Malu 'Aina

Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) Appeal!

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:

Ms. Kealoha Pisciotta

keomaivg@gmail.com

968-7660 or 443-4396

Mauna Kea advocates are seeking justice in Hawai‘i courts. Six plaintiffs representing community concerns have filed a Notice of Appeal in circuit court challenging the Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) April 12th decision to grant the University of Hawai`i at Hilo a conservation district use permit (CDUA) to construct the world’s second largest telescope, the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT) atop Mauna Kea. The permit would allow the TMT Corporation to break ground and construct the eighteen story high TMT Observatory on undeveloped and pristine lands within the Mauna Kea conservation district.  Plaintiffs include Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance, Deborah J. Ward, E. Kalani-Flores and B. Pualani Case of the Flores-Case Ohana, Clarence Kukauakahi Ching, and Kumu hula, Paul K. Neves.

Plaintiffs were pro se (they had no lawyer representing them during the contested case); now Mr. Richard Naiwieha Wurdeman a Native Hawaiian attorney based in Honolulu, will be representing them on appeal to the state circuit court.

Plaintiffs’ Notice of Appeal was filed Monday states that the BLNR

“The questions before the court, in short, are whether BLNR rules permit more development, and particularly development that has an adverse and significant impact on the land and waters of Mauna Kea”, said Ms. Pisciotta, President of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, a Native Hawaiian Organization dedicated to protecting and preserving Native Hawaiian traditional and customary practices of Mauna Kea. “The UH itself admits that the TMT will have an adverse, significant and substantial impact on the cultural and natural resources of Mauna Kea. The BLNR rules are clear,” she said, “a development project may not have negative impacts on Mauna Kea—so the BLNR should have denied the permit—instead of approving it, and this is why we must seek justice in the courts.”

“We continue to educate Hawai`i’s people and the public abroad, that Mauna Kea is not just a high elevation place on earth, it is most sacred of places. Our case is about the necessity of having respect for Hawaiian spirituality…that spirituality is the cornerstone of the Hawaiian way. We cannot just speak of practice – we must continue to practice if we are to continue to exist” said Kumu hula Mr. Neves

Ms. Ward commented, “construction of a structure larger than all the others combined, in an open space area, where no other observatory exists today, will negatively affect the geology, the viewplanes, and the natural beauty, cultural, and recreational resources of Mauna Kea. The TMT project area, (including the Observatory site and Access Way), would destroy and disturb over 8.7 acres of Wekiu bug habitat, as well as kill Wekiu bugs in these areas. The loss, degradation, and reduction of Wekiu bug habitat on the summit of Mauna Kea is the result of astronomy development, and more development could lead to the introduction of new invasive species into the unique ecosystem. This not good for Hawai`i we hope the courts will help Mauna Kea.”

“It is unfortunate when public citizens are forced to go through court proceedings when developments such as the TMT Project are systematically granted permits by the BLNR despite these projects not meeting the criteria as outlined in Hawai`i State law.” stated E. Kalani Flores of the Flores-Case Ohana. “How can the proposed TMT Observatory that would be over 18-stories high and the TALLEST building on Hawai`i Island satisfy the criteria? It can’t! Thus, we must proceed ahead and be idle no more because Mauna a Wakea is still sacred, commented B. Pualani Case of the Flores-CaseOhana.

Three U.S.

Pacifists Jailed

as “Violent Terrorists” for

Anti-Nuclear Protest

Greg Boertje-Obed, 57, a married carpenter who has a college age daughter, is an Army veteran and lives at a Catholic Worker house in Duluth Minnesota.  Sr. Megan Rice, 82, has been a Catholic sister of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus for over sixty years.  Michael Walli, 63, a two-term Vietnam veteran turned peacemaker, lives at the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker house in Washington DC.

Their “Crime”

They entered the grounds of the U.S. nuclear weapons production facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, called the Fort Knox of the nuclear weapons industry, where the U.S. stores hundreds of metric tons of highly enriched uranium and works on every single one ($7.2 trillion dollars worth) of the thousands of nuclear weapons maintained by the U.S. Describing themselves as the Transform Now Plowshares, the three acted to symbolically disarm the weapons. Their intent was to follow the words of Isaiah 2:4: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” They cut through three fences, hung up peace banners, spray-painted peace slogans on the exterior of a nuclear weapons building, prayed, sang songs and waited peacefully to be arrested.

