2014-10-27 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes —October 27, 2014 So that's why I'm saying is unsustainable — one of my questions is our public resources on public lands held in the public trust— so I'll use an example —we'll talk about the Rainfall as the Forest. It's a big 50 million dollar a year plan over so many years. Have any of you guys had any input into this plan? I don't think so... If I read the plan at the back of it I believe it states they phoned 700 people on Oahu and over 70% said let's protect our watershed. Is that really a public process? Is that public resources being held in the public trust? This is a notion that happened way back in the day in North America when we're pillaging all our elk and deer and everything and they realized that it was a public—that these things and resources belonged to the people and they would be the most interested in protecting them — so a lot of these things are happening and I don't think you guys have — or the public here has a full say in it. Just something to think about. Fences - while they're great for keeping out the animals and protecting the forest, which I believe is, yes, in most cases, that issue and that is important— it also does something interesting — it removes the people and is removing people truly the answer? And I'm gonna talk about the myth. So there's this myth that wildlife and all these things we have today just occur by accident—they just are here. I tend to disagree. I believe our endangered species — our hunting — all these animals we have on the land today because of us — because of people. People that are willing to work hard to protect the funding, fencing, removing invasive plants, hunting in a sustainable way — managing our animals. These are things people do — they create legislation — they create rules. But what a fence does is it fences out people from land. You can't go in these fenced areas. You can't do anything anymore. They become preservation units. And while they are important— I'm not going to disagree that you know it's not something that we should completely eradicate — you need to have these pristine areas and I think that's important— is this something we need to do everywhere. It is continually limiting the amount of people that can enjoy our outdoor areas and that begs a question — that is the reason why funding is very difficult, I believe. People don't care so much for conservation — they're living in the cities —they're not connected to nature like hunters and fishermen and people out there are. Yes, you have the bird watchers, you have the people that observe wildlife, but as you limit these things you get less and less and obviously they become less or a priority. Society doesn't get to enjoy it or put a value on it— it will disappear or it will be neglected. Then, of course, environmental conservation — they do a lot things — I've seen a lot of fantastic projects — lot of good ones — but I've also seen some that don't work— and things that maybe they don't want to talk about - but you know I don't mean to take a stab at it. I think we need to talk about it as a public. Because these are our resources, these are our monies, our funds, so we need to ask the question. Is the mode we are in today—is it working? So it took a 9