Aloha ,
From native forests to traditional fishponds, reefs and beachs to forest and sacred pu'u, from mauka to makai, much of Hawai'i's surviving natural and cultural resources-our natural heritage and cultural landscape-lie within conservation districts.
In the waning days of the Lingle Administration, DLNR is proposing major changes to the laws which protect Hawai'i's conservation districts. The proposed changes to these laws will fundamentally alter the way certain kinds of decisions are made for 2 million acres of public and private lands in Hawai'i. This will affect the future of "ceded" lands, nearshore and submerged lands, watersheds, and all mauka areas under conservation.
We know these kinds of regulatory changes aren't super sexy, but if you've ever seen a bulldozer in a wahi pana, you know why these kinds of hearings are where the action is at!
Are these Laws working? What happens when we change them?
This is the first major change to these legal protections since 1994. Yet, no study of these rules has been done, no working group was convened to evaluate these changes and their implications. We should be asking ourselves: In what ways are these laws working for communities? For landholders? For native species and habitats? For island ecosystems?
In fact, there was no public process to examine, evaluate or ask about how these laws are working before these draft rules were released. Nor have we effectively answered questions about what these changes mean, and how they will affect communities, species, habitats, landholders, and ecosystems. In informational meetings, DLNR staff were unable to answer critical questions about what these changes to the law will mean in practice. Yet, DLNR is committed to changing these laws by December. This is not how conservation decisions should be made.
What you can do
(1) Take a look at the rule changes at http://hawaii.gov/dlnr/occl. Can you understand them? Can you tell how they will affect the future of the conservation lands in your area? If the answer is NO, you are not alone!
(2) Attend a Hearing. Be heard! Tell DLNR you want to know why they are changing the law, and how it will affect you and the things you care about in Hawai'i nei.
(3) Tell your hiking club, fellow practitioner, hula sisters, surf buddies, or anyone else you enjoy these places with! Attend the hearing as a hui (everything is better with friends).
Tell a friend by clicking here. For more information, you can also check out the factsheet and flyer.
The hearing for Honolulu coming up soon!
Talking points
-These laws affect over 2 million acres of conservation lands. Why is this process so rushed? If we haven't changed these laws in 15 years, why do we suddenly need to have new laws by December?
- Why haven't we fully studied how these laws are working? How are these laws serving communities? Native species? Ecosystem function? Landowners? Cultural practitioners? Hikers? Divers? Surfers?
- We should know the full implications of these laws before the changes take affect. Why can't DLNR tell us what these changes will mean on the ground, in practice?
- How will these changes impact many "ceded" public trust lands that are in conservation districts?
- Lands in the Conservation District are there for a reason-because they are rare or beautiful, ecologically important or unique, culturally significant, or important to what makes Hawai'i…Hawai'i. Let's uphold our promise to protect them for future generations!
Mahalo nui,
Us Guys at KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance
1140 Bethel St., #415
Honolulu, HI 96813
www.kahea.org
blog.kahea.org
phone: 808-524-8220
email: kahea-alliance@hawaii.rr.com
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September 9th (Thurs) 9 AM Land Use Commission Hearing Kakuhihewa Bldg. (Kapolei) Rm. 111 601 Kamokila St. Kapolei Come be heard! The LUC will be accepting public testimony on Tropic Land’s request to reclassify 96 acres from ag to urban for their industrial park. This will be the first of many hearings. Call Alice Greenwood (371-8958) for more information.
Aloha Ohana,
Happy Aloha Friday! Just a quick reminder about the sign-waving event on Wednesday August 18th against the purple spot. The Land Use Commission will be conducting an official site visit to the Tropic Land parcel at 1:30 pm on August 18th. This is a great time to show the LUC the community's commitment to keeping Waianae country. Please join us on Farrington Hwy along the corners of Lualualei Navy Access Road and Hakimo Road to wave signs.
