2013-05-13 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes - May 13, 2013 REPORTS OF SPECIAL COMMITTEES : 1. Presentation by DLNR access coordinator Jordan Jokiel J. Jokiel: I’d just like to thank you guys, for the opportunity to meet with you. I’ve actually been kind of waiting for this for a while – for you guys to get formed and formalized and I guess the reason I say that is because there’s a lot of hunters and a lot of different interests and it’s nice to kind of have one group that hopefully is a good kind of representative – with members that are representative of their various districts and their regional concerns; and, you know hunting is a very provincial thing – so it’s nice that you have people from all the different areas. I started this job – my position is the wildlife program access and acquisition coordinator – I started just a little over a year ago and it was a position that was started by my previous boss, Scott Fretz who’s moved on to a different job. I’ve got a pretty long history of working on the mountains. I lived on this island – I worked for the NARS program here – I worked with the watershed partnerships – I’ve worked for different places in different areas. This is actually a really different job for me, and I took the job because I think that it’s a really important job. So I’m \[unclear\] trying to improve and increase access – mostly for hunters – and honestly like I’ve worked for the State – so when we create public access – it generally has to be for the public – but there’s really an emphasis on trying – with this program – as I see it – to try to increase access for hunters to State lands that are public lands that are, you know, a lot of those places are places I know guys wanna hunt – you’ll go and hunt – places that you’ve lost opportunities to go hunt before. But, also, I think it’s really important to try and increase hunting opportunities in areas that aren’t managed by the State. So that might be land owned by Kamehameha Schools – land owned by Department of Hawaiian Homes – private lands – military lands. I do think that – and I’m just gonna be – I think the easiest way to be is just straight up, frank and honest with you guys. I’m sure there’s some apprehension from some of you guys because I work for the NARS program – but I think that actually positions me really well because I see the importance of conservation but I also really have come to see the importance of hunting, and I 2