Native Hawaiian leaders seek expanded marine monument
A group of Native Hawaiian leaders has urged President Barack Obama to expand what’s already one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world.
But the president of the Hawaii Longline Association said Friday that the lobbying effort is using Hawaiian culture as an excuse to close off more waters to fishermen.
The dispute involves Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument — a 140,000-square-mile area of the Pacific where remote islands, atolls, islets and coral reefs serve as habitat for some of the world’s most endangered species.
The region is also a sacred place in the history, culture and cosmology of Native Hawaiians.
“Mr. President, as an island boy from Hawaii, we trust that you understand the significance of the ocean to our islands,” said a letter signed by leaders of the expansion push.
They want Obama to expand the monument to the full 200-nautical-mile limit of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands economic zone while keeping the main Hawaiian Islands outside the boundaries.
“While the current boundary of Papahanaumokuakea includes vital habitat for a number of species, it doesn’t fully protect habitat and travel routes for several species including Hawaiian monk seals, green sea turtles, sharks, whales, black-footed and Laysan albatrosses as well as other species,” reads the letter signed by Department of Hawaiian Home Lands Deputy Chairman William Aila, Office of Hawaiian Affairs CEO Kamanaopono Crabbe, Polynesian Voyaging Society President Nainoa Thompson and others.
If Obama expands the monument, it would be the largest protected area on Earth, they say.
Sean Martin, president of the Hawaii Longline Association, questioned whether there’s been significant cultural activity beyond the current boundary. He believes environmental organizations with deep pockets are using Hawaiian culture to push their agenda at the expense of longline fishermen.
“I think that plays good, sounds good,” he said of highlighting the monument’s cultural significance. “But the reality is that it’s a very important area we work in. … We’re into continuing to support access for U.S. fishermen to fish in U.S. waters.”
He said the association includes 140 vessels.
Aila said the expansion effort isn’t about pitting fishermen against conservation and culture.
“We’re protecting the fishermen that fish out of Kauai and Niihau,” he said. “Then there’s the other folks that go out a little further into the proposed expansion areas.”
Aila described himself as a “small-boat fisherman” and said protecting the expanded area will allow tuna stocks to rebound, creating more fishing opportunities across the state.
“It’s not that longliners can’t fish; they will simply go fish someplace else,” he said.
U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said he urged the White House to send representatives for meetings in Hawaii on the issue before making a decision.
“The responsible and sustainable practices of our longline fleet have resulted in Honolulu becoming one of the nation’s 10 most productive fishing ports,” he said in a statement that also notes the equally important significance of the monument to Native Hawaiians.
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“A group of Native Hawaiian leaders has urged President Barack Obama to expand what’s already one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world. … The region is also a sacred place in the history, culture and cosmology of Native Hawaiians.”
The “ancient” Hawaiian religion was well established when British explorer Captain Cook arrived in 1778. But it was overthrown by the native Hawaiians themselves in 1819, the year before the Christian missionaries arrived in 1820. The boy King Kamehameha II, his biological mother Queen Keopuolani who had the highest genealogy and spiritual status in all Hawaii, his stepmother and governing regent Queen Ka’ahumanu, and Kahuna Nui (High Priest) Hewahewa, together made a public display of breaking a sacred taboo that would normally have resulted in them being put to death immediately if they had been lower ranking (they sat down, men and women eating together, at a huge public luau). Then they stood together and ordered the burning of the wooden idols and destruction of the heiaus (stone temples). High Chief Kekuaokalani, to whom Kamehameha The Great had entrusted the war god Kukailimoku, refused to obey the order. He began a civil war to defend the old religion, which ended with the death of himself and his wife Manono, and all their warriors, on the battlefield at Kuamo’o. Thus the native Hawaiian political and spiritual leadership exercised self-determination on behalf of the nation of Hawaii and the native people, to overturn their old religion, without any outside interference and before the Christian missionaries arrived.
But today’s Hawaiian sovereignty activists are disrespecting their ancestors and reviving the ancient religion — not because they sincerely believe in it, but cynically, as a tool to assert political power and racial control of government decision-making. In recent years we have seen sovereignty activists physically blocking construction of the world’s largest billion-dollar telescope on a mountaintop (Mauna Kea) because, they claim, that mountain is “sacred.” They have blocked the Army from doing live-fire training in a valley (Makua) which, they say, is “sacred.” They have blocked construction projects where old unmarked burials are inadvertently discovered because, they say, native Hawaiian bones are “sacred” and must not be disturbed. The volcano is “sacred” and its flow of lava must not be diverted even when towns are threatened. Pu’ukohola Heiau is sacred as well as all other heiaus and nearby lands, along with Pu’uhonua o Honaunau (place of refuge), Kukaniloko (the “birthing stones”) near Whitmore Village, the entire island of Moloka’i (belongs to the goddess Hina), and of course Iolani Palace (where the spirit of Queen Lili’uokalani still lives). Indeed, every square inch of land and ocean is sacred. The most recent claim (April 2016) is that the entirety of Papahanumokuakea is “sacred” — a huge area of the ocean and islands comprising the entire archipelago spanning 1600 miles from Lo’ihi to Kure Atoll, with all the land and water between, probably extending as an enormous rectangle 200 miles into the ocean in all directions around all the large and small islands. Such a rectangle would be about 500 miles wide by 2000 miles long — 1,000,000 (one million) square miles.
