If Environment Hawai`i may be said to have a birthday, Earth Day 1990 would be that day. That was when, at Kapi`olani Park, founders Marjorie Ziegler and Patricia Tummons began collecting names and addresses of people who wanted to be sent a free copy of our first edition. (We were also happy to take the checks of those few and trusting souls who had sufficient confidence in our endeavor to give us checks on the spot.)
With the publication of this issue, and to the amazement and astonishment of supporters and detractors alike, Environment Hawai`i completes five full years of publishing.
Five years. Sixty issues. Six hundred twenty-eight pages. No ads, no cartoons, no pictures and only a handful of illustrations. If nothing else, Environment Hawai`i is living proof that a hard core of die-hard literates perpetuates the faith in the power of the unembellished written word.
Old-time subscribers may recall when each issue had but eight pages. And for those who think our type is too small now, back then (the first two volume years), our type was smaller still. It wasn’t until the start of our third year of publication that we took on our present size and appearance.
From the outset, Environment Hawai`i has had as its mission the discussion of complex, difficult problems whose resolution, one way or another, has a bearing on policies and decisions affecting Hawai`i’s environment. The newsletter was borne out of the conviction that the more popular news channels — both print and broadcast — had let down the public’s trust by providing such scant information on matters of utmost urgency that citizens wishing to be educated on them would inevitably face frustration. We felt there was a niche to be filled, and we have tried to fill it.
Giving Comfort
There’s an old saying that the more you know about an issue, the less you’ll like what you read in the papers. In this light, one of the most fundamental measures against which Environment Hawai`i measures the accuracy of our reporting is the extent to which the people most intimately familiar with the topics covered in our newsletter are satisfied by our accounts. Time and again, we have won over the skeptics. Some of our most enthusiastic supporters include botanists, zoologists, ornithologists, geologists, and others whose training and vocation gives them special insight into the nature of the problems discussed in these pages.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who have been inconvenienced by our articles. They inevitably have quite a different take on our writing. However, if the purpose of the journalist is — as one journalist has phrased it — to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, we offer no apology.
When we began, our ambitious hope was that we would be supported exclusively by subscriptions. The freest speech is that which is least beholden. While we have never taken advertisements, it was clear toward the end of the first year that subscriptions alone would not support the newsletter, at least for the first few years. For this reason, in the fall of 1991, Environment Hawai`i reorganized as a non-profit corporation, thus becoming eligible to receive foundation grants, tax-deductible donations, and other support available only to charitable organizations.
Environment Hawai`i has always been an operation with low overhead and exploited, underpaid labor. As many of you know, we have had only one writer — a fact that, while it ensures some uniformity in the quality of coverage, also reflects our inability to pay what anyone else would regard as a living wage.
Still and all, after five years, the newsletter is alive and kicking — and we hope that our readers rejoice in that as much as those of us at Environment Hawai`i celebrate the occasion.
Behind the Scenes
Many people believe the newsletter is the work of one person. That’s not true by half. We have a lively, active, and supportive board of directors consisting of the two founders, Mary Evanson, Paula Dunaway Merwin and William S. Merwin. For the last year, Juliet Begley has provided invaluable assistance in research.
For Color Publishing (formerly Presentations, Inc.) has been our typesetter since the beginning, solving the most challenging layout problems with aplomb and grace. And for all five years, Dass Publishing (formerly P.I.P.) has consistently moved heaven and earth to meet our publication deadlines.
For the last three years, we have been fortunate to enjoy the support of the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation of San Francisco and the Hawai`i La`ieikawai Association of O`ahu. Kimo and Nancy Campbell’s Pohaku Fund of the Tides Foundation has provided especially well-timed gifts, for which we are deeply grateful. Other generous support has come from the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund, the People’s Fund, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the G.A.G. Charitable Corporation, the Cooke Foundation and the Atherton Family Foundation.
When all is said and done, however, our readers bear ultimate responsibility for keeping the newsletter afloat these last five — these first five — years. To all of you, you who have given much and you who have given all you can, go our most profound gratitude and most heartfelt aloha.
Volume 5, Number 12 June 1995
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