we all have huge kuleana to recycle and reduce enviromnental impacts of the dump

The dump on Maui is a great example of kuleana. Though we can proclaim that it is a disgusting eyesore, all of us have contributed to its ever growing destruction. Taking responsibility for the trash you create by consuming a product should be made of the utmost priority. The individuals who demand products wrapped in packaging, need to understand the proper disposal methods to limit the waste that ends up in landfills or scattered throughout our lands and seas. The gasses and chemicals released from landfill sites are harmful. As rain washes through dumpsites, solids dissolve and mix with liquids which create an acidic and contaminated fluid that can pollute and contaminate drinking water. The bacteria from the breakdown of organic matter in landfills, such as fruit scraps and vegetable peelings, create a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.  These are just a few of the effects of waste mismanagement.

Individuals can sort the components of their trash and discard materials properly to severely reduce the millions of tons of trash that is produced each year by the nation. Home recycling does take a trivial dedication of time, but offers more than sufficient benefits to the homeowner and the environment. Recycling in the home can make a difference on both a local and global level.

The basics of recycling should be reviewed to ensure practical sorting skills. Papers and Carboard include newspapers, magazines, glossy printed flyers, phone books, envelopes, computer paper and paper packaging. Remove any rubber bands or plastic wrap. Carbon paper, stickers and laminated materials should not be included in paper & cardboards. Effort should be made to recycle all plastic waste. Plastic goods, bottles, grocery bags and polystyrene packaging should be carefully separated by the specific type of plastic. Glass containers are recycled according to color: clear, green and brown. Light bulbs, sheet  glass, mirrors and pyrex should be kept separate from traditional glass jars and bottles. Aluminum, Steel and Copper recyclables include food cans, aluminum cans, aluminum foil, foil packaging, copper, bronze and brass. Paint cans and aerosol are recyclable but are hazardous and need to be kept separate from other metals. Electronic goods like printers, computers and hardware along with cell phones and rechargeable batteries should be reused or deposited at appropriate e-cycling centers.

Some tips for home recycling; Visit your local recycling center, find out what is accepted at which specific centers on the island. Set up your home recycling bins according to these categories. Once a storage bin system for recyclables is established, recycling becomes an easier chore. Labeling these bins will ensure materials are separated correctly. To reduce your production of waste, purchase products with the highest percentage of “post-consumer” recycled content. Post consumer means the materials used in the manufacturing process were returned by consumers and successfully recycled. The Freecycle movement is a great idea, you can give away for free what you have and don’t need and you receive for free what you need, but don’t have. This free cycling of goods keeps lots of useful stuff out of the landfill and is about thinking globally and recycling locally. We must reduce consumption and demand only products made primarily with recycled content, so that the materials we recycle are put to use, and these markets are sustained.

Compost is one the best things that all of us can recycle. It includes scraps from our food prep, leftovers and anything that is natural or from the yard like branches, pruning waste, yard clean up waste. The best thing to do if you have space or a garden is to set up a compost area in our yards. We put all this stuff into a compost pile and after time and minimal management of the pile it turns to humus soil....the best nutrition on earth, for soil, plants and our natural ecosystems, made by Mother Earth, it is excellent for our gardens, fruit trees and anything that grows and needs nutrition. It is truly amazing to make our own compost into soil. It is alive and benefits our planet instead of becoming green house gas in the land fill. There are many helpful websites, books and local people to help us start to do our own compost. So please get educated and help us to be a sustainable island and reduce Mt. Opala......we all thank you for your contribution because it takes all of us to really have dramatic impacts that are measurable. We owe this to our children and the next generation, and our 'aina. This is an example of one of the most important things that each of us has kuleana to do, especially those of us who buy into the modern mentality of American consumerism. We have to or no more clean 'aina for our future....we cant just blame the ugly American way because we are all part of it weather we like it or not and we must prove to the politicians and controllers that Indigenous and native sustainable and organic methods are the only hope for our survival.
resources: 
Maui refuse aka the dump
http://www.co.maui.hi.us/facilities.aspx?pagenum=50&RID=5&Page=detail
This is from the maui recycling group and is awesome...you have to scroll down to read it and it is great
http://suphttp://www.menehunemagichawaii.com/technicaldata/Everything%20You%20Always%20Wanted%20To%20Know%20About%20Compost%20But%20Were%20Afraid%20To%20Ask.pdfak.com/organic_gardening/organic_hawaii/compost.htm

 This is one of the most positive pieces of information I have read in a long time because it tells me that young people really care and want us to care.....Kuleana people...mahalo for paying attention.

