Northwest islands must be protected

A recent article ("Plan for marine refuge opposed," May 23, by Jan TenBruggencate) reported on the unhappiness of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council with Rep. Ed Case's proposal for a marine refuge around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI). In recent years the NWHI lobster fishery has twice been closed and remains so under court order, black coral around Hawai'i shows declines that have led to a proposed harvest moratorium, and the critically endangered monk seal continues toward extinction.

Under WesPac oversight, we are now witnessing declines of some key fishery indicators for bottomfish in the NWHI. Furthermore, we do not even possess the data necessary to properly evaluate the status of many populations.

The Hawai'i public has repeatedly shown its overwhelming support for full protection in the NWHI. Protections in federal waters should match the full protection recently passed in state NWHI waters to ensure that species are not harmed merely by crossing an imaginary boundary.

The NWHI ecosystem is a fragile one, where even a small amount of fishing could have a high ecological price tag. More to the point, the area has much greater value as a fully protected coral reef ecosystem than as yet another area of economically marginal exploitation.

One-hundred fifty years ago, the seeds of our national park system were planted at Yellowstone. It is high time we started saving our marine Yellowstone.

Religious beliefs are indeed personal

To say a person's religious beliefs are never just personal makes me wonder what professor David Panisnick teaches about religions at Honolulu Community College.

Man has a free will and you make choices and there are consequences. You are not an island. It is meaningless to try to engage someone who rejects God, Jesus and the Bible in a debate. You will never get him to say "You are right. I am wrong" at the end.

I am not talking about someone who is questioning God, Jesus and the Bible. Can professor Panisnick tell us his beliefs since it isn't just personal, or must I enroll in his class? It is obvious that he rejects the Bible as truth. "The fool says in his heart, there is no God." Psalms 53:1.

Outrigger canoeing should be in Olympics

Where is the aloha? We as a community should unite and campaign for outrigger canoe racing to be an Olympic sport in 2008.

There are many canoes used in races at the Olympics but nothing I for one would sail in the open ocean. There would be a great many countries that would enter, as would clubs from Hawai'i, throughout Polynesia and Oceania, to California and New York.

Outrigger canoeing, with its cultural heritage and importance to navigation and settlement of the Pacific, is long overdue this respect.

What is the Hawai'i Tourism Authority doing to support this initiative, which would benefit all Hawaiians? The sacred cutting of the koa or 'ulu to make high-speed ocean-worthy craft is cultural art and extreme sport. Modern technology along with absolutely the best conditioned male and female paddlers in the world would bring global recognition of Hawaiian culture at its best.

A culture that "filtered" its way across the largest space on the planet, finally settling in Hawai'i, celebrates the spirit of aloha,

'ohana and the future of our keiki. The Hawaiian culture cannot stand still but must build upon its spirit to grow and to share the aloha with the world. It is the destiny of aloha to heal the world and bring about peace — one stroke at a time. Me ke aloha ke akua.

Affordable housing relief is at doorstep

Mahalo for your editorials on May 29 regarding the lack of affordable housing and parks in Ko'olauloa. House Bill 1308, also known as the Legacy Lands Act, provides solutions to both of these issues at once by dedicating funds for affordable housing and protection of parks and open space.

You rightly point out that "At the heart of the (affordable housing) crisis is a shortage of lower-priced rental units." House Bill 1308 would triple the amount of state funding to encourage affordable rental units.

You also point out that parks are an essential part of our community's health and an investment in our youth. For the first time in our state's history, the Legacy Lands Act would dedicate over $3 million annually for the acquisition and protection of key public lands, including open coastline, parks and natural lands.

An unprecedented coalition of affordable housing groups, conservation organizations, farmers and business leaders have come together to urge Gov. Lingle's approval of a bill that would dramatically improve our quality of life in Hawai'i. Your editorials have brought attention to these problems; readers should know that HB1308 will provide solutions.

Farming is best left to natural refinement

As a lifelong sustainable farmer with years of experience working with indigenous farmers, I would like to remind us all just what agriculture is all about. Our farming ancestors created culture. It is, as it always has been, the open exchange of experience with nature, including human nature, which gave birth to the process of continual refinement we know as culture.