      Originally charged with trespass, the U.S. government kept expanding the charges to eventually include “intending to injure, interfere with, or obstruct the national defense of the United States and willful damage of national security premises in violation of 18 US Code 2155, punishable with up to 20 years in prison.” The peace activists were prohibited from presenting any evidence regarding the illegality of nuclear weapons, the immorality of nuclear weapons, international law, or religious, moral or political beliefs regarding nuclear weapons, the Nuremberg principles developed after WWII, First Amendment protections, necessity or US policy regarding nuclear weapons. The three peace activists were convicted in early May in a Knoxville courtroom and are in jail awaiting sentencing Sept. 23, 2013. For more information on this case see http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/15-7

What has become of the U.S.?

Have U.S. citizens become like WWII “Good Germans” supporting “the Fatherland” and jailing those who protest the crimes of their government?

1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject war as a solution. 3. Defend civil liberties. 4. Oppose all discrimination, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, anti-Hawaiian, etc.
5. Seek peace through justice in Hawai`i and around the world.
Malu `Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box AB Kurtistown, Hawai`i 96760.
Phone(808) 966-7622.  Emailja@malu-aina.org   http://www.malu-aina.org

Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (May 17, 2013– 608th week) – Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office

Malu ‘Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action

May 14, 2013

 Hawaii County Council

  Strongly opposes Bill 78 –cutting off county geothermal relocation funds and taking those funds for other reasons

       Our organization strongly opposes Bill 78 – cutting off county geothermal relocation funds and taking those funds for other purposes.

       This county should not cut off people that could need to relocate when the next accident happens at PGV. The county and state is in a mess with geothermal caused because Kanaka Maoli spiritual beliefs about Pele, an Hawaiian deity, have not been respected. Drilling into Pele is sacrilegious. In addition, poor county and state land use decisions were made for financial interest of geothermal companies over the health and safety concerns of residents. This is true from the get go of HGPA planned 1 month open venting, geothermal prospecting in the Wao O Kele Rainforest, and the reopening of a PGV damaged blowout well KS8 that experts said should never have been be reopened. The county allowed that well to be reopened for the financial benefit of PGV and again the people around that plant suffered when the well failed for a 2^nd time before being permanently shut in. The list of geothermal horrors is ongoing.

       Over the history of geothermal development in Hawaii, the lack of proper regulation and monitoring by the Hawaii Department of Health (DOH) and other state and county agencies have been shameful. And the legislature has now compounded the problems by allowing further geothermal exploration and development virtually anywhere. Hawaii is headed toward major upheaval over geothermal expansion that could surpass the hundreds of arrests and legal action it took to stop geothermal industrial development in Hawaii’s last intact lowland rainforest and the seedbed for new lava flows. Hawaiian spiritual beliefs, people’s basic civil rights and the environment are being trashed by geothermal profiteers greed.

       Please leave resident relocation funding in place until all geothermal is shut down and Ormat (PGV’s parent company) is relocated back to its home base of Israel where its windfall profits have been going from the rape of Pele and the poisoning of the people and land of Puna for far too long. There are better, safer, and more respectful alternatives than geothermal for our energy needs. Mahalo.

Jim Albertini, President

 Jim Albertini Malu ‘Aina Center For Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box AB Ola’a (Kurtistown) Hawai’i 96760 Phone 808-966-7622 Email ja@malu-aina.org www.malu-aina.org

To Hawaii County Council Committee on Public Safety & Mass Transit,

Testimony in support of Bill 79 to ban the use of GMO on Hawaii Island.

Aloha Council members,

I have been a farmer on this island for more than 30 years, growing a wide variety of organic fruits and vegetables.  I have also been a long time non-violent activist for justice, peace and the environment. Over these many years I have leaned that the means we use in all that we do must be in line with the end that we seek.  If we want a peaceful, just, and environmentally sustainable world then the means we use must be peaceful, just, and environmentally sustainable.  Whatever we do to the land, water, plants and animals, we do to ourselves.  When we bomb the land we bomb ourselves.  When we poison the land we poison ourselves.

GMO –Genetically modifying organisms is a fundamental violation of this important sacred principle of means and ends.  It is not a natural process occurring in nature.  It is manipulating nature for short term financial gain with potential long term consequences.  It is precisely this pattern of grabbing for a  short term quick fix that has our world on the path of unprecedented destruction — be it Climate change, Fukushima, nuclear war, global economic collapse, etc.

To support Bill 79 for a GMO ban in Hawaii County is a small but important step of affirming the long term life and sovereignty of the land over the short term quick fix of financial gain for the few at the expense of the many.  It is a step that affirms the sacredness and interconnection of all life.  It is a step for future generations and the earth for which this council can take pride.

Mahalo nui loa,
Jim

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