• Hunters’ wake up call • Beach closings • Oil vulnerability Hunters’ wake up call The Critical Habitat designation by the Federal Government of areas in and around Koke‘e State Park has moved to the next level. The hunters of
• Hunters’ wake up call
• Beach closings
• Oil vulnerability
Hunters’ wake up call
The Critical Habitat designation by the Federal Government of areas in and around Koke‘e State Park has moved to the next level. The hunters of Kaua‘i need to speak up and attend the public meetings regarding endangered plants and how it affects our lifestyle.
The State Division of Forestry and Wildlife is getting pressured to remove game mammals from Koke‘e. I have attended several public meetings over the past year and the hunter turnout has been real sad. It’s mostly the same handful of people who attend. The most hunters I’ve seen at one meeting is less than thirty. We have at least a couple thousand on island so where has everyone been?
We are losing this battle right now, the Blacktail Deer have already been targeted for removal from Hunting Unit H (Makaha Ridge to Honopu). If you think it will stop there, you are fooling yourself. The Enviromentalist will not stop till they rid our mountain of our game mammals. We need to get these people to prove to us that removing these animals will bring back the endangered plants and the mountain won’t just be taken over by invasive weeds.
Scientific proof, long term studies, not just talk. There can be a balance, we can protect endangered plants and still keep our hunting rights. The wild pigs have been here for centuries and there are still native plants being found, they can co-exist. I believe that the removal of the game mammals will leave us with nothing more than a patch of weeds formerly known as Koke‘e. Then, the enviromentalist will go elsewhere to save something else and we the people of Kaua‘i will be left with nothing. It’s too late for the plants and it’s a waste of our tax money. We the people are paying for this, even the non-hunters.
Jay Perreira
Lihu‘e
Beach closings
No one disputes that beaches on the North Shore can be treacherous. We have permanent signs at all public access points on Hanalei Bay warning of potential high surf and strong currents. This is a good thing – although many of these signs have been defaced with surfer logos of various kinds and no attempt has been made to clean or replace them.
When high surf warnings are issued, ‘temporary’ signs are posted on the beaches fronting the 3 parking lots in Waiaoli Beach Park bearing such messages as ‘high surf’, ‘strong currents’, ‘beach closed’, and ‘no swimming’. These signs, when appropriate are also a good thing.
The problem is that there seems to be no system in place to remove the signs when no longer meaningful. They have been left on the beach more or less permanently for this past winter season – even when conditions in the bay are flat calm. This has led to such bizarre circumstances as hundreds of people flocking to the beach for the Andy Irons surfing tournament for young people, in ideal conditions, against a backdrop of ‘beach closed’ signs.
Is this not a little like the ‘boy who cried wolf’? The permanent status of these ‘temporary’ signs, regularly ignored and not enforced, makes them less of a deterrent when their presence is clearly warranted. Perhaps this is an attempt to avoid possible litigation, but if someone gets hurt or killed while these signs are up, any ‘plaintiff attorney’ worth his/her salt could argue county or state liability because of misleading signage.
Stan Godes
Hanalei
Oil vulnerability
Why does it take a Tom Ridge of Homeland Security and record price hikes in fuel oil to vividly remind us this week how we in Hawai‘i are so vulnerable to outside events beyond our control? If not now, when would there be a better time for our isolated society in the central North Pacific to face the facts that we are both overly dependent on essential foods shipped from mainland USA and prisoners of the politics of global oil?
Most people would agree that today’s Hawai‘i large population of residents and visitors is far larger than the present local food supply can support. If a catastrophe were to cut off all food and oil imports, then how long before panic and breakdown in law and order would engulf our fragile communities? Some of us were troubled by this prospect of chaos in the immediate aftermath of September 11th, 2001.
Can both government and business pay more than lip service to food and energy self-sufficiency? Yes indeed! Why? Because solutions are staring us in the face! Hawai‘i still has an abundance of renewable natural resources, but the potential for diversified agriculture, forestry fuel woods, and solar energy use are still vastly under appreciated in Hawai‘i.
Solar hot water heating alone could and should dramatically reduce our use of fossil fuel. We lag much of the tropical world in widely implementing this simple and inexpensive technology.
Present incentives for resident homeowners to install solar technologies are woefully inadequate. Because fertile land still lies idle in many areas, we could and should expand food production many-fold. State law mandates it; and itís past time for an all-out effort to produce more food for local consumption. For example, experienced and new farmers alike, on Kaua‘i, would greatly benefit from a sterile fruit-fly release program. Better control of fruit flies could increase profitable vegetable and fruit production and encourage more backyard gardening.
Planting high-caloric fuel woods in areas not far from power generation plants should be seriously considered for the near future; past fuel wood feasibility studies by Tommy Crabb of C. Brewer on the Big Island give present utilities a jump on producing action plans.
Improved self-sufficiency in food and energy is a Homeland Security challenge for Hawai‘i. Success will require an all-out effort by both government and the private sector. We owe it to our living children and grandchildren and the unborn to come.
John Edson
Kapa‘a
