The County of Hawai`i Planning Department has won a favorable ruling from the 3rd Circuit Court in a case that challenged the county’s ability to set shoreline setback distances. Despite that, the deputy corporation counsel representing the Planning Department, Amy … Continued
Council Loses an Advisor: Robin Baird, one of the leading experts on false killer whales in waters around Hawai`i, has resigned from the Protected Species Advisory Committee of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council (Wespac). Baird resigned effective January 31. The … Continued
Humpback Delisting Petition: A newly formed association claiming to represent Hawai`i fishermen wants to remove the North Pacific population of humpback whales from the federal list of endangered species.The group, calling itself Hawai`i Fishermen’s Alliance for Conservation and Tradition, Inc. (HFACT), … Continued
A developer who has a history of flouting conditions of permits issued by the Hawai`i County Planning Department has now taken the county to court. At issue are the conditions of a Special Management Area permit governing a luxury, gated … Continued
An old-growth `ohi`a forest in South Kona has been spared the developer’s ax – for now, at least. Judge Ronald Ibarra of the 3rd Circuit Court has determined that the County of Hawai`i planning director, Bobby Jean Leithead-Todd, and the … Continued
Waiawi Control Agent Is On the Move, Very Slowly In the words of waiawi warrior Tracy Johnson, “strawberry guava was on the radar of land managers for many decades” before a tiny biocontrol agent was finally released last year in … Continued
Some questions and answers about albizia in Hawai`i. What is albizia’s native range? It is native to the Moluccas, New Guinea, New Britain, and the Solomon Islands. When did it arrive in Hawai`i? It was brought to the islands in 1917 by … Continued
Robert J. Cabin, Restoring Paradise: Rethinking and Rebuilding Nature in Hawai`i. University of Hawai`i Press, 2013. 236 pages. $24.99 (paper binding only). For someone who claims to be a scientist, Robert Cabin sure harbors a lot of scorn for his peers. … Continued
For whatever reason (it can’t be the money), Robert Cabin wants to be a journalist as well as a scientist. For now, given the many crimes he has committed against the profession of journalism, he should stick with his day … Continued
Undocumented Birds: There’s a new bird on Maui, and it arrived without any by-your-leave from the state. The golden pheasant (Chrysolophus pictus) was probably brought into the state sometime in the early 1990s and is now breeding in Waikamoi Preserve, managed … Continued