Hale O Kawaipuna

On May 23, 2011, the Columbia Law School Center for Climate Change Law held a conference entitled, "Threatened Island Nations: Legal Implications of a Changing Climate."

Topics discussed included: statehood and statelessness, resettlement and migration, international and diplomatic options, legal remedies, and adaptation and domestic options.  Papers, research, and other information from the conference can be found at www.law.columbia.edu/centers/climatechange/resources/threatened-island-nations.

The entire conference was recorded and is online at www.law.columbia.edu/centers/climatechange/resources/threatened-island-nations/livestream.

The National Ocean Council will hold a public listening session in the Pacific Islands Region on June 16, 2011, to solicit input to develop the strategic action plans that will implement the National Ocean Policy.

The event will be held at the Neal Blaisdell Center in Honolulu from 1:00 - 4:00 pm. Hawaii Satellite locations will be held at the locations below.

• Maui Community College (Ka’a’ike 103), 310 Ka'ahumanu Ave, Kahului, HI 96732-1617, June 16, 1:00-4:00 pm
• Kauai Community College (LRC 121), 3-1901 Kaumuali´i Highway, Lihue, HI 96766, June 16, 1:00-4:00 pm
• UH-Hilo (LRC 344), 200 W. Kawili St., Hilo, HI 96720-4091, June 16, 1:00-4:00 pm

Last year, I wrote about the Final Recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force that President Obama adopted by Executive Order on July 19, 2010.

The Final Recommendations included the creation of a Policy Coordination Framework and Implementation Strategy.  Under the Framework, the United States is subdivided into nine regional planning areas.  Hawaii is part of the Pacific Islands Region, which includes Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana
Islands, and American Samoa.  The Implementation Strategy identifies priority objectives that our Nation will pursue to address pressing challenges facing the ocean, our coasts, and the Great Lakes.  One of those nine strategies is Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning (CMSP) to implement comprehensive, integrated, ecosystem based coastal and marine spatial planning and management in the United States.  Each regional planning area is tasked with developing a CMSP for its region.

The National Ocean Council (NOC) will hold a National CMSP Workshop in Washington, DC, on June 21-23.  The first day of the Workshop will be a dedicated public and stakeholder session.  This public session will take place on Tuesday, June 21, 2011, from 9:00 am to 5:30 pm, in the Yates Auditorium at the U.S. Department of the Interior, located at 1849 C Street, NW Washington, DC.  For those who cannot attend the session in person or if interest exceeds capacity, it will also be available to the public through a live webcast on June 21, 2011 at www.doi.gov/live.

For more about this initiative, visit the NOC website at www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/oceans.

On Tuesday, June 7, 2011, the Natural Resources Section (NRS) of the Hawaii State Bar Association (HSBA) will hold its monthly brown bag lunch meeting from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. at the HSBA conference room.

NRS will host guest speaker Sterling Wong, Senior Public Policy Advocate of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, who will present: "Protecting Native Hawaiian resources at the 2011 Legislative Session," in addition to providing commentary on other natural/cultural resource bills introduced during the session. Joining Mr. Wong will be Jeff Kent and Jocelyn Doane of the OHA Public Policy Team.

Non-NRS members welcome on a space available basis.

The Natural Resources Section of the Hawaii State Bar Association (HSBA) will host a panel of guest speakers who will present, “Introduction to Land Trusts in Hawaii," at its Tuesday, May 3, 2011 monthly brown bag lunch meeting from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. at the HSBA conference room.

Panelists include:

• Laura Hokunani Edmunds Kaakua is the Native Lands Field Representative for The Trust for Public Land (TPL).  Before joining TPL, Laura was Program Coordinator for Envision Hawai'i, a non-profit that brings together and trains young public servants and social entrepreneurs in Hawaii.  Prior to that, she worked for Judge Greg Nakamura in the Hilo circuit court, Earthjustice in Honolulu, and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in the Native Rights, Land and Culture division.  Laura is a graduate of the University of Hawaii’s William S. Richardson School of Law, where she obtained an Environmental Law Certificate, and Boston College, where she majored in political science and communications.
  
