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Posts Tagged ‘conservation’

From Miwa: I wrote the little explanation below the other day to Uncle Bill Aila, Jr. in response to an email from him. Though it was written for him, I thought I would share it here on our blog, as others may have questions about KAHEA’s support of Na Koa and Koani Foundation in their [...]

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A tale of two cities?  One protected, one destroyed. Comments were due today on a proposal to protect 1,500 arces of a rare leeward koa forest on Maui. The Nakula NAR is a small, but important subset of the huge Kahikinui Forest Reserve.  It is home to rare native plants and trees… what is more [...]

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From Marti: News coverage of the court hearing on the University’s plans for Mauna Kea characterized our opposition to the plan as anti-development.  It said: “(opponents) want to block new development on the mountain by stopping approval of the management plan.” As one of our kupuna pointed out, actually the motivation is all the University’s [...]

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From Marti: Yesterday morning, the Third Circuit Court heard oral arguments on the University of Hawaii’s motion to dismiss our appeal for a contested case hearing on the University’s new management plan for Mauna Kea. Though we are still waiting for the judge’s ruling, the hearing made one thing clear: supporters of this “CMP” also [...]

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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 [...]

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From Alana: 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 [...]

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From Alana: 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 [...]

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From Kealoha Pisciotta, President of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou and one of KAHEA’s Board of Directors: 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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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From:  Andrea Last night at the public hearing on the Draft Science Plan for Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, held at the monument office in Hawaii Kai, a troubling consequence of the lack of environmental review was elucidated. One of the Science Plan authors stated that research activities that have already been permitted are assumed to [...]

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From:  Andrea Most people are familiar with our inalienable natural rights, as John Locke summed up as life, liberty, and property.  But what about nature’s right to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve? These are the inalienable legal rights that the town of Shapleigh, Maine, voted to grant to nature last February.  Now, in the town [...]

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From:  Andrea U.S. Army Garrison-Hawaii is soliciting community interest in creating a Restoration Advisory Board as part of the Military Munitions Response Program for two sites near the U.S. Army’s Pohakuloa Training Area.  The motivation for the Restoration Advisory Board is to enable community participation in environmental issues on previously used military training sites. Currently, [...]

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From:  Andrea The U.S. Coast Guard removed 32 tons of debris from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands over the Fourth of July weekend.  Much thanks to the Coast Guard for ameliorating the health of our oceans!  See the Honolulu Advertiser article: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090713/BREAKING01/307130004/U.S.%20Coast%20Guard%20removes%2032%20tons%20of%20debris%20from%20Northwestern%20Hawaiian%20Islands?GID=e/Si+j1sOYkNlMXAMxQScaqw1wgB5/Nurtn+5iNvNh8%3D While I am glad that efforts to clean up marine litter are taking place, [...]

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From:  Andrea Kahana residents have not ceased their tireless fight to stay in their homes.  Since their homeland was condemned as a state park in the ’60s, the people of Kahana have had to battle the State of Hawaii to stay in their homes. And, now, after the State found illegal the law passed in [...]

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Plans for major construction in the sensitive ecosystems of our most sacred summits continue to push forward, despite significant opposition from the community.  The University of Hawaii has filed two environmental impact statements — one for the world’s largest telescope in the world’s only tropical alpine desert, and another for a duplicative solar telescope in [...]

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From Marti: The Hawaii Legislature is seriously considering a raid on our most important conservation funds in order to balance the state budget.  This is insane given all that these few millions do to protect the quality of our drinking water, the health of our native ecosystems, and truly local jobs.  But, the insanity goes [...]

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From today’s HTH, on UH’s proposed management plan for Mauna Kea:  http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/articles/2009/03/19/local_news/local02.txt “We don’t have anything now, and anything is better than nothing, I think,” he said. Could UH’s Barry Taniguchi have given a weaker endorsement of the UH Mauna Kea “management” plan he himself has been lobbying in favoring of? Forgive us if we [...]

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3 down, 1 to go! Thanks to the public’s vigilant support and participation SB 502 is officially dead!!  Yay! SB 502 was one of four bills proposing to transfer management of one of the Pacific’s most unique and sacred summits, Mauna Kea, over to its primary developer–the University of Hawaii.  The University has facilitated forty [...]

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