The LUC will be by just before 1:30, so let's congregate by 1:00 pm to get set up. The LUC will go up the Navy Road to Tropic Land's parcel. They will stop there and get out to walk the land. Then they will go thru Ms. Stack's gate and down Hakimo Road. They will stop at Waiolu St. to see both Maui's profile and the Hakimo-Farrington Intersection.
If you can't join us that day, you can still participate. Make a sign that says something like "LUC: No Ag. to Urban" or "No Purple Spot" or "Keep Waianae Country." or "Farms, not Dumps". Then take a picture of you and others holding the sign. Email the image to us (miwa@kahea.org) and we'll make sure the LUC sees it. If you live along the LUC's site visit route, then post the sign on your fence where everybody can see it.
Aunties Alice and Lucy have extra signs to pass out, if you need.
It is hard to say how long the LUC's visit will last, but we should plan to out there for at least an hour. And if we can, we should try to keep up the sign-waving through part of the rush hour, so that all of our concerned neighbors can learn about what is being proposed.
Also, the Nanakuli Neighborhood Board will be meeting at 7 pm on Tuesday August 17th at Nanaikapono Elementary School (89-153 Mano Avenue). Please consider attending and testifying during the community concerns portion of the meeting (near the beginning of the agenda). You can tell people about the LUC's public hearing on Sept. 9th (9:30 am at Kakuhihewa Bldg in Kapolei), or express your concern about the urbanization of rural Waianae, the immense increase in heavy truck traffic (Tropic hopes for 500+ trucks an hour!), or harm to farming and public health from more industrial activity.
If you have any questions, want to pick up or drop off signs, call us anytime:
Marti/Miwa/Shelley: 524-8220
Alice: 371-8958
Aloha Aina,
Marti.
P.S. Big Mahalo to all who came out to make signs on Wednesday at Aunty Alice's house. Aunty Clara, Helen, Alice, and Lucy, Shelley, Ali, Tyler, Summer, Samson, and little Kili. It was super good fun to see everyone flexing their artistic strengths! (see attached photo)
__________________________________
Marti Townsend
Program Director
KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance
http://www.kahea.org
http://blog.kahea.org
phone/fax: 877-585-2432 (toll-free)
Mail:
P.O. Box 37368
Honolulu, HI 96837
E ho`omalu kakou i ka pono, ke `ano o ka nohona a me ka `aina mai na kupuna mai
Protecting Native Hawaiian Traditional and Customary Rights and Our Fragile Environment
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September 9th is really important!!!!!!!!!!!
Replies
Talking trash
Yakama Nation blocks Hawaiian garbage destined for landfill on ancestral lands
By Terri Hansen, Today correspondent
Story Published: Aug 6, 2010
Story Updated: Aug 6, 2010
SPOKANE, Wash. – Hawaii’s bid to ship their household garbage to a landfill amid the ancestral lands of the Yakama Nation in south central Washington state was blocked at the last minute by a federal judge, who approved a restraining order filed by the tribe.
U.S. District Judge Edward F. Shea granted the Yakama Nation a temporary restraining order July 29 pending a thorough environmental review and tribal consultation. The bales of waste and rotting food were set to leave Hawaii July 30.
The tribe filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington against the U.S. Department of Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and APHIS Administrator Cindy Smith. It seeks to block the importation of the trash.
The lawsuit alleges that USDA-APHIS, by not consulting with the tribe before they issued Seattle-based Hawaiian Waste Systems LLC permits to export hundreds of thousands of tons of municipal waste to the Roosevelt Regional Landfill, failed their obligations under federal laws and the Yakama Treaty of 1855.
The landfill is surrounded and adjoins land ceded by the Yakama to the United States in exchange for treaty rights.
“We only found out that Hawaii was getting ready to ship three weeks ago,” Yakama tribal chairman Harry Smiskin said. The Yakama Nation, he said, couldn’t sit idly by and allow exotic waste and invasive species to destroy the Columbia River Basin and Pacific Northwest, “especially at the hands of the federal government and its for-profit contractors.”