  
• Dr. Dale Bonar earned his PhD in Marine Science at UH, after which he spent 16 years as a Professor of Zoology and Research Scientist at the Center of Marine Biotechnology, University of Maryland. Returning to the west coast he founded Aquatic Environmental Sciences, a consulting company for marine and freshwater coastal issues.  Board service with a local Land Trust resulted in taking over directorship of the Northwest Program of the National Land Trust Alliance.  In this position he worked with Land Trusts from Wyoming to Alaska, helping them grow and professionalize. He returned to Maui in 2002 to become Executive Director of the Maui Coastal Land Trust (now the statewide Hawaiian Islands Land Trust) and serves as chair of the Natural Areas Reserve System and the Legacy Land Conservation Commission.  Hawaiian Islands Land Trust now protects over 17,000 acres of conservation lands in Hawaii.
  
  
• John Henshaw is the Director of Land Protection and Conservation Partnerships at The Nature Conservancy (TNC).  He earned a B.S. in forestry from Humboldt State University and a M.S. in forest engineering from Oregon State University.  He began his Forest Service career in 1978 in California as a zone logging engineer for Sierra and Sequoia national forests.  From there, John held several positions with the National Forest Foundation, the Forest Service, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  His last position in the Forest Service was the Pacific Rim Forest Legacy Program Manager (2003-2009).  Forest Legacy is a land conservation program in the State and Private Branch of the Agency that works to promote the long-term integrity of forestlands. John covered a large area in managing this program including Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, and the Pacific Islands.  In January of 2009, he retired from the US Forest Service with over 30 years experience. In February of 2009 he started a new career with the Nature Conservancy as the Director of Conservation and was responsible for all of the conservation work of TNC in Hawaii. In August 2010 he moved into his current job as the Director of Land Protection and Conservation Partnership, focusing on a major land acquisition program for TNC Hawaii and representing TNC Hawaii in several State-wide conservation partnerships.

This blog entry pulls together information on food security policy.

Domestically, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) measures U.S. household food security, which it defines as follows:

Food security for a household means access by all members at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food security includes at a minimum: The ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods[; and] Assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (that is, without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies).

Conversely, "food insecurity" is defined as "limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways."

According to the USDA, 85.3 percent (100.8 million) of U.S. households were food secure throughout 2009--essentially unchanged from 85.4 percent in 2008.  On average, between 2007 and 2009, 13.5 percent of U.S. households and 11.4 percent of Hawaii households were food insecure.

The President has also made food security part of his international policy.  In his May 2010, National Security Strategy, the President wrote,

Promoting Food Security: The United States is working with partners around the world to advance a food security initiative that combats hunger and builds the capacity of countries to feed their people. Instead of simply providing aid for developing countries, we are focusing on new methods and technologies for agricultural development. This is consistent with an approach in which aid is not an end in itself—the purpose of our foreign assistance will be to create the conditions where it is no longer needed.

Through the President’s initiative, Feed the Future, the President has pledged $3.5 billion to help poor countries fight hunger by investing in agricultural development solving global hunger and food security.

Ways of getting at the problem can take different forms.  Food security in a post-9/11 era connotes other dangers to our food supply, and some have made that connection.  According to the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) website, "[s]ince the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, we are more keenly aware of the need to protect the integrity and safety of our agriculture and food infrastructure."  The new threat is "[t]he prospect of an intentional, or terrorist, attack on our food and agriculture industry raises grave concerns that present challenges for producers and policy makers alike."

The USDA's focus on the perceived problem of terrorism on the US food supply is focused on the efficacy of traceability systems.  Traceability systems track the flow of food products through the supply chain to manage issues like bio-terrorism, country-of-origin labeling, Mad Cow disease, and genetically engineered foods.  According to the USDA, policymakers in many countries have begun weighing the usefulness of mandatory traceability.  The jury is still out on how to best implement tracing, but a 2004 USDA brochure recommended the following:

Government may also consider mandating traceability to increase food safety. However, the already widespread voluntary use of traceability complicates the application of a centralized system. Mandatory systems that fail to allow for variation are likely to impose unnecessary costs on firms that are already operating efficient traceability systems.

The response to food security issues has also taken on the color of climate change policy.  Climate change, in particular sea level rise, could decimate agricultural lands within sea level rise boundaries.  Changes in weather patterns may also impact growing seasons and types of agricultural activities.  In a 2001 USDA policy paper, the author wrote, "[g]lobal warming is likely to reduce agricultural production in the Tropics, where many developing countries are located."  