In these times, this process has been co-opted by an exclusive belief system we know today as science. This system believes that its theories and conclusions are "truth" and therefore sacrosanct (not to be questioned).

This belief is at the heart of the erosion of cultural refinement around the world, and is swiftly leading to cultural entropy, or chaos.

An indigenous farmer is a living library of information, both passed down and also learned from firsthand experience. A Hawaiian who grows his kalo is not discouraged by insects and diseases. These factors only encourage his process of refinement, which he shares with fellow farmers. His communion with nature can never be defined as an "industry."

Therefore, all attempts by the scientific community to "improve" the timeless process of culture have led to disastrous consequences. When will we admit that the emperor has no clothes?

Hawaiian genealogy can't be exploited by science

Your May 24 editorial "Taro research should be allowed to continue" starts off wrong, announcing an event a "public forum ... to discuss" when in fact it was a ceremony to recognize, honor and protect Haloa, our first born in Hawaiian genealogy, who became taro or kalo. Then you sent no one to cover the event.

Your editorial talks about taro as a commodity, using terms such as market demand as adjectives. Your article was culturally offensive and shallow as if your paper had just moved here from New York.

If you attended our event and did just a little homework, you would have witnessed an indigenous culture exercising customary practices to their first-born Haloa, their brother. It is no small matter when an indigenous people share their traditional knowledge and genealogy, and the dominant culture refuses to listen. May 24 was a time when we made it perfectly clear that there is a kapu placed on all genetic modifications of our genealogical brother the taro. It was not a time for non-Hawaiians to tell us to sacrifice our genetic makeup for the good of the marketplace.

To make our 'aina a commodity in the first 1848 Mahele is even more culturally offensive as you now suggest we change the genes of our biodiversity to be patented and owned, to begin the new Mana Mahele of this century.

If it is impossible for you to understand "cultural offensiveness," then how about bioethics? Your lack of understanding of this issue and writing an editorial to sway public opinion are detrimental to all. Even freedom of speech does not allow you to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. There should be limits to academic and research freedoms when they conflict with the indigenous culture.

You cannot change the genes of the Hawaiians without their consent. You cannot own our traditional knowledge, intellectual property rights or our biodiversity.

Organ donor danger overstated

We, the members of the St. Francis Transplant Institute of the Pacific at St. Francis Medical Center, would like to respond to a story from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Dangers for organ donors unclear," that ran in The Honolulu Advertiser on May 22.

While the article is correct in stating that there are currently no nationally collected data on the number of donors who have died or suffered serious injuries or complications, there are studies that report large numbers of donors. Specifically in the American Journal of Transplantation in 2003, a study of 171 centers in the United States that performed 10,828 kidney donors for transplant reported two deaths (0.02 percent) and a complication rate of 0.3 percent.

While this may not be "comprehensive data," this is enough of a sample for potential donors to understand the risks of the procedure. There are currently initiatives within the United Network for Organ Sharing to develop a national registry, and these should be in place imminently. At St. Francis Medical Center, we have performed living kidney donation operations since 1969 with no deaths.

True, donating an organ or part of an organ is not completely risk-free, but these risks are carefully explained to the patient on several different occasions throughout a thorough screening and preparation process by a team of transplant nurse coordinators and physicians. A statement is signed, witnessed and verified before the patient is allowed to undergo this procedure. This is all a part of the process of informed consent.

Ideally, we would all like to have no risks to any procedure, but, realistically, no procedure has zero risks. Ideally, we would also like to avoid using any living donor at all, but there are currently 88,537 patients in the U.S. who are waiting for organs. There are currently 430 patients in Hawai'i on the waiting list, and only 60 transplants were performed in 2004. We simply cannot meet the demands of these patients with the number of organs produced from deceased donors alone.

People can do their part not only by signing their organ donor cards and speaking to their family members about this, but they can also spread the word about the need for more organ donors. Some families of appropriate deceased donors decline to donate for unclear reasons, and if more people understood our dire need for organs, perhaps we would not need as many living donors to save the thousands of people dying every year from end-stage organ disease.