Revamp environmental laws to protect wildlife

There is a crisis looming for all of Oahu’s endangered and threatened wildlife that needs to be assessed.

Decades prior to statehood, before the sugar and pineapple industry dominated Oahu’s landscape, the environment on this island was teeming with wildlife, both in flora and fauna.

After the collapse of big farming enterprises last century, various segments of property were left to sit idle in a fallow state along gulches and streams.

What transpired out of this lull in farming enterprises, was a resurgence for wildlife. The plains of Ewa saw the return of the red ilima, coot, pueo and hoary bat, and an insurgence of many migratory bird species seeking refuge on Ewa’s inner coastal wetland.

Today, the Honouliuli ahupua‘a, where I practice my Native Hawaiian traditions, is blossoming with a bounty of plants and bird species thought extirpated from the region, and it appeared that the wildlife in peril would be given a second chance to carry on and proliferate on these fallow agricultural plots.

I assumed environmental protection laws would kick in to protect these endangered and threatened plants and birds that returned to the landscape. Who knew?

For example, when a property owner petitions the state Land Use Commission to rezone the property from agricultural to urban, the law requires the property owner to execute an environmental impact statement (EIS) to quantify what is, and is not, on the property.

But the inventory exercise to conduct a survey of what wildlife species are present on the property has no directives. The law fails to define any protocol for the property owner in this process. For instance, the inventory can last one hour, two days or even less. There are no requisites to follow.

How can thousands of acres of fallow agricultural land that was, to a degree, teeming with endangered wildlife, be liquidated and the properties in question developed so routinely with ease, without any mitigation for the loss of the endangered species’ habitat?

The answer is that in every EIS done on the Ewa Plain, not one inventory exercise transpired at sunset, or before sunrise, or even after sunset. The hoary bat does not parade about during business hours — yet that is when the inventories take place, during the day. Result? Adios bat.

The pueo, or Hawaiian owl, has a habit of rotating foraging plots, so may not at all be witnessed for weeks on end at any one given site. The pueo here in Ewa is known to be a sunrise and sunset feeder, rarely seen during the day. Did the inventory process to quantify the presence of the hoary bat and pueo take place when these species are active? The answer is no.

To fix this — and to conduct proper inventories for species “on the run” — state Sen. Will Espero, representing Ewa and Ewa Beach, has introduced Senate Bill 570. This measure proposes that all invested parties return to the table and hammer out a 21st-century EIS protocol. SB 570 intends to place mandates upon the EIS process whereby any parcel over 100 acres to be developed, would require the survey for endangered species be conducted over a minimum of five days.

The pueo flees when anything approaches it. It is not meant to be seen. The hoary bat does not come out of its hiding place in mid-day to greet people either. Hence, when we see the endangered coot, the endangered pueo and the endangered hoary bat on Ewa’s fallow agricultural plots today, let it be known that the current EIS process gave them an order to vacate the premises.

That was not supposed to happen. SB 570 will correct this, and offer wildlife a fighting chance to be recognized.

Michael Kumukauoha Lee is a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner.