Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 27, Number 3, 1 March 2010 — New DOD consultation policy being proposed [ARTICLE]

New DOD consultation policy being proposed

By Lisa Asato Communications Specialist Anew policy that will outline the way the military consults with Native Hawaiians is planned to head to the Secretary of Defense for approval by summer. Asked if Defense Secretary Robert Gates has indicated he will sign it, Defense Department senior tribal liaison David Sanborn, said: "Yes, it's our intention to have the secretary of defense sign it shortly in the next two or three months. . . . All the nūlitary services have already concurred that this is a good policy, so there's no opposition within the nūlitary services. We're all of one nūnd." If approved, the Defense Department would heeome the first federal agency to adopt a policy on eonsultation with Native Hawaiian organizations that extends beyond the Naūonal Historic Preservation Act to encompass a slew of laws, including the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, Naūonal Environmental Policy Act and Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation in May 2008 adopted a policy statement that comnūts it to working with Native Hawaiian organizations during the

review process to deternūne a project's potential effect on historic properties. The proposed Defense Department policy would be the result of five years of meetings and workshops with Native Hawaiians across the state, said Sanborn, who was in Honolulu in February for a two-day Native Hawaiian Cultural Conununication Course. On Feb. 2, OHA Chairperson Haunani Apoliona told a group of about 50 attendees at the Cultural Conununication Course that the relationship between Native Hawaiians and the nūlitary hasn't always been smooth - OHA has sued the Army over the Stryker Brigade, among other things - but she said that "improved and conununications ean only benefit us all." "It is better to confer and resolve issues in a meeting room than to fight in the court room," she said. She said OHA got involved in developing the cultural conununications course and the consultation policy "because it is consistent with OHA's mission 'for the bettennent of Native Hawaiians.' " But, she added, if need be, "OHA stands ready to challenge positions that are derelict and illegal or actions that disregard policy and/or regulations." Sanborn and Shannon Shy, associate counsel for Naval Sea Systems Command, updated the Board of

Trustees on the draft policy at its Feb. 4 meeting. The consultation policy would aim to increase eonununieaūon and consultation between the military installations in Hawai'i and Native Hawaiians on issues of eoneem, Sanborn said in an interview. "What we hope is that everybody's on the same page so we have consistently across the Islands and across the different nūlitary services a eonunon understanding of what consultation means and when to do it." He defined consultation as a "free exchange of ideas and input from the Native Hawaiian organizations on Department of Defense actions or plans before decisions are made." Sanborn said a similar consultation policy has existed between the Defense Department and Ameriean Indians and Alaska Natives since 1998. The policy, he said, has improved trust and helped decrease congressional inquiries into their consultation practices from as mueh as 24 inquiries a year to one a year now. "It definitely improved," he said. One of the direct results of that policy was moving the time frame of large-scale military training to accommodate Alaska Native's subsistence-hunting season. "It's very important for them because they must hunt to survive winters and it's part of their culture," he said. "So we moved (our training i maneuvers) a month out so they I could hunt and fish." I For more on the consultation I course, see the March issue of I OHA's midmonth e-nev,'spaper, Ka Wai Ola Loa. I ™