2019-04-15 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – April 15, 2019 was a concern. Are the hunters and the fishermen the problem? Are our pipi, our puaa the problem? When you have fencing you interrupt the migration of our puaa and they come down to the residential area where we cannot shoot or hunt so this is a huge concern for our hunters – they got together with one political leader and his name was Dominic Yagong – I called Dominic with Palikapu to come to meet us at Papa Mu Gallery with Pele Defense Fund to write legislation for our hunters and our fishermen and it is Bill 260 and 261 – the no aerial shooting bill and the verbiage for the Game Management Advisory Council. So 260 – this is our concern – at the time that Dominic wrote this he was running for Mayor against Billy Kenoi. It was very political – and at the time it was a hype – we had council meetings, we pitched a tent outside in parking lot to feed those so that people could not leave. We were here at 7:30 in the morning. We had over 100 testifiers and at that time it was Pele Defense Fund helping the geothermal protestors and the Puna community and the hunters. We all helped each other at that time testify for each issues – we managed to pass four legislative bills – those two years – the most important was the Game Management Advisory Council – at that time we had to put it on the ballot – we put it on the ballot and we had 39,000 voters voting for a Game Management Advisory Council. Why did we do it for the County? Because it was for a home rule idea. It was a home rule idea to be able to have our County support no aerial shooting. It was also County support where we wanted to be able to have a closer relationship with out County Council members and our people. It’s hard for our people to go to the State level to go and testify. It is hard for us to do that – but to have it at our County level – it was a great idea for home rule – so at that time we added the verbiage of traditional, customary practices to the Game Management Advisory Commission verbiage – which we believe should be first and foremost – your reason for existing and why I’m saying that is because our Hawaiian people knew how to manage their resources even before western man with spiritual practices and this is the issue – I know you’ve read that before but it needs to be front and foremost in your center vision because it’s going to help you help your hunters, your gatherers and your fishermen – we don’t like to use the word “hunters” when it comes to using your customary practices because it is gathering your resources – it is gathering your resource and you have the right to do that for everyone. So with the close – with the fishermen – it’s not only hunters – GMAC was not only for the hunters – it was also for the fishermen. It was for gatherers and that is something that we wanted to remind all of you is that issue. I’m gonna give you an example of what happened. We had a hunter that was being investigated of transporting and replenishing – why can we not replenish our resources as its being taken? Why not? You put closures and hope that it comes back together again or why don’t you put replenishment? Replenishing back to your forest as well as your ocean. Why? Because we do not have a Game Management Plan for the State of Hawaii. Now that is 2011 – this is the hunters’ issue from number 1 – from day one – no game management plan for the State of Hawaii. We are the only state – in Hawaii – without a 11