Native Hawaiian Earth-protecting Candidates Challenge Pro-GMO Maui County Council
(Jonathan Greenberg writes: I know that may of us in West county have a special place in our heart for Maui, Hawaii, the Hawaiian people, and Native Americans fighting for our ecology in North Dakota, so I am linking this inspiring story below. Also, as some wonder what my "day job" is when I am not running for City Council and doing local volunteer advocacy work, this article, published today in the Huffington Post, provides an example of the type of earth justice-focused public interest communications work that I do)
Native Hawaiian Candidates Vie to Oust Pro-GMO Maui Council Incumbents in Historic Election
By Jonathan Greenberg
Huffington Post
A ‘Maui Ohana”(family) slate of nine native Hawaiians and grassroots housing and environmental activists are running in a historic election this November that may replace the Maui County Council’s pro-GMO majority and bring ecological stewardship of land and water to center stage across the islands.
While the Standing Rock Sioux-led protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline has focused well-deserved international attention to the role of Native Peoples in protecting our shared ecology and water, the indigenous peoples Aina (earth) Protectors United” protests against the theft of democracy and poisoning of the environment in Hawaii by the world’s largest chemical pesticide corporations have gone largely unnoticed.
In 2014, the Maui County government refused to implement a new law—the GMO Moratorium ballot initiative—passed to regulate GMO and pesticide test farms in Maui. Instead, the Maui County attorney working alongside agrochemical industry lawyers, was authorized to strike a deal that invalidated the public health-focused GMO Moratorium. A deal that then was converted into a “order” from a Federal Judge - giving everyone involved politically the desired result, as well as needed political cover.
The islands of Hawaii are the world’s epicenter for GMO testing. According to the Center for Food Safety, “In 2014 alone, 178 different GE field tests were conducted on over 1,381 sites in Hawai’i (vs. only 175 sites in California). Herbicide-resistance was the most frequently tested trait in GE crop field tests.” This means that this ancient farmland is regularly sprayed by massive quantities of dozens of types of pesticides (sometimes in combinations never before tried) on experimental GMO seeds to see what survives.
Candidates like Alika Atay, the barrel chested, thunderous-voiced leader of Hawaii’s emerging Aina Protectors United movement, an organic farmer and an outspoken Native Hawaiian, are fighting back. He is one of nine members of the reformist Maui Ohana slate running to create a people-powered County Council that is committed to bringing environmental and economic justice to the land of his ancestors. “I am speaking for the land, for the water, for the children,” Atay explains.
“Aina Protectors United is like-minded people who have been raised under the values of Aloha Aina (love the earth). Everything we do has a connection to the earth and our resources.
“Given our responsibility under Aloha Aina, we must stand up and protect. We have to look at the damage heavy chemical pesticides are doing to the soil and the aquifer. Not only what affects us now but more so the long-term future concerns. What kind of water will our future generations have to drink?”
That is the same question being asked by the Native Americans and earth activists who have converged near the banks of the Missouri River in North Dakota. The difference in Maui is that instead of protesting against the government, they stand a decent chance of becoming the government.
READ MORE HERE
