Category Archives: Community

Big Island, Community, Hamakua Coast, Hawaiian Role Models, Sustainability

Brudda Skibs

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It’s not often you run across someone who is, as Richard describes Brudda Skibs, “completely selfless.”

Richard told me that when they conceived of the idea of the E Malama ‘Aina sustainability festival, Brudda Skibs was the first person he thought of. He’s glad Skibs was a part of the festival.

Richard described Brudda Skibs to me by saying he is known for organizing people in the community – mostly young people – to malama the ‘aina. To take care of the land.

“His reputation is spreading,” Richard said, “and other islands are trying to copy his template.”

That’s Skibs kneeling in the center, wearing the black long-sleeved t-shirt.

Honoli'i

It’s hard for some people to wrap their heads around what Skibs (real name: Keith Nehls) does. Every Monday he and his volunteer crew clean up the park at Hakalau. Every Wednesday, they work at Honoli‘i Park. Every Friday, they’re at Honomu.

“We do it free,” he says. “With our heart.”

Watch this video, and you’ll understand about his heart. It’s an important speech and I wish every kid in Hawai‘i would watch it.

And read this article about their reclamation of Honoli‘i Park. Here’s an excerpt:

Honoli’i is one of the best surf spots on the Hilo side, hands down, and for years the surrounding park area was overgrown, full of rubbish, and unattended.

No More.

In November 2003 Keith “Skibs” Nehls and 150 other people started a movement that dwindled down to maybe 5 people within five months. His undying spirit carried him through.

Never Give Up echoed in his ears, words that his Grandfather taught him.

Uncle Skibs gives plenty credit to the teachings of his Grandfather, which instilled in him a strong faith in Akua(God) and a dedication to taking care of the aina(land)….

Dramatic Changes have taken place at Honoli’i, the aina glows from the loving touch of its caretakers.

In the beginning, everybody thought that the land was county land, and no one asked; they just started cleaning it.

Turns out it was Kamehameha School lands, and they were thinking of selling it because they saw no way they were going to be able to take care of it.

When they saw what was going on, they approached Uncle Skibs and offered him a lease on the land, 1 acre, for a dollar a year!

See what a little faith does!

Just look at what they’ve accomplished at Honoli‘i. This video shows the same areas in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, and my jaw fell open to see the land go from abandoned to absolutely beautiful. I had to replay it a couple times to see it again.

At Honomu, they are working on cleaning up the old sugar mill. “It’s privately owned by a doctor,” says Skibs. “He got in touch with us and said he was looking for someone to come take care of this place. He said he wants to give back. He wants to hand it over to an entity” where part of the building can be a community center and part of the land down near the ocean can be a park. They’re clearing the top part of the property right now. “We’re showing him we’re real,” he says.

They’re real. Skibs and his crew have been doing this for five years now, and he’s formed a non-profit organization, Basic Image, which last year brought in $46,000 in cash – $40,000 of that from the Hawaii Tourism Authority – and almost $300,000 in in-kind donations.

Kids come help on the weekends, he says, from Hilo High, Kamehameha Schools, Ha‘aheo School, Punana Leo and others. “We give them a tour, talk to them,” he says. “We tell them we built this park and put on events, and you gotta bring your parents, teach others, because when we die, you’ve gotta take over. This is for everybody. It’s not yours. You’re not going to get one special park; you’re doing it to teach our culture. You’re giving back.”

Every year he puts on surf contests at Honoli‘i and Pohoiki. “It’s for the kids, but parents or guardians have to be there,” he says. “Schools help us. They tell the kids: If you come and help us, we’ll put on this free contest because you’ve giving back. The parents come so they know what’s going on.”

Want to help? He says he’s always there around 9 or 9:30 in the morning. Or email him at skibs7@mac.com.

“Everyone has one talent that’s their gift,” he says. “You don’t have to come down to clean up. You give whatever. What you like do? What are you good at? I like you come and do what you like do.”

“We’re all here to do one job. We’re not looking at money or fame; we’re looking at changing this place to the way it used to be.”

