2008-05-22 TPUNACDP - Laserfiche WebLink

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WATANABE: Okay. Mr. Gumapac, would you raise your right hand, please. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? GUMAPAC: Yes. WATANABE: Thank you. State your name and address for the record, and then you may begin your testimony. GUMAPAC: My name is Kale Gumapac, and my address HCR2 Box 9607 Keaau, Hawaii. I represent the Kanaka Council, and am testifying before the Commission in regards to the Puna Community Development Plan. The Kanaka Council supports the Puna Community Development Plan as far as it has been completed. The Kanaka Council also feels that it has not been completed. Throughout the Development Plan there have been many, many, many references in regards to cultural resources, many references to iwi and the protection of all these resources. And on Page 2-1, Malama Ika Aina, first paragraph, it says this: “Despite the destruction of native forest and other resources that has occurred in Puna, and the potential for much more damage through land development in the extensive subdivisions, as described in Chapter 1 ….,” and then at the bottom in the footnote it refers to Wao Kele O Puna Forest Reserve. In the Kanaka Council we have several organizations that participate with the Kanaka Council including the Pele Defense Fund who was instrumental in winning the Wao Kele O Puna Forest case. We also have members that won the Kohanaiki case. We also have members who also won the Ka Pa‘akai case, the PASH case. And in reference to all these cases, we also need to point out to the Commission the latest Supreme Court decision that came down January st 31 of this year in regards to ceded lands and who the ceded lands belong to and its ruling. There is also reference to Royal Patent Lands in this CDP. But as we thumb through all of this and we look through all of this, there are resources that it talks about the aquifers, the water resources – the water resources most of which are on ceded lands – Puna water shed, Volcano Puna forest, Puna shoreline area of which we won, the Ka Pa‘akai case at Kohanaiki. But at the end of the report there is nowhere in sight that it says who, what, when and where should be responsible for all of these cultural, traditional resources and input. I come before the Commission because it needs to be amended. And the amendment in this Commission should show that the Kanaka Council be the cultural and traditional monitor, not only for the Puna Community Development Plan, but for all Community Development Plans here on this island. Our responsibility as the Kanaka Council has always been to fight and maintain for the resources that are here, to fight and maintain the cultural and traditional rights that belong to all Hawaiian, to poe kanaka. I do not see any of that in here, but yet there is much reference to it here. And I appreciate what Jon and his Committee has done. And so I am bringing to you to make it your responsibility to amend that and to make sure that the Kanaka Council is added as a cultural monitor for the traditional and cultural resources, so that we can be the ones to oversee all of these and make sure that we are the ones that give permission because on these ceded lands and then these resources, poe kanaka, that’s our responsibility. And so we ask that the Commission makes that amendment. It’s missing, blatantly missing. And it needs to be corrected. Mahalo. Oh, one other thing, the reason why I say that. Under Article 12, Section 7, it says – this is the State Constitution – “The State reaffirms and shall protect all rights customarily and traditionally exercised for subsistence, cultural and religious purposes and possessed by Ahupuaa tenants who are descendants of native Hawaiians who inhabited the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1778 …..” EXHIBIT C 20