every year.
Mahalo to everyone who took action on this issue in our last e-newsletter.
Click here to read the entire article from the Honolulu Weekly : Swordfight!
]]>From: Andrea
Just last month, Act 155 was passed in the Hawaii Legislature, amending Hawaii’s renewable energy law.
One of the highlights of this amendment was the strengthening of Hawaii’s Renewable Portfolio Standards (often abbreviated as RPS). These standards are binding for electric utility companies, which must satisfy the specified percentage of their net electricity sales with electricity generated from renewable energy sources by the specified date.
Now, Hawaii’s Renewable Portfolio Standards are as follows: 10% by 2010; 15% by 2015; 25% by 2020; and 40% by 2030. The two standards that Act 155 changed are the two later dates: the 2020 standard was increased by 5%, and the 2030 standard was a new addition.
This strengthening of Hawaii’s Renewable Portfolio Standards was a wise move by the Hawaii Legislature. Hawaii should be a predominant leader in the renewable energy realm, considering that it is the most oil dependent state with over 90% of its energy needs met by imported fossil fuels– a doubly detrimental impact with carbon footprints from long-distance importation and burning. The context of climate change and sea-level rise heighten Hawaii’s energy vulnerability.
Yet, Hawaii is also ideally situated to move the ball forward with renewable energy due to the high availability of solar, wind, wave, and tidal energy. Thus, the Legislature’s addition of the long-term standard, 40% renewable-created electricity by 2030, is in line with Hawaii’s position of great need, vulnerability, and opportunism.
However, the short-term standard could be a bit more aggressive. Although a five-percent increase to 25% by 2020 is an improvement, a few other states have more stringent short-term standards. For example, California is requiring 20% renewable-created electricity by 2010– double Hawaii’s 2010 standard. And, Maine has a 2017 standard of 40%, Hawaii’s standard for 13 years later, while New York has a 2013 standard of 24%– 9% greater than Hawaii’s 2015 standard.
Regardless of the precise standards, the definition of “renewable energy” sources must be amended. While creating more stringent standards in the short-term is ideal, amending the definition of “renewable energy” to only encompass those sources that are truly clean is a must.
As it stands now, the definition of “renewable energy” does not contain any qualifications. For example, it includes “biofuels.” Such an unqualified authorization allows utility companies to meet the standard with, say, palm oil, which fits the broad definition of “biofuels.”
What’s the problem with palm oil qualifying as a renewable energy source? This “biofuel” implicates a significant carbon footprint due to carbon-emitting land change. After the deforestation, heavy fertilization, and peatland burning required to produce the palm oil, the production of this “biofuel” actually contributes more to global warming, opposed to ameliorating the crisis.
Renewable energy sources and, thus, renewable portfolio standards for utility companies should authorize only clean renewable sources in life-cycle terms. Renewability should be just one requisite for clean energy sources; the holistic footprint, including emissions, land change, and other environmental impacts, also must be taken into account.
Otherwise, we may simply displace the impact to another medium. Without amending the law to reflect this crucial qualification, the renewable portfolio standards may end up perpetuating the very problem that they are intended to improve.
Want Hawaii to lead a meaningful renewable energy transition?
Contact your representatives in the State Legislature and voice your opinion!
Here’s contact information for our House representatives:
http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/site1/house/members/members.asp
And, here’s contact information for Senate members:
http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/site1/senate/members/members.asp
From Alana:
On Thursday night, a film entitled A Sea Change, was shown at the Bishop Museum. It addressed the much ignored by-product of climate change, ocean acidification. Ocean acidification is, arguably, the most dire consequence of adding ridiculous amounts of carbon dioxide to the air.
For years, the ocean has been absorbing extra CO2 from the air, a total of 118 billion metric tons of it. Adding 22 billion pounds of CO2 to the ocean each day is severely changing the chemistry of the water. But what is wrong with the pH of the ocean lowering by .1, or .01, or even .001? It may not seem like much to us, but any change affects what all life depends on most: the creatures at the bottom of the ocean food chain, namely pteropods. Pteropods are moth-like, transparent creatures, that seem to fly in the deep ocean. They are the food for a myriad of creatures, which in turn are the food source for hundreds of other creatures, that humans then feed on. Increased amounts of CO2, though, are causing the pteropods’ calciferous shells to disintegrate. This threatens the entire food chain.
Scientists have underestimated the magnitude and haste of climate change. They assert that we are past the point where we can stop the extinctions that will come with the disappearance of pteropods and coral. This situation is so extreme that within a few centuries humans could be all but extinct as well. As one scientist simply exclaims, “we’re screwed”.
