Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 22, Number 3, 1 March 2005 — Agenda for the ʻāina [ARTICLE]

Agenda for the ʻāina

In early Lebruary, OHA joined with several other leading environmental and community organizations to present a unified agenda of 13 issues of importance to Hawai'i's environment. The agenda is presented in a legislative briefing book titled Common Sense Conservation 2005. Besides OHA, the groups backing the environmental agenda include the Conservation Council of Hawai'i, Life of the Land, Rocky Mountain Institute, Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., Hawai'i Clean Elections, KAHEA, Hawai'i's Thousand Lriends and the Sierra Club, Hawai'i Chapter. "Today, Native Hawaiian, environmental and community organizations share a eommon agenda: working towarda sustainableHawai'i," said Hawai 'i Sierra Club Director Jeff Mikulina at a press conference announcing the unified agenda. "Citizen organizations statewide eame together to develop eommon sense solutions to our most pressing environmental problems." Topping the groups' priority list is the "Legacy Lands Act," a measure to fund land conservation statewide. The bill would use a portion of the conveyance tax for purchasing wild coastline, watersheds and special places. Among other issues included in the briefing booklet are: • Lunding the state's Natural Area Reserves • Cruise ship pollution prevention • Shoreline certification process • Invasive species control and prevention • Biodiversity prospecting • Genetically modified organism safety • Stopping muddy runoff • Clean energy • Protecting existing environmental law, such as the land use law, water code, bottle law and puhlie harbors. The entire contents of the environmental legislation briefing book is available online at www.hi.sierraclub.org/legislative. i