Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 1, Number 2, 1 September 1981 — COMMITTEE REPORTS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Land and Natural Resources

iwenty percent ot tne revenues trom ceded lands managed by the State Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) are designated for OHA. The 1978 Constitutional mandate and later legislative action created this distribution. Since OHA must monitor its twenty percent share of receipts from the Public Land Trust Funds, the Boardof Trustees recently approved the hiring of additional personnel. OHA's new personnel will verify ceded

lands, encumbrances, and vacant-ceded lands. The immediate and most difficult task involves verifying the lands whieh DLNR has categorized as ceded, approximately ninety percent of the total state inventory. Ceded lands are legally defined as those lands "ceded to the United States by the Republic of Hawai'i under the joint resolution of annexation, approved July 7, 1898 (30 Stat. 750), or acquired in exchange for lands so ceded, and eonveyed to the State of Hawai'i by virtue of Section 5(b) of the Act of March 18, 1959, (73 Stat. 4), the Admissions Act." In the process of monitoring, OHA hopes to become familiar with the lands, and OHA expects the familiarity to help it pursue later land acquisition and advocacy issues.

Burgess