Richard says that what Brudda Skibs is doing is “a manifestation of ‘aloha spirit.'”

“This is what is going to keep us together as a society when push comes to shove,” he says. “We need to feel a part of our community, make more friends and stay close to our family.”

“What we’re doing is real,” says Skibs. “We could change this island. We’re doing it already. That’s our job right now – the future of our children.”

Community

Update re: this Saturday’s Rat Lungworm Meeting

Jane Whitefield gives us these directions to SPACE, which is hosting the Rat Lungworm meeting mentioned here this Saturday, 1/31/09:

You drive down Hwy. 130 toward Kalapana. When you dead end at the lava, turn left. This is Hwy. 137. Drive toward Kehena and Kalapana Seaview Estates (it’s probably a 10-minute drive and very hilly, but overlooks the ocean – Spectacular!). Turn left into Seaview. Travel up the entrance road until you see the sign on the right that says “SPACE,” with a hand pointing to the left. Follow that to the entrance and parking lot.

She tells us, too, that there is a Yahoo group called Parasites out of Paradise if anyone is interested in learning more.

Community

Informational Meeting about Rat Lungworm Disease, 1/31/09

After running our post about Rat Lungworm, we got this email from blog reader Jane Whitefield:

It is interesting to see how you deal with the rat, slug/snail problem at Hamakua Springs.

We are having a Rat Lungworm Meeting this Saturday, Jan. 31, at noon at SPACE in Kalapana Seaview Estates. We hope to have many well-informed people attending as the purpose of this meeting is informational. Zsolt Halda, who has just been released from the hospital, will be there.

I realize Hamakua is not real close, so we would appreciate any help you can give us “in getting the word out.” This is affecting all our lives.

She said that there’s a “pretty unique Farmers Market at SPACE from 8-11:30,” too.

Community

Rat Lungworm Disease in Puna

Yesterday’s Hawaii Tribune-Herald had a front-page article about people contracting a rare form of meningitis caused by ingesting uncooked snails and slugs that carry a microscopic worm called the rat lungworm.

Symptoms are very severe and have been associated with eating uncooked, organic lettuce that has live slugs or snails on them.

At Hamakua Springs, we have been aware of this disease for many years. We don’t want you to worry about our lettuce!

We long ago implemented control measures. The rat lungworm completes its lifecycle by going from rats to snails and then back again, and it’s important to break that cycle. We do that by using a combination of slug bait and rat traps.

Our hydroponic system of growing actually makes controlling slugs much easier than if we grew our products in soil.

There have been incidents of meningitis caused by rat lungworm on all the major islands, but they seem to be the most concentrated in lower Puna. One woman is still in a coma and some of the severe symptoms are excruciating pain for hours on end.

This is an interesting video about the problem, taken at an informational community meeting in Puna. It shows the slug and snail life cycle and discusses prevention recommendations. Aaron Ueno, of the Hawaii Department of Health, is also shown speaking to the community.

Community, Sustainability

Hawaii Island Master Gardeners

Every Wednesday here at the blog we are featuring someone who was at the E Malama ‘Aina sustainability festival, and this week we’re happy to tell you about the Hawai‘i Island Master Gardeners Association (HIMGA).

Master Gardeners are those who take a two-month class, pass an exam, and then do 40 hours of certification. HIGMA is affiliated with the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR) of the University of Manoa.

The volunteer group’s mission statement: To extend to the gardening public research-based information about home horticulture and pest management.

“The main point of the Master Gardeners is to work on the phone and in the office at CTAHR,” says HIGMA president Rhea Hubbard. “We speak with the public when they call in and say, ‘What’s this little bug that lives on my corn?; what’s this rust on my plumeria?’ We also give back to the community, work in the schools, run programs at the senior center.”

At the festival, they educated people on how to recognize fruit flies and keep them out of their gardens, including bringing their lures and bait and selling their handmade traps (which are made from 2-liter soda bottles). They also gave away basil and tomato plants, and Master Gardener Janice Crowl was there with her book.