Their tribal council attempted to consult with USDA-APHIS and Obama-appointed Under Secretary Edward Avalos shortly before the waste was scheduled to leave Hawaii. They guided federal officials through their traditional lands, and historic fishing, hunting, and gathering areas. “We explained our fears that Hawaiian garbage could destroy our resources and ways of life,” Smiskin said.
Regardless, Avalos advised Smiskin July 27 that the USDA planned to allow the first shipment and dumping of garbage to commence that very week. “Our efforts fell on blind eyes and deaf ears,” Smiskin said.
Judge Shea issued the temporary order on grounds that their case was likely to succeed on the merits of their complaints; that in the absence of preliminary relief the tribe would likely suffer irreparable harm; that the balance of equities tipped in their favor, and an injunction would be in the public interest. A preliminary injunction hearing is set for Aug. 30.
Avalos referred questions to APHIS. APHIS-USDA spokesperson Andrea McNally responded by e-mail, “USDA will comply with the temporary restraining order. USDA is currently reviewing the matter and will be working with the Department of Justice regarding the future litigation proceedings.”
The proposed landfill adjoins and is surrounded by historic Yakama ceremonial sacred sites, cemeteries, cairns and ancestral burial sites, village ruins, petroglyphs, pictographs, and religiously and culturally significant properties, Smiskin said. Yakama citizens have hunted and gathered plants, roots, and berries for food and medicine around the proposed site since time immemorial. They fish along the Columbia River and other tributaries near the landfill.
Prior to 2006, federal regulations barred the shipping of Hawaiian garbage for dumping in the continental U.S. to protect against the accidental importation of invasive species.
The tribe contends the garbage could potentially introduce hundreds of invasive species, including the Mediterranean fruit fly, now eradicated from the continental United States, and the spotted winged drosophilia, which recently invaded the Pacific Northwest from California and is the focus of major efforts to contain its spread.
Environmental groups and private citizens joined the Yakama Nation in the lawsuit.
“It’s incredibly inefficient to ship garbage across the ocean, just because Honolulu isn’t being responsible for their own waste,” said Brett Vandenheuvel, executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper. “They don’t even recycle. Their garbage has sat over there and rotted. We don’t think the Columbia River is a good place to dump (it).”
Other plaintiffs to the suit include Friends of the Columbia Gorge, the Northwest Environmental Defense Center, and local citizens.
The Hawaiian garbage is currently stored in leaking bales at a site in Honolulu. Had the permits not been suspended it would have marked the first time Hawaii was allowed to import their waste to the mainland
I believe the Nanakuli people need to revisit their sales pitched to them by Mike Kahikina about the good things on Waste Streaming.
Someone had to approve PVT and it was Nanakuli people but I believe they were tricked by Mike kahikina and the Korean internationals.
We should see the Asian Bankers funding this Waste Streaming in 2011 by then too little to late to stop the atrocities of such acts done to our future generation by ignorance and greed.
And thanks for reading my postings and getting past my typo's. Operation 'Killing Me Softly' is so ever real.
Much love
Pinkville is about killing Waianae residence softly and unnoticed are military tacticle means of genocide. The truckers truck in contaminats, unbe known to them several times a day. The poison dust sweeps up into the base of or of water sheds and are entraped in the crevices of the bottom of our majestic mountains. The rainy seasons are about to begin and as this water flows down the Waianae Mountain Ranges it sweeps through our community and deposit itself in our children's playgrounds.
I just don't understand why this is happening and it's okay in the stock market somewhere else in the world.
Money is the bottom line!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
These capitalistic jerks can aford to bunker we can't. We meaning the native Hawaiian people which consist of majority of the population in Hawaii.
So very sad!!!! Bunkering is not the way of life for the past 2,000 years.
White people, and military people from American continent bunker, we have no concept of bunkering.
Exiting from Waianae is the only way out of birth defects and an early death.
mahalo
Tane