The Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) is visiting Molokai to conduct a Listening Session on Friday, Oct. 7. The DLNR Chairperson William J. Aila, Jr., First Deputy Guy H. Kaulukukui, and Water Deputy Bill M. Tam from Honolulu, is visiting Molokai to hear community comments, questions and concerns regarding topics under the Department’s jurisdiction. This is part of a series of DLNR Listening Sessions to be conducted statewide.
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Community Contributed by Walter Ritte
For the past 15 years Molokai has been seriously trying to stop the decline of it’s near shore fisheries. In 1994 Governor John Waihe’e created the Governors Molokai Subsistence Task Force, which officially recognized the importance of the subsistence economy on Molokai. The task force found that up to 38 percent of our food consumption on Molokai came from gathering in the ocean and on the land. The task force identified three major problems, 1) Off-island people who take to much, 2) Taking of undersized juveniles and 3) Lack of access.
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Through state wide meetings, each island has been charged to present their three top issues. The Molokai Aha Kiole presented their top two issues on Friday Sept. 23 to WESPAC. First, the need to lift the federal ban on the Hawaiian Green Turtle to allow for traditional subsistence use, and second, the need to stop the practice of off island escort boats raiding our shorelines during canoe races and other Molokai to Oahu and Maui to Molokai races.
Five years of talks with the Canoe Racing Associations have proven no meaningful results. The issue is alarmingly headed to confrontational solutions.
Molokai residence have taken it upon themselves to monitor and patrol the coast line to “educate” the escort boats and letters have been sent out to explain “nicely” the concerns of the subsistence users of our coastal fisheries. We hope the State and Federal Governments will help resolve this issue since the organizers of these races do not want to recognize their “Kuleana” when they come to Molokai to race.
Subsistence use of our near shore fisheries is not a matter of recreational use, it is a matter of survival.
Community contributed by ‘Aha Ki’ole ‘o Moloka’i
Today, I watch with a broken heart as the tree butchers cut down two of the healthiest trees anywhere around, and the other day they “trimmed” a tree that’s been dying for years and is just barely alive yet still standing.
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Commnunity Contributed By Glenn I. Teves, UH County Extension Agent
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Native to Northwest China near the North Korean border and cultivated in China since 200 BC, green onion is still the most important onion of these areas. It’s grown in many parts of the world as a home garden vegetable. In Oriental medicine, parts of green onion are used to treat fever, inflammation, headaches, stomach aches and diarrhea. Diluted pressed juice is used to control aphids, a common pest of vegetables in China.
Green onion prefers neutral soil of pH 6-6.5 and higher elevations of 600 to over 2,000 feet for optimal growth, although it’s widely adapted. It likes well-drained soil and is very susceptible to water-logging. They have a fairly small root system and don’t compete well with weeds.
Onion thrips are a major pest causing unsightly silver-white lines on the leaves by piercing and rasping the leaf surface. Difficult to control, they thrive in hot weather and live under the leaf sheath where the leaves branch. Part of the life cycle is also spent in the ground. At high populations, the plants lose lots of water from the damage and can desiccate. Using seed instead of divisions and planting in new areas away from old plantings can help to minimize thrips since they can live in planting material. Other occasional pests include the beet armyworm and the serpentine leaf miner.
Diseases include purple blotch, an Alternaria fungus attacking leaves with its characteristic purple blotch on the stalk. The key in controlling many disease problems is to grow a healthy plant, and make sure your nutrition program is well tuned for the different seasons.
By growing them in close spacing, leaves can be kept small. Seed varieties grown in Hawaii include Koba and Fragrance, while many local types are grown by division. Shallots are sometimes grown for it leaves, including the Hawaiian onion or Akakai and the Filipino shallot. Major green onion production areas in Hawaii include the Leeward Coast valleys of Oahu, from Lualualei to Waianae. Growing them in pots in proximity to your kitchen assures a steady and readily available supply of green onion.
Community Contributed by `Aha Ki`ole o Molokai
Kanu Hawaii is pleased to announce the start of the Molokai Home Energy Monitor Program, a new energy pilot project intended to help Molokai renters and homeowners understand and manage their energy use.
The project will invite 100 Molokai households to receive a free whole-house energy monitor that displays real-time, minute-to-minute energy consumption and cost data via a table-stop display about the size of a cell phone. The display shows up-to-the minute dollar costs for all electricity use in the home, from "phantom" draw from electronics to opening the fridge door or taking a hot shower. As appliances are turned on and off, the monitor shows the changing cost.
Community Contributed
By Gladys Brown
AARP is scheduling a Driving Safety class at the Mitchell Pauole Center conference room on Saturday, Oct. 22 beginning at 8 a.m. The class will be taught by Peggy Haake of the AARP Maui Chapter. She has been teaching this class as a volunteer for the past five years. This four-hour meeting will consist of valuable traffic information for all drivers. If you have Hartford Auto Insurance from AARP you will pay $12 for the class fee. The completion certificate will entitle you to a discount on your insurance for three years. If you have other insurance you may call them for information on their discounts. Non-members who are interested will pay $14.
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Community Contributed by G.T. Larson
In the heated debate concerning global warming, much of the discussion has been centered on greenhouse gasses. Unfortunately, much of what is being said by both sides in this debate, at times, resembles hot air. As we examined in our last installment, if it were not for naturally occurring greenhouse gasses, life on Earth would not exist as we know it today. They are the insulation for us in our atmosphere to keep us from freezing. Where we run into trouble, is when the atmospheric balance of the gasses becomes imbalanced, particularly if we have contributed to this shift. The problem at the center of this debate is how much, if any, we, as humans, are adversely contributing to the atmosphere’s inventory of these gasses.
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“No dog is worth your life,” says Kaimana He, sitting in front of his house. Small scratches are faintly visible on his face; in the sun, the remnants of bruises are fading around his ribs.
His mother, Tina He-Lindsey, agrees.
“Even with the most experienced people, accidents still happen,” she says.
The pair knows what they’re talking about. It was only weeks earlier that He-Lindsey came home to a jolting phone call from family friend Dolphin Pawn: While trying to retrieve his dogs on a hunting trip with friends through Waialeia Valley that morning, Kaimana had fallen off a ledge more than 40 feet. He had a large gash on his forehead; the full extent of his injuries was unknown. Pawn, who was hunting with a separate party, stumbled across the boys and used his dogs’ GPS collars to pinpoint Kaimana’s location.
Sore and bloody, the 17-year-old would need to be airlifted to a hospital.
“It was a terrible day, our worst nightmare,” He-Lindsey says. “The first thing I did was pray to God to keep him safe, to comfort him and ask my grandfather to watch over him. … When you’re completely helpless to your own child, that’s reason enough to panic.”
The Accident
Kaimana and his friends left Kaunakakai about 4 a.m. on Sept. 3, planning to trek into the Molokai Forest Reserve to hunt boar. For Kaimana, pig-hunting is
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