There are 50 or 60 Master Gardeners in HIGMA, who come from as far away as Pa‘auilo and South Point to attend meetings and work at the CTAHR office.

At CTAHR they answer phone calls (call 981-5199 on Tuesday and Friday between 9 a.m. and 12 noon), respond to emails (himga@hawaii.edu – you can attach a photo of your plant or pest!) and look at specimens that people bring in to the office. They are located at the Waiakea Experimental Station at 920 Stainback Highway, one mile past the zoo on N. Kulani Road.

If they cannot readily identify the plant’s problem, they can have it (and also soil) analyzed. “Nothing is more than $10,” says Hubbard.

“Our big thrust is sustainability,” she says. “I was amazed to read in the paper last week that 90 percent of our food here is still imported.”

“We want to educate people that you can do it: You can grow food on your patio. You can grow your lettuce; you can grow your tomatoes. Even if you don’t have soil, you can do raised beds. Our overall goal is to help educate the public.”

The next Master Gardener class is in the fall; call the HIGMA office if you’d like to learn more.

Community, Food Security, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability

Pacific Century Fellows at the Farm

Yesterday, the 10th class of Pacific Century Fellows visited our farm.

Here’s a little about the Pacific Century Fellows:

The objective of the Pacific Century Fellows Program is to develop leaders with a greater awareness and sensitivity to the people and institutions of Hawaii. Based on the White House Fellows Program, the Pacific Century Fellows Program will bring together annually up to 25 of Hawaii’s most promising individuals from all walks of life, fields and professions. They’ll gain a broader view of civic duty through direct contact with senior community, social and government leaders. The program encourages the development of long-term relationships between leaders young and old, united in their commitment to find creative solutions to the challenges facing the state.

The people in this program are our future leaders; our best and brightest. What message did I want to get across? I decided to talk about the most important issue facing our state: that Hawai‘i imports 90 percent of its food. How will we make sure we can feed ourselves?

I told them that this is not rocket science. “If the farmers make money, farmers will farm.”

Modeled after the White House Fellows Program and founded by Mayor Mufi Hannemann, the Fellows are chosen on the basis of a written application and personal interview conducted by a blue-ribbon panel of judges. Individuals who are chosen have shown strong intellectual and leadership abilities in the early and mid-stages of their careers, and who have the potential to make significant contributions to the community in the future.

The Pacific Century Fellows Program will provide participants with direct contact with senior community, social, and government leaders. A goal of the program is to nurture relationships among individuals who are committed to exploring creative and constructive solutions to far-reaching challenges facing the state and nation.

I told them that we at Hamakua Springs Country Farms plan at least five years out for a future that we need to be relevant within. And that the physical layout they were seeing was planned five years ago, and is not really where we are now.

What is that future that we must be relevant within? I told them that this simple formula makes sense for us and applies to everyone in Hawai‘i: Net energy return on energy invested, minus the energy used for food production, gives us our life style.

Say it takes one barrel of oil to extract 15 barrels of oil, and it takes two barrels of oil to produce food for a certain number of people. Then our group would have 13 barrels of oil to do everything else – like run lights, pump water, drive to Kona, go fishing, etc. We would be living better than kings in years past.

But it is getting more and more difficult to extract oil. Say, one barrel now can only extract 10 barrels, and it still takes two barrels to grow our food.  Now we have only eight barrels instead of 13 to do everything else. This is not rocket science either. It is a simple formula to manipulate.

We need to figure out how we can get the best net energy return on energy invested. And we need to figure out how to lessen our dependence on oil to produce our food.

And other things flow from the principles above:

If done correctly, the Thirty Meter Telescope is a good thing. It can help educate our keiki and help future generations cope.

The E Malama ‘Aina sustainability festival is meant to show people they are not alone as oil prices rise and times start getting challenging.

I am very supportive of geothermal energy use. This is the best source of renewable energy we have here in Hawai‘i. It is a great gift.

Plug it into our formula above and we end up with a better lifestyle. In fact we have so many sources of renewable energy, we can have a relatively better lifestyle than the U.S. mainland.

