POL promotes intersection of land, food & health on Maui
BOARD OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES
TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION TO
HOLDOVER OF REVOCABLE PERMITS TO
ALEXANDER & BALDWIN and EAST MAUI IRRIGATION CO. for
WATER USE ON THE ISLAND OF MAUI
Friday, December 9, 2016, 9:00 AM
Department of Land and Natural Resources
1151 Punchbowl St, Room 132
Dr. Sheri-Ann Daniels, Executive Director
Papa Ola Lōkahi, the Native Hawaiian Board of Health, opposes the holdover of revocable permits to Alexander & Baldwin and East Maui Irrigation Company.
Recommendations from the E Ola Mau Native Hawaiian Health Needs Assessment in 1985 include increasing access to and engagement among Native Hawaiians to traditional and/or subsistence fishing and farming practices to improve community health. More recently, the 2013 publication Assessment & Priorities for Health & Well-Being in Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Peoples asserts improved health behaviors and outcomes among Hawaiians involved in activities of land, food and health.
From Governor David Ige’s goal to reduce the State’s dependence on imported foods, to the World Health Organization’s look at policies and measures for increasing access to healthy diets, to Article 20 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which states: Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and develop their political, economic and social systems or institutions, to be secure in the enjoyment of their own means of subsistence and development, and to engage freely in all their traditional and other economic activities, it is well documented that access to land, food and cultural practice will improve health and economic outcomes.
POL promotes policy and practices in Hawai‘i tying together land, food and health, activities that would be critically impacted if healthy stream waters are diverted away from lo‘i, family and community farms, and downstream fishing grounds.
Further, we urge the State of Hawai‘i Board of Land &Natural Resources to compel the applicants to bear the burden of proving why, having harvested the last of the sugar cane on Maui for which these waters were diverted, they deserve to continue diverting the life-giving waters of Nā Wai Eha.
Mahalo nui for the opportunity to offer testimony in opposition to extended water permits to Alexander & Baldwin and East Maui Irrigation Co.
Ka Wai I ke Ola! Water is Life! Water is Well-Being!