Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 37, Number 10, 1 October 2020 — MARZO, [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MARZO,

IKAIKA

© ikaika@ikaikamarzD.org I ® ikaikamarzo.org AGE: 36 0CCUPATI0N: Cultural and Ecotour Company ūwner, Community ūrganizer. Rancher. Commercial Fisherman, Musician WHERE ūlū V0U GR0W UP: Kalapana, Maku'u, Pāhoa Hawai'i SCH00L(S] AĪĪENŪEO: Pāhoa High Schcol CURRENT RESIOENCE: Puna, Hawai'i

1 ] 'Ohana, music, sustainable fishing and ranching, and oeean conservation connect me to my culture and our Native Hawaiian community everyday. My ancestor's bones are buried here, my na'au and heart are deeply rooted in this āina. I speak the language in song and fishing. I'll seek advice from OHA to bridge community with government and l'H refer to our kūpuna within every district. Every policy decision I make must take into consideration our people and lives, environment and economy. 2 ] We've seen that relying on any single industry causes problems, whether it's tourism or sugar eane. Hawai'i County unemployment peaked in April 2020 with 23% of our population out of work. A sustainable economy on Hawai'i lsland means our loeal residents and community ean thrive- always, constantly- and "sustain" despite any storm that hits our ship. With 30% (27,540 people) of our workforce in tourism, we still need tourism the way our economy is built today, but we must be smarter about it by realizing that this island is our greatest asset and needs utmost maintenance and protection, like any asset. By imposing higher Tourism Green Fees to support land and cultural conservation, we ean generate new revenue to help our loeal people. Hawai'i and our people are resilient: we eome out on the other side of disaster every time so with this pandemic, we start today by promoting "year-round outdoor commerce" and "improving all indoors." To create a thriving outdoor commerce, we close down select streets and move any business that we ean outside to pedestrian-only zones. We look at zoning and permitting to help the loeal resident and business, rather than hurt. We take care of our kūpuna by expanding health and human services, particularly senior care and living. We must "improve all indoors" by making homes, businesses and care living facilities safer from the virus by increasing ventilation and filtration indoors. We ean increase ventilation and filtration indoors affordably. We improve testing and monitoring of the virus, such as implementing sewage pool testing whieh will allow us to detect an outbreak in a certain area up to one week earlier! Proactive leadership over reactive leadership is the only way to lead through disaster, and I hope to lead us through to the other side of this one, too. Expanding our agriculture helps our whole state, and our loeal economy: food farms, fishing, new aquaculture operations (a proven profitable industry), investing in non-food agriculture crops like hemp and bamboo that could start new, loeal, profitable industries making biodegradable plastics, textiles and eonstruction materials. Government needs to support agriculture by making better deals for our loeal farmers, providing work opportunities near communities and homes, and removing needless red tape so this industry and loeal people may quickly succeed. Development should take steps to help our people and environment such as investing to reach energy sustainability by 2045, checking the Aloha+ Challenge goals off the list and creating green jobs that our peopie will enjoy. Our people need work and the ability to afford food security, heath security, educational security and housing security. 3 ] Communication with the state, advocating for our county people, is the biggest role a county leader ean hold regarding Mauna Kea. I'U expand and improve the county-to-community communication hubs by upgrading our technology to better connect with eaeh district's kūpuna councils, Community Board and loeal people to prove to our state what our loeal people truly want and need. We must support our schools, educators, parents, caregivers and keiki and listen to our own living community to progress while remaining rooted in ancient values of our state's lndigenous culture.