2022_03_15 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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opportunity – I’m not looking to create a dynasty for me – I’m just trying to say my gosh, if we really got our heads together – we could do this – this could be a really tremendous opportunity for the Island and for the State – but I’m looking at the Island so, you know, thank you. TN: Thank you, Peter and thank you for meeting. This is Teresa, West Hawaii, thank you for meeting and I hope to have many more meetings with you, Mahalo. AA: Thank you, Teresa, and Peter. Moving on to presentations. 4. PRESENTATION: a. Big Island Invasive Species Committee (BIISC) Communications Director, Franny Brewer, will speak about game resources being identified as “invasive species.” AA. We have Franny Brewer she’s from Big Island Invasive Species Committee – we’re gonna have a discussion or she’s gonna do a presentation on our game resources being identified as invasive species. FB: Yes, I noticed that was on the agenda but when I talked to Brian originally I started to explain we don’t really intercept with game species though I thought this might be a good opportunity to go over what BIISC is and what we do – if you don’t mind – just sort of introduce our programs to you and then we can talk story. So is that OK? AA: Yeah, that’s fine. FB: I’m gonna share my screen if that’s all right with everybody. Thank you so much for having me. I am Franny from the Big Island Invasive Species and I’m a communications director so I just want to kind of go over who we are and the actual programs that we work on. Centered around that definition of Invasive Species, which is in our name – we operate under the Executive Order – this is federal law that was issued in 1999 and reissued in 2016 with some changes but the definition under that law is invasive species – it’s sort of a two-part definition. The first part of it is that a species has to be not native to an area – so if you think of something – even if it’s weedy – so like in North America something like poison ivy would be considered weedy but it’s native to the area – so not an invasive species, right, might not be desirable to have around your property but it’s not invasive. That’s the first part of the definition. The second part of the definition is that it has to be causing harm in at least one of three areas and those areas are defined as the environment, the economy, or the human health of the area. And in response to that 1999 order, the Hawaii Invasive Species Council was formed by the State Legislature and they included way of life to sort of reflect that we understand that Hawaii has unique cultural aspects and lifestyle aspects that could be impacted by invasive species. So what is that – the HISC - Hawaiian Invasive Species Council – that is actually a council set at the state level and it’s made up by representatives from six different state departments – that would be Department of Agriculture, DLNR, the Department of Transportation, DBEDT, UH, and the Department of Health all have seats on that council so that HSIC is a little bit separate from the Island invasive species committees, of which we are one. We are formed as research projects under the Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit of the University of Hawaii and we do have a guiding committee that’s 4