2014-03-24 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 24, 2014 W. Camara: OK. I could have sworn he told me it was Water and Land. But anyway… It’s sitting somewhere over there so hopefully it’s gonna get heard in the senate before the end of the session. H.B. 1902 - No Net Loss. No Net Loss has gone all the way through the House, through the first – through Water and Land, in the Senate, not by any means perfect. Chair Sylvester: Perfect, yeah, but we’ve discussed that with the mayor today too and he said we need to support it and see what happens... it is part of the process. W. Camara Man: Oh, great, yeah, that’d be good. You know Representative Evans has really helped us a bunch this year. You know if you see her around or send her a note – her and her staff have done a lot to, for No Net Loss and all of these.. Chair Sylvester: And with that I have a list of the senators for it’s got to go to the Ways and Means so it would be nice if you give each person a call or an email asking them to continue to support H.B. 1902 SD1. T. Lodge: All of us should do that. Chair Sylvester: Yeah, it is a good way for us to get exposure and let them know who we are – that there’s active people in the community. I found that a lot of times our legislators just don’t know. I mean we have not been active for a while and they just come around and we can stomp our feet and say what are you guys doing – you know what I mean just behind – but a lot of that is our fault because they just don’t know – if people don’t say anything you’re not gonna know either. So I think that’s something we can all unify on – even with the hunting community and all that – we have great support from a number of people but we got to encourage them to talk to family and friends – get them set up to give testimony and do things, you know be positive about things because it’s, like I said, some of them just don’t know but they are ready to help or hold balance or compromise or at least respect our position on things. And I think that alone is valuable you know and as we grow and make things better. It’s just we have to get unified with all the different hunters and users too every one of these policies it’s gonna directly affect the wider community as well. And I’ve also tried to meet with the Big Island Fisheries Council. We need to work together – it’s been far too long – it’s been us against them and it’s a push and shove – I guess for the hunters we feel like we’ve been pushed for thirty years – pretty bad and I think clarifying some of the acreage that – they say we have 900,000 acres to hunt and that’s something that we’ve tried to push on the legislature this year that that’s not true. They designate the areas as hunting but when you look at the caldera of Mauna Loa where it’s - you know it’s 200,000 acres of lava rock. I mean it’s hardly a habitat for hunting. That used to be the punch line from a lot of the people that opposed what we were doing – that we have all these areas to 3