Solving domestic and international food security is complex and research is ongoing.  In the meantime, sustainability, urban gardens, and other related "local" farming movements are making a comeback.  This reoccurring movement had its heyday during the 1960's and 1970's--e.g., People's Park.  By having food grown and produced close to consumers, the food supply chain is shortened.  This is arguably more secure, since traceability is less complicated.  In addition, a shorter supply chain might reduce dependence on fossil fuels.  Dependence on fossil fuels could be further reduced by encouraging intrastate use of alternative fuels (depending on policy framework ) for farming equipment, transportation, and processing.

Food security is difficult to resolve.  Domestically, the federal government, through the USDA, has several successful programs to ameliorate the problem, and many non-profits like food banks try to fill in the gaps.   Hawaii has tried to address this problem when the state legislature created the Food Security Task Force; however, Task Force recommendations were not adopted.  The Task Force recommended the following in their 2002 Food Security Task Force Report: (1) Create state food policy and objectives; (2) Create a Food Security Council; and (3) Provide $192,000 a year to fund Council operations.

Professor George Kent from the University of Hawaii summed up the issue best when he wrote,

The challenge is not to feed people, but to see to it that they live in conditions in which they can provide for themselves. Paradoxically, you don’t solve the hunger problem by feeding people. The task is not simply to establish more feeding programs, but to design a Hawaii in which all able-bodied people are able to take care of themselves. Regardless of whether we draw on federal resources or charitable giving or local farmer’s markets, the state government that should take the responsibility to assure that no one in the state goes hungry. 

 To read more about agricultural issues, see Agriculture.

In 2008, the University of Hawaii Department of Urban and Regional Planning (DURP) completed a pilot study for the State Land Use Commission on the designation of Important Agricultural Lands (IAL) using the framework from Act 183, SLH 2005.

On Tuesday, April 5, 2011, the Natural Resources Section (NRS) will hold its monthly brown bag lunch meeting from 12:00 to 1:00pm at the HSBA conference room (located on the 10th floor of Alakea Corporate Tower, 1100 Alakea Street).

NRS will host guest speaker Jeffrey Mikulina, Executive Director of the Blue Planet Foundation, who will present: "Accelerating Hawaii's Clean Energy Future."

Prior to working with the Foundation, Mr. Mikulina served for ten years as the director of the Sierra Club, Hawaii Chapter. His accomplishments in environmental advocacy include legislation that sets a binding cap on Hawaii’s greenhouse gas emissions, requires that all new homes use solar water heaters, requires returnable deposits on all beverage containers, provides incentives for renewable energy use, establishes curbside recycling on O‘ahu and increases the funding of natural resources through tourism taxes. Mr. Mikulina earned a Master’s of Science degree in engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign studying decision theory.

Mr. Mikulina's discussion will explore some of the underlying drivers to accelerating Hawaii's transition to a clean energy future, including policies in play at the state legislature and Public Utilities Commission, and he will share some of the programs that Blue Planet is launching to help people make smart energy choices.

On Tuesday, February 1, 2011, the Natural Resources Section (NRS) of the Hawaii State Bar Association (HSBA) will host guest speaker Gary Gill, Deputy Director of the Environmental Health Administration, Hawaii Department of Health, who will present: "What is left of the State's environmental programs?"

Mr. Gill has had a lengthy career in government and community service. At the age of 26, Mr. Gill was elected to the Honolulu City Council and served two years. Mr. Gill was then appointed as the Director of the Office of Environmental Quality Control and as Deputy Director of Health for the Environment during the administration of Governor Ben Cayetano.

Mr. Gill subsequently transitioned to the non-profit community as Development Director for the Sierra Club, Program Manager for Kokua Kalihi Valley and Executive Director of Waimea Valley on the North Shore of Oahu. Since 2009, Mr. Gill has served as the Program Director for the Blue Planet Foundation of Hawaii where he has developed a CFL bulb exchange program and the Hawaii Home Energy Makeover TV show, among other projects.  Recently, Governor Neil Abercrombie asked Mr. Gill to once again lead the environmental protection programs for the State of Hawaii.

NRS holds its monthly brown bag lunch meeting from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. at the HSBA conference room.  Guests are welcome but priority will be given to paid members.