NRS' to Host Panel on Land Trusts in Hawaii

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.
  
  
• Doug Cole was raised on the North Shore of Oahu where he attended Sunset Beach Elementary School and Kahuku High School.  He received his bachelor’s degree in History from the University of California at San Diego in 2000 and his law degree from the William S. Richardson School of Law at UH Manoa in May 2010.  Doug has served as the Executive Director of the North Shore Community Land Trust since January 2010.  He has been involved with numerous North Shore community organizations including the Sunset Beach Community Association and the North Shore Neighborhood Board.  Doug was also a founding board member of the Oahu Land Trust and helped with the collaboration that led to the recent formation of the Hawaiian Islands Land Trust.

[Updated: 4/24/2011]

Is Your Food Secure?

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.

County of Kauai Important Agricultural Lands Study

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.

Fulfilling the legislative mandate in Act 183, the County of Kauai subsequently approved funding to contract with DURP to identify IAL county‐wide. That study can be found here at County of Kauai Important Agricultural Lands Study.

The policy supporting Act 183 is codified at HRS § 205-41, as follows:

Declaration of policy. It is declared that the people of Hawaii have a substantial interest in the health and sustainability of agriculture as an industry in the State. There is a compelling state interest in conserving the State's agricultural land resource base and assuring the long-term availability of agricultural lands for agricultural use to achieve the purposes of:(1) Conserving and protecting agricultural lands;(2) Promoting diversified agriculture;(3) Increasing agricultural self-sufficiency; and(4) Assuring the availability of agriculturally suitable lands,pursuant to article XI, section 3, of the Hawaii state constitution.

Under HRS § 205-47, each county is directed by the legislature to identify and map potential important agricultural lands within its jurisdiction based on the standards and criteria laid out in Act 183, which is also codified at HRS § 205-41, et seq.