The reason we pushed the alternate energy loan program through the last legislature is because “if the farmer makes money, the farmer will farm.”

It’s why we support an extra incentive for farmers to develop alternative energy projects.

It’s also why we support a discount for produce transported on Young Brothers’ barges.

We must not lose our focus. We need closer communities – we need to make more friends and we need to be closer to our families. We need to help each other as we face tougher times ahead.

Hawaiians knew how to do this.  It is called the Aloha Spirit. And it works best when everyone practices it.

I think President Elect Obama, who grew up here in Hawai‘i, carries the influence of the Aloha Spirit with him, and that is what is making this country hopeful.

Community, Mauna Kea

Agreeing to Disagree & Sharing a Ride

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I called Kale Gumapac, Alaka‘i of the Kanaka Council, on his cell phone the other day.

Some who don’t know the people on the Kanaka Council are afraid of them. Some think Kanaka Council members are radical and unpredictable.

I think they are uncompromising, principled people. I’m very comfortable around them.

When I called, the conversation went like this: “Eh Kale, Dawn Chang just called me to ask if you guys going make the meeting with her at the County Building in Kona?” I told him that Dawn had asked me to come to the meeting, which was about the Mauna Kea Comprehensive Management Plan draft, in order to give her moral support. But I had forgotten about the meeting.

Kale replied that he had four guys in the car and was on his way to Kona. Then he said, “I should have thought to call you so we could all ride down to Kona together.”

The previous meeting between the Kanaka Council and Dawn Chang, at the Queen Lili’uokalani Children’s Center, had been heated and very contentious. It was tough. Dawn told me that it was the toughest meeting she had had to date. So she was a little concerned about this one.

Later, though, she told me that this meeting with the Kanaka Council turned out to be the most constructive meeting she had ever had. She was astounded.

I wasn’t surprised.

The Kanaka Council and I have been on opposite side of issues before. I didn’t know what they were going to say to Dawn, nor did they know what I was going to talk about. But it didn’t matter.

Kale’s offering me a ride to Kona with them meant I had a ride back to Hilo, too, no matter what happened at the meeting. In other words, we had agreed to disagree and still be friends afterwards.

On the way back to Hilo, the conversation could have gone something like this: “Eh, try pass the boiled peanuts.” And we would have been friends talking stories the rest of the way.

This is how it should be. We all need to respect each other. Sooner or later, oil prices will rise again and we will have to depend on each other. We need to have a tight-knit community. We need more friends, rather than less. We also need to be close to our families.

Community, Water

The Kohala Ditch Flows Again!

My friend Duane Kanuha forwarded me this email from Bill Shontell, the project manager for Surety Corp. It’s about the Kohala Ditch water flowing. This is a huge project that’s been a tremendous amount of work and a long time coming.

I wrote about the project a couple months ago when I took a helicopter tour of the area.

Here’s the note from Bill:

FYI, we released the waters of Honokane Nui through new Flume #1 this afternoon about 2:30. The intake is working fine and the flume is currently conveying water across Honokane West Branch, through the ridge of Kupehau, and into Pololu Valley.

On Monday the 24th, we will throttle down the valve at the intake, remove two temporary access ramps in Pololu and Niulii and on Tuesday the 25th, at 3 pm, we will release water into the balance of the system.

Just in time for Thanksgiving.

Kohala ditch Pau 11-21-08

Here I am in September, getting ready to go see the origin of the Kohala ditch at Honokane Nui.

Kohala ditch 006

The crew that works in the valley. That’s Rick Gordon in the middle and Bill Shontell on the right. Our helicopter pilot is at left.

Kohala ditch 049

This entire cliff face fell in with the 2006 earthquake that destroyed the ditch. 

Kohala ditch 058

Kohala ditch 057

View of the repair work going on at the dam at Honokane Nui. That day, a loose stone fell off the cliff and glanced off one of the workers. 

Kohala ditch 073

Lifting up and out of the valley. We were way down there at the stream level. What a trip.

Kohala ditch 084

The mouth of Pololu Valley.

