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Environment

News stories regarding Molokai’s outdoor environment

Bio-Logical Capital Agrees to Buy Hana Ranch on Maui

Sunday, August 26th, 2012

Hana Ranch Partners signed a sale agreement last week to pass ownership of its cattle ranch on Maui to Bio-Logical Capital, the land development company that teamed up with Pattern Energy last year and formed joint venture Molokai Renewables to study the feasibility of developing a 200-megawatt wind farm on Molokai.

Guy Kaulukukui, Bio-Logical Capital’s senior vice president, said the company plans to preserve and possibly expand Hana Ranch’s cattle operations.

“We are truly humbled to take on the kuleana of this remarkable ranch,” said Kaulukukui in a news release. “It is at once a privilege and a great responsibility… [Hana has] the potential to become a model for sustainable ranching and farming practices in the state.”…

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Deer Smugglers Reprimanded

Sunday, August 26th, 2012

Helicopter pilot Thomas Leroy Hauptman pleaded guilty to illegally transporting axis deer from Maui to the Big Island, on Monday. He could be sentenced to over $10,000 in fines and up to a year in prison.

The alleged animal smugglers flew four axis deer from Maui to the Big Island to be used by hunters as living targets, and brought back about a dozen mouflon sheep from the Big Island to a Maui hunting ranch back in 2009.

The owner of the ranch, Jeffrey Scott Grundhauser, is also facing possible jail time for selling wildlife without the proper permit.

Because axis deer and mouflon sheep are not native species to Hawaii, their presence has damaged fragile native ecosystems and farms on the islands where they’ve become established.…

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Big Wind Environmental Impact Statement Meeting

Thursday, August 23rd, 2012

Dept. of Energy News Release

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the State of Hawaii have established a long-term partnership to transform the way in which renewable energy and energy efficiency resources are planned and used in the state. In 2010, DOE announced its intent to prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) with the state as a joint lead for wind energy development under the Hawaii Interisland Renewable Energy Program (HIREP). In response to public comments, as well as regulatory and policy developments, DOE has broadened the scope of the PEIS to now include energy efficiency, distributed renewables, utility-scale renewables, alternative transportation fuels and modes, and electrical transmission and distribution.…

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What’s Up with Carrots?

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012

What’s Up with Carrots?

Community Contributed

By Glenn I. Teves, County Extension Agent, UH CTAHR

When you think of an orange vegetable, carrots come to mind, but once upon a time the most common color of carrots wasn’t orange. It wasn’t until the 1500s that the Dutch stumbled upon an orange carrot and focused on developing more orange varieties.
Believed to be native to the area around Afghanistan, the first carrots were purple and yellow. Around A.D. 900-1200, they spread to the eastern Mediterranean, then to China and Eastern Europe by the 1300s. By the 1600s, yellow carrots reached Japan, but it wasn’t until the 1700s that orange carrots emerged in Holland and adjacent areas.…

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IAM Expanding Efforts and Membership

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012

IAM Expanding Efforts and Membership

IAM News Release

I Aloha Molokai (IAM) is delighted to announce the formation of IAM West, which includes members from the Maunaloa community and the 800-member West Molokai Association. West Molokai is the planned site for a proposed 90 turbine industrial wind power plant. Members of all three groups unanimously agreed to oppose this project, no matter what so-called “benefits” may be offered. This is a big step toward our goal of uniting the entire island of Molokai in opposition.

IAM is already a partner with Friends of Lanai and Kupa`a no Lanai. Because it appears that Hana on Maui may be the next scenic, rural community threatened by large scale, profit-driven development, we are currently working with people in Hana to create an IAM Hana.…

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Keeping Kalaupapa Beautiful

Sunday, August 19th, 2012

Keeping Kalaupapa Beautiful

Waste at the settlement up 50 percent from previous years

The amount of solid waste exported out of the Kalaupapa settlement is estimated to near 41,000 pounds by the end of September, increasing almost 50 percent from last year’s 27,000 pounds of trash.

Park officials suspect the reason for this upsurge is the increase of guests and visitors, according to Arthur Ainoa, the National Park Service’s (NPS) Grounds and Recycling Supervisor. At the monthly community meeting last week, he said many guests to Kalaupapa are unaware of the recycling and composting program, dumping all their waste into one trash pile instead of sorting it per the program’s policy.…

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Moving Mountains of Metal

Sunday, August 12th, 2012

Moving Mountains of Metal

Molokai metals recycling event is now open.

If you’ve been collecting junk cars, appliances or scrap metal in your yard, now is the time to say goodbye to such lawn ornaments. A metals recycling collection event on Molokai, put on by the County of Maui, is going on right now until Sept. 8. The event allows residents to safely trash their scrap metal free of charge.

The current metals recycling program, which started three years ago, opens up once to three times per year. Located at the Molokai-Naiwa Landfill on Maunaloa Highway, the event is operated by Maui-based company Kitagawa’s Towing & Metals Recycling, which is contracted by the county to process the metals.…

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Mo`omomi to be Gated Soon

Sunday, August 12th, 2012

In an effort to prevent further overfishing, vandalism and overall neglect of natural resources of Mo`omomi Beach, a gate will be installed to restrict vehicle access to the area, according to Halealoha Ayau, Department of Hawaiian Homelands (DHHL) acting district supervisor for Molokai. DHHL hopes to have it installed by the end of the month, but because there is only one person on staff who has the skill to build the gate, it may take longer, according to Ayau

“We’re hoping the gate will help promote responsible behavior, because there has been such a high level of vandalism, cutting through fences and fence posts and really irresponsible behavior, at the pavilion especially,” said Ayau.…

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Why Save Seeds?

Wednesday, August 8th, 2012

Why Save Seeds?

Community Contributed

By Glenn I. Teves, County Extension Agent, UH CTAHR

A recent flood in Thailand passed through people’s minds and then it was gone, an insignificant event in the eyes of residents in Hawaii. Tie this to the recent lei shortage during graduation, where common leis were selling for $20 each, and you start to see how these events over 4000 miles away affect us. This is truly a global economy. Other collateral damage from the Thai floods were crop failures of vegetable seeds, vital to the production of food in many parts of the world. Centralizing seed production has its challenges, and when they get wiped out, they really get wiped out.…

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Status Review of Green Turtles to be Conducted

Wednesday, August 8th, 2012

NOAA News Release

NOAA’s Fisheries Service announced last week that it will work with the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service (FWS) to conduct a global status review of green turtles, which have been listed under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) since 1978. The species is found in tropical and subtropical waters around the globe, and nest on the beaches of 80 countries.

As part of this review, NOAA and FWS will also assess whether Hawaii’s green turtles
should be listed as a distinct population segment, and if so, whether they should be
removed from the list of species protected under the ESA.…

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