http://envisionplastics.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/recycling-is-important-a-young-persons-appeal/

To be sovereign it starts with being sovereign with our food sources

agroecology and rural farming in the world

Nov 4, 2011

 I really like and loved this reading on rural farming through out the world. I grew up on Ono Farms and was weeding and growing things since I can remember. My first actual day that I can recall weeding beets and thinning carrots I was four years old. I grew up having to work in the garden and having numerous chores centered around growing our own subsistence and food. Weeding, taking out the compost all the time, picking papayas and avos, bananas, sugar cane, every vegetable that grows here in Maui....you name it that is what I did until I was 11 years old and then I decided that I could finally fend for myself at school in Hana and started going to school in the sixth grade. I did not have as much time to help in the garden or the farm because I now had to catch up in school with the curriculum and stuff but we still had huge loads of work and responsibilities that we had at home on the farm. Now coming to school I see that all the stuff that I learned at home was invaluable and has enabled me to have great knowledge that was not taught in school at all and in my opinion should be from an early level like kinderGARDEN.

Ok now the article was so great and hopeful to read. This sentence "The agroecological process requires participation and enhancement of the farmerʻs ecological literacy about their farms and resources, laying the foundation for empowerment and continuous innovation by rural communities." hits it right on the head!!! this statement was also great..." the required change is impossible without social movements that create political will among decision-makers to dismantle and transform the institutions and regulations that presently hold back sustainable agricultural development." so so  true what this article articulates about our world and how backwards things are in relation to the agriculture and industry versus small farmers with organic sustainable strains and seeds as well as all the traditional and indigenous, and ancient wisdoms and traditions passed down in small farming villages all over the world. We have to get back to the kupuna generation mentality where everyone had things growing and everyone traded and shared food and knowledge instead of gigantic corporations like monsanto, costco and the government subsidizing stuff. We have to go back to the ways things were done before the great depression and before the war. We need to reinstate the circular way of living in harmony with nature as we are also nature. I could quote just about every line of this reading it was so good and had me hooked.

Mahalo,

 Annjulie

Resources:

From the book “Agriculture and Food in Crisis” chapter: 14 Agroecology, Small Farms, and Food Sovereignty

http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/3216

Monsanto trying to control Whole Foods Market and our healthy food sources of Organic origin. Read this it is heavy

http://www.eatingrightdiet.com/http:/eatingrightdiet.com/whole-foods-and-monsanto-misinformation/

This movie talks about the green revolution that is ruining our aina and small farming in the world focus on India. It also talks a lot about Monsanto trying to control the world through food and seeds.

lots of pono knowledge on organic and bio dynamic farming from one of the best films I have ever watched:

One man, one cow, one planet.

http://onemanonecow.com/

Maonsanto in Hawaii Because of Monsanto my family cannot farm organic papayas any more due to cross- pollinating of GM papayas. There are no more GM free papayas in Hawaii anymore

http://www.monsanto.com/hawaii/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.hawaiipoliticalinfo.org/?q=node/166