Kohala ditch 100

[Leslie’s note: I went looking for something I could link to, something that would tell the story of what happened to the historic and important Kohala Ditch during the October 2006, 6.7 earthquake, and I found, um, this magazine article. Which I wrote, and Macario photographed, and which I had sort of forgotten about. Which tells you something about the state of my mind.]

Community, Mauna Kea

Epic Discoveries

Richard Ha writes:

I attended all seven of the TMT scoping meetings. And I testified at each one, talking about sustainability, togetherness and planning for future generations. Yet, as meetings came to Hilo, where the most passionate of the speakers talked about past injustices, processes not followed, and betrayal – and where I talked about sustainability, education and future generations – a thought started to surface.

It was this: Hawaiians were the most accomplished navigators of their time. How appropriate for the greatest telescope in the world, and the greatest navigators in the world, to come together for future Hawaiian keiki to look up to and take pride in.

History books are full of tales about heroic mariners such as the Norseman Leif Ericson, Christopher Columbus of Spain, Ferdinand Magellan of Portugal and James Cook of England.

Lesser known are the accomplishments of the Polynesians – arguably the most skilled seamen of all – who were navigating the Pacific centuries before any European explorer left port.

From the Marquesas, those courageous pioneers sailed north more than 2,000 miles to settle the islands that we now call Hawai‘i. Amazingly, they made those epic voyages guided only by the stars, winds and ocean currents.

If the TMT folks listen to everyone’s concerns and take suggestions seriously – in, as they say, a new paradigm – there is a good chance we can honor the greatest navigators in the world with the largest and best telescope in the world on the most sacred mountain in the world—all for the benefit of generations of keiki to come.

Not, no can. CAN!

Community, Food Security, Renewable Energy Sources

The Hawai’i Energy Challenge 2008

Many service stations, from Aniston, Alabama to Asheville, North Carolina, ran out of gasoline due to Hurricanes Ike and Gustav. In Asheville, one gas station owner had to call police after at least three fistfights broke out. In Nashville, drivers waited for hours to get fuel, only to see gas pumps covered in bags. In Atlanta, motorists ran out of gas while waiting in line and had to push their cars to the pumps. An Alabama paper said the regional mood was “as jumpy as a frog farm.” These stories have been overshadowed by the recent Wall Street meltdown.

Matthew Simmons, chairman and CEO of Simmons & Company International, a prominent oil-industry insider and one of the world’s leading experts on the topic of peak oil, points out that a similar meltdown could happen – without warning – to our national food supply system.

He points out that if there were an oil supply disruption due to an oil tanker blocking the Strait of Malacca, for example, there would likely be panic buying and people topping off their vehicles. This would drain all the transportation fuel in the pipelines – and that would freeze up our food distribution system. He estimates that it would take five to seven days for all available food to be bought up. (My note: Try two days.) After that, food deliveries would stop, because refineries would need a fair amount of time to bring their supplies back up. Here is a video of Matt Simmons talking at the Peak Oil conference last month.

Could that happen? And what would happen here in Hawai‘i, where 80 percent of our food is imported?

For many reasons, this just being the most recent, we need to get serious about food security, which includes moving away from our current dependence on oil. I’ve said before that this is not rocket science. If the (Hawai‘i) farmer makes money, the farmer will farm.

“The economic security and stability of the State of Hawaii continue to remain extremely vulnerable to threats due to Hawaii’s overdependence on imported oil.…” – State of Hawaii Energy Resources Coordinator Annual Report (January, 2008)

The Hawai‘i Leeward Planning Conference is putting on a Hawai‘i Energy Challenge 2008:

The Hawai’i Energy Challenge 2008 will assemble keen minds to realistically assess the rising cost of imported oil, its import for key sectors of Hawai’i’s economy and impact on island lifestyles as well as a range of forward-thinking, dynamic opportunities to develop sustainable energy and liquid fuels.

November 20 – 21, 2008
The Fairmont Orchid
Kohala Coast, Hawai‘i Island
Featured speaker: Matt Simmons