The thing that disgusts me most about all of this, though, is that we could have solved it by now. It would only cost TWO PERCENT of our GDP to solve the energy crisis. It can be argued that 2% of GDP is a lot of money, but I think it might be a good asking price for ensuring the continuation of our survival as a species, and the survival of the animals we depend on. To put this in perspective, enough photovoltaic cells could have been built to power the entire United States with only $420 billion–HALF of the Iraq war budget.
A big hurdle that the public has to face is simply realizing how much we rely on the ocean, and that it is in fact possible for us to change something that big. Most people accept the fact that the ice is melting, but continually deny that life is endangered because of human activity. One woman in the film says,
“We are a very visual species. What is below water is invisible to us. What we can’t see, we pollute… because it doesn’t exist to us.”
So what can we do about this? The main thing to do is just analyze your lifestyle and make sure that what you do doesn’t add to this serious problem. Venture capitalists have the choice of going down the alley of exploitation as easily as the alley of sustainability. The government owes it to everyone to do something about this. This type of problem will threaten national security, the world food supply, etc, so when is anyone going to do something about this in terms of strong legislation– or creating an actual plan of action?? Depending on your age, you may not see the effects, but it is real. It is not going away. I know that there will not only be a sea change in my lifetime, but a world of change.
KAHEA’s suit against DLNR has gotten much media coverage over the last few days. The following excerpts provide the basic information about the case, please read the full articles to further your knowledge on this very important issue.
Two lawsuits filed within the past two weeks claim that the state of Hawaii is breaking its own law that requires protection of the largest conservation area in the United States.
KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources for failing to conduct legally required environmental reviews before granting hundreds of permits for access to the protected Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
The region is world renowned for its diversity of endangered species, unique deep sea coral reefs, and rare predator-dominated ecosystem.
The KAHEA lawsuit, filed in state circuit court in Honolulu, seeks an injunction to halt the unlawfully permitted activities and the granting of new permits until the state agency complies with state law.The islands are revered as sacred by Native Hawaiian cultural and religious practitioners as the path of souls to the next life, says KAHEA.
“Our Kupuna Islands are protected and revered for a reason,” said Kumu Hula Vicky Holt-Takamine, KAHEA’s Board president. “This is not the wild west; there are laws here. Laws that are meant to protect our natural resources and the best interests of Hawaii’s people.”
To read full story click here
Without doing required assessments on how the proposed work would affect the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands environment, the agency approved such activities as shark kills, extreme-sports canoe racing, harvesting of thousands of marine species and disturbing of sunken vessels, according to Kahea’s lawsuit.
To read full article click here
Kahea – The Hawaiian Environmental Alliance – sued the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources in state court after a whistleblower accused the state agency of refusing to do its job…
Former monument policy specialist David Weingartner claims he was fired because he reported to superiors the issuance of permits without environmental review.
Weingartner’s lawsuit, filed July 8, includes a table indicating 20 permits, most of them for scientific research, which he says lack environmental assessments.
To read full article click here
After reading these articles you may ask yourself why the state can’t and didn’t follow their own laws. We ask ourselves the same question. Please keep informed and check back with us for further updates!
]]>HONOLULU ADVERTISER, ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS WIRE REPORT ON CONTROVERSY
by Stewart:
KAHEA’s complaint asking a Hawaii court to require the state Department of Land and Natural Resources to follow state law concerning permits for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Marine Monument has made news, as Hawaii’s largest newspaper and a national environmental wire service both published pieces on the matter today.
The news reports come two days after KAHEA filed its suit and a day after KAHEA presented its case to the Hawaii Board of Land and Natural Resources. KAHEA has requested the board refrain from issuing new permits until the agency complies with the law; KAHEA has requested an administrative hearing on the issue.
From Alana:
This week Mauna Kea was chosen as the site for the Thirty Meter Telescope. It was chosen over a location in the Chilean Atacama Desert. In the weeks prior to the decision, some people thought that Mauna Kea might not be chosen because of its significantly higher cost, but was anyone actually surprised when the Mauna Kea site was chosen? It is sad to see untouched, sacred land used for a telescope that could be obsolete in a matter of years. In these job-hungry times the state should be focusing on creating jobs that invigorate the ‘aina, rather than destroy it. The ecological and cultural price might be even more than the price of building it…
More information on the Mauna Kea site: http://www.tmt.org/news/site-selection.htm