Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 22, Number 7, 1 July 2005 — Taro farm would be best way to mitigate H-3 impact [ARTICLE]

Taro farm would be best way to mitigate H-3 impact

Iattended the May 16 meeting regarding the proposed cultural facilities along the H-3 freeway and had an opportunity to read and hear about the plans and goals for the Hālawa-Luluku Interpretive Development Project, the purpose of whieh is to preserve and restore the 500-year-old Luluku agricultural terraces and the Kukui o Kāne Heiau in Ha'ikū. Money was allocated during the construction of the freeway to help establish this kind of program. Soft money and volunteers were also considered to help the education programs and facilities to continue. At last we have an organization such as HLID to use the money for what was intended. However, I believe some of the plans and goals to be shortsighted. The plan includes using the terraces at Luluku in "demonstrations of Hawaiian planting techniques, water resource management, and conservation practices." Are we talking about demonstration through practice and implementation, or are we talking about an outdoor museum for school students and tourists? In light of a taro shortage, a fluctuating tourism economy and our dependency on importing food, shouldn't we be using the landscape that our ancestors created for what they intended, i.e., growing food? One of the goals stated in the proposal is to "establish mechanisms whieh allow programs

and activities to continue into the future." In other words, their main eoneem is to find soft monies and volunteer workers to make sure that the initiative ean survive. If this is the goal, then the program will never grow or heeome independent. By reinterpreting the goal to read: "establish mechanisms whieh allow the ability to sustain ourselves independently to continue into the future," we ean transform the Luluku agricultural complex into a viable farm to grow food for us to eat and stimulate our economy. Money earned through the sale of taro will enahle the farm to be independent by outgrowing the need for soft monies. Tourism ean then supplement revenue through the proposed education centers where visitors pay a nominal fee to learn about Hawaiian agriculture and see demonstrations on an actual farm. This becomes a win-win situation for the program and the economy because if the world situation someday results again in fewer visitors to our islands, and if another shipping strike were to occur, then we ean still rely on ourselves to sustain the program because the products of the land will be able to sustain us.

R. Kealoha Kaliko Honolulu , O'ahu

Leka Kalele