On each of those and numerous other similar situations, Hawaiian activists demand race-based veto power over decision-making, and millions of dollars in payoffs to racial organizations.
The correct name for what is happening — asserting a theological justification for race-based political power — is Hawaiian religious fascism. It’s just as destructive to the Aloha Spirit in Hawaii as radical Islamism and radical Zionism are to the Middle East and Europe.
It’s long past time for Hawaii’s political leaders to stand up against Hawaiian religious fascism.
Blah, blah, blah, .i.e. I no like people of color, I suffer from my own self-loathing, but hide it behind (which is very difficult as I’m morbidly obese and have type two diabetes) the polemic of ideological rants and platitudes.
Their false claim is one of “culture”. Conservation was never part of their “culture”. The Polynesian rape of the aina of these islands is well documented. They were anything but “conversationalists”. So, to claim now that conservation is somehow part of their “culture” is simply laughable.
Anyone can see what their ultimate agenda is. Once it is off limits they will claim that part of that “culture” is “gathering rights” so they, just like the American Indians (which they are not) are being “illegally denied” to fish there.
They will sue the State and seek to allow ONLY Polynesian-Hawaiians
access to fish in those waters. Just more racist sneaky nonsense from “Native Hawaiian Leaders”.
This is a racist group out not only for political control on land, but now on the sea.
Sorry I typed “conversationalists”, should have typed “conservationalists”. DD
Well they were very articulate orators….wink.
So the entire ocean is now sacred and reserved for Hawaiians only. Well, at least elite Hawaiians have rights to sacred land, air, water and resources.
Interesting that Bonhams is auctioning a staff (kahili). The handles are usually made of human leg bones. Apparently, it is ok to use sacred bones in this way.
Anything was allowed at the time jmv371, today’s Polynesian-Hawaiians just make stuff up as they go along to suit whatever narrative they are spewing.
Would be nice if Hawaiian leaders would teach keiki and grown ups the kapu system.
But then, islandsun, they would have to kill all the women for eating bananas.
I had one for breakfast this morning. A banana, that is.
The trouble is the Kapu system was ended by Hawaiians in 1819.
Yes allie, but Polynesian-Hawaiians today always claim that it was the evil missionaries that were the root of all the change when it was the Polynesians themselves that effectuated the change. The earlier contact with the British sailors enlightened their thinking and they saw how silly the Kapu system was and that it was just a way to control the population through silly rules and shaman curses.
I am currently enjoying a book on Kamehameha III, written by P. Christiaan Klieger, just came out last year. He quotes Ka’ahumanu (favorite wife of Kamehameha I) saying to a missionary wife “one of your number must belong exclusively to me, live with me, teach me, make dresses for me,and instruct my women in all domestic matters, so I can live as you do.”
You see the Polynesian hierarchy saw the benefits and the betterment that civilization brought, as apposed to sleeping on mats in the dust had to offer. It was the leadership that forced the change from thatched roofs to houses, from little or no clothing to dresses, pants and shirts, to better hygiene, etc.
It is no coincidence that once Hawaii became part of the United States that Polynesian-Hawaiian population figures began increasing so that today there are over 550,000 people in the last U.S. census that identified as Polynesian-Hawaiians, more than ever lived in the history of Hawaii.
Yes, the Kapu system exploited the commoner and women. I am glad it, an inferior culture, was ended by Hawaiians. But there are some who do not want facts exposed.
Because it would alter their narrative of oppression, and victimization by the “evil western imperialistic United States” that they teach the children in “Hawaiian Immersion Schools”.
Here is a fact, you are neither a student, Mandan, or even a woman.
If you feel disoriented, boola, it’s just because you’re trapped in the white supremacy echo chamber…
HELLO!.. Hello… hello…
IS ANYONE ALIVE IN HERE?!… In Here… in here…
CONKLIN THINKS HAWAIIANS WHO DON’T ASSIMILATE ARE RACIST!… Racist… racist…
ALLIE SAYS, “ME TOO!”… Me Too… me too…
would the expanded marine conservation by justified if it was to honor poseidon or neptune?
“Mr. President, as an island boy from Hawaii, we trust that you understand the significance of the ocean to our islands,” said a letter signed by leaders of the expansion push.
Wake up and smell the Kona Coffee Native Hawaiian leaders.
He’s NOT an “island boy from Hawaii” !
Agree..he loves Chicago and not Hawaii. He does like to play a tourist but has little regard for the state or its history. He especially dislikes Punahou for a variety of reasons exposed in his biography. Sad that a football school like Punahou continue to imagines he loves them.
“It’s not that longliners can’t fish; they will simply go fish someplace else,” he said. <- This makes no sense. Where are the longliners going to fish then? Closer to the main islands? That doesn't help small boat fishermen - it creates even more conflict between us and the longliners without providing any conservation benefit.