2022_01_18 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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4. PRESENTATIONS: a. Peter Simmons, Land Management and Forestry consultant for the Hawai’i Forest Industry Association will speak on the process of converting Conservation lands into recreational and commercial forestry purposes. AA: First presentation Mr. Peter Simmons, Land Management Forestry Consultant for Hawaii Forestry Industry Association. So Mr. Simmons, would you like to give us a brief introduction on yourself since you missed out last time and you can begin your presentation… PS: Aloha everyone, I’m Peter Simmons and thanks for having me again. My land management experience is all in Hawaii. I managed McCandless Ranch for about 5 years or so and that’s a 66,000-acre ranch in South Kona, and during that period I oversaw the hunting program which was – I think was Steve Arrington and then brother Nobriga later on in my time – were running the hunting – mostly big game, I mean show game, you know, looking for trophy but it was good income for the ranch. One thing I didn’t start but I thought it was good thing they did there was whenever a sheep was taken – we always took a blood sample and sent it in for – to look for parasites. It wasn’t very expensive at that time and it just seemed like a good thing to do if you’re managing your animals. We had – was it the Kirk Russell Fall Classic – him and Goldie Hahn and a bunch of celebrities came to Hawaii and they cowboys at the ranch did a particularly did a great job with all the celebrities and built a hale for them down at Kūkiʻo. Got paid good money for it and then came home – we got all of the materials – so it was good. Ah, I moved on to Kamehameha Schools – I was given the opportunity to look over the – all the ranch lands, all the forest lands, I guess the mountain tops and then later on large orchards and then later on I became the District Manager, I’m sorry, what did we call – Director. Bob Lindsey was my boss most of the time at Kamehameha Schools and I credit him with all the things we did together. He was an awesome leader and a great guy to have as a mentor, even though he was a little younger than me. I retired from Kamehameha about 11 years ago – just personally I’ve always been in the outdoors in some way whether it was, you know, doing forestry stuff or hunting or just being out there. But one thing I wanted to bring up and this is part of the history too but, and this is the – Duane Keaanaaina – I don’t know if any of you folks knew Duane, but Duane passed away over Christmas, I didn’t know that until last time I was here – terrific guy – great hunting advocate – great hunter – but he and I started the Big Kahauloa Hunting Club over in Kona above the Honaunau Forest. It was his idea – he came in – I used to manage that land as part of the McCandless Ranch lease – it was about 23,000 acres and so if you imagine what – where Honaunau Forest is and you just imagine the landscape above that – that was the area. He came in with the idea of creating a hunting club and I had been doing some research on hunting clubs and though it would be good idea to try 2