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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0736.001 2014-2016 Pi PMESC Murashige, Laura From: Elisabeth Green <info@green247.org> Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2016 9:55 AM To: Council Testimony Subject: condidtional support of the Willie bill to create agriculture chapter and committee Dear County Couniclmembers and public, I support hiring environmental and biomedical engineers along with epigenetics researchers to study Rapid Ohia Death solutions. If the Hawaiian rainforest loses 75%of its tree cover, ecological destabilization is not the only risk.The mean benefits from reducing deforestation were found to greatly exceed the mean costs by a factor of approximately three (3.12 for a 50 per cent reduction and 2.86 for a 90 per cent reduction). Source: Hope and Castilla-Rubio (2008), contributing to the Eliasch Review(2008).The State Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism will most likely conduct research on economic impact of Rapid Ohia Death - in particular from tourism and agriculture. My several months of literature review have yielded these possible solutions to the Ceratocystis fimbriata infection: 1. Soil testing and supplementation.A variety of mango in Brazil is resistant to fimbriata because it can encase fimbriata in calcium. Can 'ohi'a do that? 2. Epigenetic control of fimbriata self-sterility resulting from deletion of the MAT 1-2-1 gene at its flanking sequences. What environmental agent promotes that deletion? 3. Chromatin-mediated epigenetic control of fimbriata effector gene expression.What agent can make fimbriata "blind" to 'ohi'a? 4. Environmentally induced fimbriata functional gene telomere shortening while preventing telomere and subtelomere heterochromatin formation. What environmental agent shortens fimbriata cellular lifespan? I have promoted the funding of positions to study these potential solutions. I have asked several university and government officials to assist. Will the bill that creates a County chapter and committee on agriculture speed up the funding of this kind of research on the big island?Will it create paying jobs? For whom? Sustainable forest management has complex requirements.To formulate a Sustainable forest management (SFM) plan for a concession, an inventory of forest resources is needed and funds are required for associated mapping, in-forest measurement and assessment, and development of the plan and a process for implementation.These actions alone entail heavy investments. Source: Gumbo (2010). I have made these investments. If only I were getting paid for working on this problem, I could afford an attorney to speed up the sustainable forest management activities I have identified and planned. I support this bill if and only if it creates paying jobs for research scientists and interdisciplinary engineers. Mahalo, Elisabeth Green for self 13-3376 Pahoa-Kalapana Rd Pahoa HI 96778 w co COMM. No. 13 1 Ref. To: �w Ref. Dote 1