2019-04-15 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – April 15, 2019 after the over throw – our Hawaiians were able to feed over a million Hawaiians. Now, how was that without having imported goods coming into Hawaii? They knew the land – they were the land – and this is something that our legislators and our lawyers and attorneys should understand when we say we are the land – we were the host people that came to the Islands – we created a system along with spiritual practices. Does that make any sense to anyone? What does that mean? It means when you govern your land and its resources it was protected with the belief of a spiritual practice. That is exactly what I needed to talk to you about and why GMAC was created this way because for generations our Hawaiians have had to deal with the depletion of resources because they were not allowed to practice their culture by maintaining their resources with the spiritual practice. They did it that way. I think every culture does that. When the Japanese came into Hawaii as plantation workers they had very little acculturation. Why? Because even though they were not from Hawaii and they moved here to work – they managed to keep their spiritual practices till today. Very little acculturation to their practices and which was proven in the University of Hawaii to be the reason why they have the best health in Hawaii. Our plantation ancestors that came over to work and kept their spiritual practices – they were able to keep their spiritual practices – brought it with them – even though they did not come from here. Now, you’re gonna have to understand our Hawaiians – we live here and we’re not able to practice who we are – because of our circumstances so in 1978 when our Renaissance leaders – they don’t like to be called Renaissance because a lot of them are still alive like Palikapu who fought for these native rights – to be who we are in our own land – we cannot be who we are in our own land because the laws do not permit us to do that. When the hunters came to Pele Defense Fund in 2011 they knew that they needed the help for this because fencing was being done all over this Big Island – fencing that was being promoted by the several conservation special interest groups – environmental groups and our – at that time our hunters were having a very difficult time... T: When the hunters came to Hawaii – I mean to Pele Defense Fund we had so many hunters at that time – they actually did some protests in front of the Department of Land and Natural Resources fighting the eradication and the aerial shooting and the fencing – so what we did to help them was to teach them a little bit about the rights of our traditional practices. Why we would call not hunting but gathering – because it’s gathering your resources. We have the rights to gather – it is protected – our Hawaiian people have the rights – it is our right to gather – whether it’s fish or hunting – so at the same time we had the fishermen who had also their issues in Kaupulehu they had several closures meaning they were going to go from A to B in Kaupulehu and they were not going to allow anyone to fish – closed for ten years. It was a ten- year ban. So at the same time we had fishermen that were coming to our meetings because they thought the same thing – just like the hunting – how can you stop us from fishing when it is our right and are we the problem? That 10