Rise of King Sugar Hawaii, Islands under Influence

Rise to King Sugar

Nov 10, 2011

This chapter of this book was so hard to read because it is all true, extremely depressing and just disgusting on every level. It clearly shows how the Hawaiian Kingdom was stolen, taken over by greedy businessmen namely the "Big Five" and forever changed and ultimately illegally and against the common will of the Hawaiian people annexed without documentation to the United States resulting in the complete control and dominance of the American forces and businessmen of the sugar industry, which dominated the social and economic structuring of the islands that led to Statehood. This mentality and Western way of thinking and doing business is completely opposite of the Hawaiian people and way of thinking with reverence and respect to the land that feeds us...WE ARE NATURE, NOT SEPARATE FROM NATURE. The influences of the sugar industry in Hawaii were the downfall of the Kingdom and the people. They came to dominate every town, land, water sources, economy, labor and politics it is just sickening to read this stuff. They brought in big industry, big machinery, big irrigation practices, chemical fertilizers and methods of farming that desecrates and destroys the natural ecosystems, the soil, the water flow, the forests, the reefs, the people of the land.....HAWAIIANS DID NOT HAVE A CHANCE AGAINST THESE MONEY GREEDY, CAPITALISTIC WESTERN ECONOMIC DRIVEN BUSINESSMEN. In my opinion this is still going on across America, and the world,  to the small organic and community based way of life...Look at Monsonto and what they do and represent. They have their largest research and test fields here in Hawaii and in just a short time have come to dominate food quality, and sources in the world by poisoning our soil and organic seeds with the Genetic Modification process food. And our food source with 70% of our overall food being contaminated..We cannot be sovereign from the US until we can be sovereign with our food sources/practices as well as our economy in my view. Until we start to actually implement the wisdom of the kupuna and the elder generations to go back to healthy agriculture, organic farming, composting, recycling, getting back to being sustainable on a whole I do not see any chance at survival of any humans of any ethnicity or any place on the Earth. Food production has to be in our yards, our communities with the people being in control not big industry like the "The Big Five" taking over and dominating our futures and of our children. I could go on and on about this stuff but I do not want to preach anymore....I'm scared for our children and for our planet and all of our future. We have to take some responsibility and stop the mass hegemony that is going on at a world scale. We have to be aware of our farming practices, of our purchases (they equal votes), of our dependence on unsustainable ways of living....the big powers and controllers have us hooked like junkies on crack. We all need to wake up, get more educated to stuff in a quick hurry, spread the mana'o and use Mother Earth as the mirror of how to do stuff that is pono and in harmony with Earth. I have too much to say and I can feel a heart attack coming on right now so I have to stop for now....be back as soon as I can cause we are out of time people....WE HAVE TO LOOK TO OUR ELDERS WAY OF LIVING WITH THE LAND TOGETHER IN SUSTENANCE INSTEAD OF DEGRADATION HOW THEY HAVE BRAINWASHED US INTO DOING....WE DOING JUST WHAT THEY WANT....HEGEMONY PEOPLE.....MY FAVORITE QUOTE...."DON'T BELIEVE A WORD I SAY...GO LEARN FOR YOURSELF" Kumu Kaleikoa


mahalo


Annjulie

resources:

rise of king sugar from the book Hawaii under the Influence

http://books.google.com/books/about/Hawaii_islands_under_the_influence.html?hl=EN&id=02SO-cLiJY4C

 

Definition of Hegemony (one of on google)

http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/hegemony.html

short history of the “big five”

http://www.hawaiihistory.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ig.page&PageID=29

the big five in Hawaii Business Journal

http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2008/08/04/story15.html?page=all

we need to live off the land as our kupuna did.....Earth and ʻaina need us

Sustainability, Organic farming and Kalo and minimun streamflow issues

Nov 10, 2011

---

So these topics go hand in hand and I have been learning and following these issues for at least half of my life. My mom had began to make me aware at an early age. Then in high school I became best friends with a half Hawaiian half American girl from Keanae. We got along really good and had a lot in common in the sense that we had Hawaiian and Western values imbued into our life from infancy but we also struggled a lot because they do not mix at all they teach opposite concepts and thinking in every way especially in relationship to farming, land tenure, water-flow, social and economic views and beliefs and basically everything. We struggled a lot and felt torn all the time...of course we liked going to Mc Donalds, the newest cars, materialistic crap, shopping, shopping shopping, Disney bla....bla...bla...but we also valued the hard working life, the life of the farm, swimming and gathering in the mountain and in the streams and ocean...we loved doing things in the traditional Hawaiian way....hunting, gathering, and fishing and farming as our kupuna have done for 1000s of years...(my kupuna were not of Hawaiian ancestry but were and are amazing organic and subsistence farmers that lived in harmony and off of the land just as Hawaiians) So we both as did with most of the Hawaiian people growing up on the East side of Maui value and cherish the old way of life and doing things...We grew and pulled taro every weekend, we gathered everything we could off of the land to make cash so that we could go and "buy stuff" Western garbage as I call it now....We all get together and talk about the good old days and how fun it was and how we miss it so much....anyway I just want to say a few things...OUR KUPUNA AND HAWAIIAN ELDERS ARE THE SMARTEST PEOPLE THERE ARE WHEN IT COMES TO SUSTAINABILITY AND HARMONY WITH RESOURCES AND EARTH....WE ALL HAVE KULEANA TO PERPETUATE THIS GOOD MANA'O BEFORE ITS TOO LATE FOR HUMANS AND THE ECOSYSTEMS....I want to share this mana'o from one of the most 'akamai wahine that I know...she is Hawaiian, she is our future(to represents the pono Hawaiian in all Hawaiians), this is our last chance we can do it with this kind of thinking and awareness. As a foot note I feel proud because I not only know and respect this person but I helped raise her and influence her knowledge as well as help to
nurture the positive change occurring in the youth of Hawaii of today....we have hope but we have to board the wa'a now and continue to teach the next generation....food and sustenance come from the 'aina not big industry like Costco and Monsanto and American values.

presented by Napua Hu'eu

video#3. the voices of east maui telling their story and calling for justice to be served

For the people of a Ko‘olau (windward) facing landscape, the flow of water from mountain to sea is vital to the health of the land. A healthy land makes for healthy people, and healthy people have the ability to sustain themselves.

