The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness — Hawaii state motto.
The signal motif of this column is gratitude. And even with our grey, dumpy weather lately, there is still so much for which to be grateful.
To wit:
Deep in the forested interior of Kauai in an area known as the Far Quarter of the Alakai Swamp there lives the ankikiki, a small gray-and-white bird that does not sing much and has noticeably large feet.
(In case you did not know, the Alakai on Kauai has long held the title of the wettest place on Earth, but that distinction was recently given to a small village in far eastern India).
The Kauai Bird Recovery Project is tasked with the job of saving the ankikiki and other endangered species. Of Kauai’s eight remaining native forest birds, four are listed as endangered. Of the 1,280 endangered animals and plants listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 557 are from Hawaii — including the short-tailed albatross, the Hawaiian hoary bat, the Kauai cave wolf spider, and seven kinds of the yellow-faced bee. Conservationists have taken to calling our islands “the extinction capital of the world.” Our tropical weather and location as a Pacific trade and tourism hub have made Hawaii, in the words of some, the “petri dish for invasive species.”
On the Big Island, mongoose devastate local birds; so do Puerto Rican coqui frogs, which chirp erratically at 90 decibels. Here on Kauai we are plagued with feral pigs, rose-ringed parakeets, and an invasive type of seaweed that has begun to smoother our reef ecosystem. And, of course, since 1992, following the hurricane that knocked over our chicken coops, we have seen roving bands of roosters and chickens.
“We have the Laysan albatross which nests on the ground,” according to Joshua Fisher, a local biologist, “and invasive rats or cats or mongoose can walk right up to them and start eating their eggs; the birds just do not know what to do.”
Journalists tend to underestimate the difficulties in doing fieldwork here. One photographer had planned to spend a week on Kauai and gave up after only an hour climbing uphill in the jungle. Another visitor who regularly hiked the Sierra Nevada left within 24 hours; “I guess she was used to pine trees,” Fisher said.
Since Trump took over, six bills have been introduced in Congress aimed at overhauling or gutting the Endangered Species Act. Thank goodness Congress and Trump cannot take away Kauai’s unique, enthralling beauty with some of earth’s cleanest air and water.
Topic pivot alert!
There are two types of writers and two types of sailors: those who drink too much and those who used to drink too much. I have been both of both; you did not need to know that but this is my column, sir.
One more pivot: So much of the planet is a place where women’s and children’s lives are held in thrall to cruel men. Africa, Asia, and the Middle East all come to mind. Who amongst us cannot be a feminist?
Now, what is my beef about beef?
Agriculture including cattle is the world’s 3rd largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, after the energy and industrial sectors. Chataham House, a British think tank, has released a study that claims livestock emissions are greater “than the emissions produced from powering all the world’s road vehicles, trains, ships and airplanes combined.” Livestock including cattle consume the yield from a quarter of all cropland worldwide. Add in grazing, and the business of making meat occupies about three-quarters of the agricultural land on the planet.
Some French scientists recently published a paper on the practicality of putting a carbon tax on beef. According to the paper, emissions come from fossil fuels used to plant, fertilize, and harvest the feed to fatten cattle up, “ … and the global output of gas from cattle is at 120 million tons per year.”
Skip McDonald’s next time you drive by, yeah?
I want to comment on John Steinhorst ‘s recent insightful article in this newspaper styled Avoiding over tourism. Among other things, he reported on the opposition to lengthening Kauai’s airports since most of us do not want direct flights from Japan.
The article also had two quotes of note:
Jim Braman, general manager of the Cliffs at Princeville, said, “Kauai’s niche is that we’re the rural get away kind of place, and we need to keep it that way.”
And the general manger of the Westin Princeville Ocean Resort Villas, Denise Wardlow, said, “Most important is to ensure our visitors have a positive experience. With more traffic … we do recognize that at a certain point, that positive experience is not going to happen.”
Of course tourism is not only good for the island but it is the foundation of Kauai’s economy. According to Dr. Gordon LaBedz with the Surfrider foundation (again, taking from Mr. Steinhorst’s article), “Tourism is good. Agriculture is extremely destructive and polluting. Farming with its large scale destruction of nature, its chemicals and its machinery, is far more destructive than Hawaii’s tourism.” See beef soliloquy above.
To lighten up a little, here are some fun factoids:
w In the case of anti-depressants, two-thirds of patients taking Prozac, Zoloft or Celexa would improve on a placebo.
w Clips, a new camera by Google, uses so-called machine learning to automatically take snapshots of people, pets and other things it finds interesting. Watch out!
w Think Kapaa is crowded in rush hours? Each day there are roughly 8 million passenger trips on China’s Guangzhou subway. One subway in one city.
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Douglas Slain is a retired law publisher and recovering academic living the “Lucky we live Kauai” life and playing as much tennis as possible. He now lives and bikes around Kapaa. He can be reached at doug.slain@gmail.com.
