2015-06-22 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes—June 22, 2015 Man: Hand held usually works better. That's fine... SC: Thank you... TL: And thank you, again, by the way, for taking the time to join us this evening. We do appreciate that. SC: Sure. Definitely our pleasure to be here and thank you so much for having us. So I'm Susan Case. I'm the new Chair of the Department of Land and Natural Resources. Been on the job not quite two months. And Kekoa Kaluhiwa is the first deputy, the land deputy and on the job a little bit longer and so this is a great opportunity. Thank you for having us to really come and meet you folks and listen. I know you talked about a presentation but really we're here to listen. We're here to kinda hear what are your thoughts, passions, questions, concerns and be in a learning mode, so I appreciate that. I just want to give a little bit background on myself just to start the process of getting to know each other. So I'm born actually in Hilo. Lived here till I was ten. I lived in Keaukaha. I went to school in Waiakea Kai and Keaukaha School. And I probably had a childhood a lot like many of you who obviously love the outdoors —when you're out in it hunting and fishing. I'm not a hunter. I did grow up spear fishing at least till we moved to the big city in Honolulu when I was ten although we came back quite a lot. But my upbringing involved just a huge amount of outdoor adventure. Going all over where we could — off road — jeep roads — climbing around the mountains, hiking, swimming, spear fishing — all along the coast— Kona and around here. So I developed a very deep appreciation for the outdoors and I know many of you, all of you share that. It's being out in it that gives you that passion, that sense of peace and that sense of connection and what you want to share with future generations. My professional background is — my actual training is as a real estate lawyer—which is helpful for me — I practiced real estate law for 18 years for a private firm in San Francisco and 14 with the Nature Conservancy. And I was on the mainland and here so I did work all over the western United States and Hawaii and Asia-Pacific. I did legal work for fourteen years so a lot of that was working on lands here on Hawaii Island as well as places all over the western United States. And then I came back and was — I came back in 2000 and was a little while later became the State Director for the Nature Conservancy, so I did that for fourteen years. So in that capacity I've had quite a bit of experience with many of the issues that you all are high-lighting and worked with a lot of hunters along the way and a lot of people who are conservationists, preservationists and hunters as well. So I think a lot of people really share at least the passion for both hunting and for protecting our very special places. So that's a little bit of background. And then just in terms of some — I just want, you know, cover just a couple of things that have been 9