-Water is of the greatest significance in our beliefs and traditional cultural practices.

-Malama ‘Aina defines our sustainability efforts. By caring for the land, we maintain an comfortable lifestyle.

-Our society is based on the extended family.. ‘Ohana, living and working cooperatively with one another.

-We live in the ahupua‘a which stretches from mountain to ocean and contains everything necessary from soil and sea to support the community.

-Kalo is the core of our religion, culture and diet. We share the work it takes to grow Kalo.

We are healthy because we eat Kalo. Our survival depends on Kalo, which in turn depends on farmers, and strict resource management.

When the western world made contact with Hawai‘i, we moved away from that self-sustaining lifestyle. Hawaii’s economy was no longer based on kalo production, but rather on sale of goods and services. The population shifted away from the villages and valleys to towns and seaports..Water followed the population to plantations on the other side of the island. 

LETTERS.. East Maui Irrigation (EMI) is a subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin (A&B), a corporation that operates numerous transportation, real estate and agribusinesses. For over 100 years, A&B has invested in diverting water from East to Central Maui to water their Hawaii Commercial and Sugar Company (HC&S) fields. EMI operates the largest diversion of water by any private entity in the country and is the largest privately owned Water Company in the world.

NUMBERS.. The total delivery capacity of their ditch system is 445 million gallons per day (mgd). A&B pays 1/5 of a penny per 1,000 gallons of East Maui water and has been paying that same price since 1980. HC&S ships raw and refined sugar more than 5,000 miles to be produced and marketed, it is the antithesis of sustainability and food security, demanding oil from which Hawaii is so desperately trying to free itself. HC&S claims to be too vital to Maui to fail because it controls 800 jobs and contributes $100 million dollars to the economy. They claim any decrease in amount of water taken will severely impact profits. 

 The diversions have de-watered streams that once fed a vibrant Hawaiian culture and jobs of other kinds. Taro farming, fishing and subsistence gathering used to put food on the family tables throughout East Maui. Quality for stream life such as o‘opu, ‘opae and hihiwai need to be considered before eliminating entire water flows such as Honomanu stream. These diversions have caused untold sufferings to our families, who for many decades were no longer able to feed or support themselves. Of necessity, many abandoned ancestral lands that could not be made productive due to hardships. Many fell victim to addiction. With the loss of manpower and added impact of diverted waters.. many of our rivers, streams, land and lo‘i lost life all together. Some people remained behind, and struggled to keep their farms, way of life and culture. The children of absent parents were cared for by grandparents. Instilling in their grandchildren the values and traditions of their day, they opened the eyes of their moopuna to the riches of the land and we disregarded any sense of loss. We spent our weekends with grandma and papa, learning and helping with the chores of valley life. Tending to animals, weeding taro patches and picking ‘opihi.. we managed to hang on to some hope of sustainable living as Kua‘aina.. those who remained behind, bending their backs to work the land. Now years later, with age and the healthy return of our parents, together we've come to understand the benefits of living close to the ‘aina. Kuleana, once accepted.. gives life to the possibility of truly sustaining ourselves again. The challenges of figuring out how to work together is rough, hard manual labor for work everyday is tough, but these struggles can bring about great community accomplishments like food security for starters. There is a complete disregard of the benefits stream restoration could bring.

With the understanding of what we can gain from our ‘aina, we simultaneously realize the care that needs to be administered as well. If we are going to encourage better self-sufficiency, we must ensure there will be all the natural resources necessary to accommodate this. A look at the past is essential as we step into the future. Recognizing and respecting basic Hawaiian values will help guide stewardship of our wahi pana, and sacred resources.

The Commission on Water Resource Management has been identified as the entity to protect all rights. As a public trust resource, water falls under the protection of the state constitution, which declares its duty to support Hawaiian culture and protect Hawaiian gathering rights. Why is it that an agribusiness corporation controls resources that have been pledged by the state to protect? The law is squarely on the side of restoration so why is it that an agribusiness corporation controls our resources which the state has pledged to protect? The commission should perform its constitutional duties, Restoring streams are but a small measure toward repair of inestimable damage the diversions have caused. for more information you can follow the Ko'olau Hui on facebook.
Mahalo

Resources

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Na-Moku-Aupuni-O-Koolau-Hui/113049585433007

http://www.alexanderbaldwin.com/

http://www.onofarms.com/