2015-06-22 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes—June 22, 2015 being the wise use of resources and preservation being the non-use or more the intrinsic value of resources that we keep them, you know, essentially fenced and I'm not against either— I believe both are important and I want to just make that disclaimer here — but I think we're neglecting sometimes the wise use portion of it—that— and um —those illustrations we'll get to it— so my vision and my thinking — and I'm not talking of this as a commissioner— it's just a personal view— I only want to be — I'll be accountable for anything I say on these things you can fact check it all. But my personal connection to the natural is hunting, fishing, and those things. It's a gathering side of things — and I just feel that— I think we should be looking at protecting every personal connection to that natural world because as we modernize and people live closer and closer to urban centers they're gonna care less about these natural areas. You can tell 'em on TV and stuff, but it doesn't have the same effect as these people all right here. All of these people right here that enjoy the lands that are out there —they can be your allies in better conservation and protecting these things — so, and I, 1 bring up the next point which is that DLNR having less than 1% of the State budget— and is that even surprising because if you think about it—we're not engaging all of these people that actually care. We're kind of neglecting them — in a sense. I'm getting to that— leading up to it here but local hunters and fishermen - we could be the State's allies in conservation, but we're neglected. We don't have systems like the mainland does or other regions of this country. We don't, they just don't operate like us. So I wanted to bring it home to more current events and the whole sea cucumber thing is one: now that right there is totally legal to do that. There's no like law banning that or whatever. Also, another hot topic is the community-based subsistence fisheries. I think it's great that people care about their resources and want to get involved — but then the bigger picture is where did this come from? This came from a neglect of the conservation and the resources within the Department's jurisdiction. So if we were already addressing these things before they became problems — it wouldn't take the general public to have to go out there and take pictures or to have to say, "Eh, I want to kapu this place for my own fishing area because you guys aren't taking care of it." It's just so discouraging. We shouldn't have gotten to that point. So when we look at it and we think, "Are those things successes or are they failures?" It depends how you look at it. To me, I think, yeah, it's a success that people care but it's also a failure of our system. We just don't have a system to address it and we should have been doing that years ago. But we have an opportunity, we're all here, right? So that's my—well I'm kind of bashing on it— I'm gonna get to some positive stuff— but, so yeah — and the key thing here is that—does any other state operate hunting or fishing like us, you know, we're probably the only state that doesn't have a fishing license. Um, we have a hunting license, thank God, we have hunter education and all this great stuff, but, you know, we just go the administrative rules. We have tags. Maybe we have some bag limits. But 6