Passage of Amendment 12 Scores Historic Win for Maui Water Rights For years plantation owner Alexander & Baldwin paid almost nothing to use majority of island’s water

Posted by - March 28, 2023

With the historic November 2022 passage of Charter Amendment 12, establishing the East Maui Community Water Authority, there is hope, for the first time in 145 years, that the people of  Maui will finally gain control over the island’s largest public water source.  “The water leases are up for grabs, and the DLNR (Department of Land

Read More

Can Elle Cochran Win Maui’s Mayoral Race and Send the Good Old Boys Packing? Q&A With the Most Outspoken Populist Reformer in County History

Posted by - October 12, 2018

Council Member Elle Cochran, who was the top vote-getter in the 2016 Maui Council election, is running for mayor this November on a platform of revolutionizing County government to create a new culture of transparency and effective collaboration. “Elle,” as she is widely known, makes no secret of her intention of sweeping away a plantation-mentality

Read More

New Harmful Pesticide Bills Offer Hawai’i Hope The Battle Against Toxic Pesticides Has Met With Little Legislative Action Until Now

Posted by - February 27, 2018

    The fight against the harmful use of pesticides in Hawai’i has been a slow and strenuous battle. From birth defects reported on Kaua’i to the federal court overruling the SHAKA Movement-lead GMO moratorium, the battle against pesticides has been met with little, or at least not sufficient, legislative action. But, as of this

Read More

“It’s Not Your Water” Will the Giveaway of More Than 80% of Maui's Public Waters Continue?

Posted by - October 14, 2017

The battle over Maui’s public water resources, a battle pitting the common interest of Native Hawaiians and ordinary citizens against Alexander & Baldwin, the state’s largest land development corporation, continues to be waged. At an October 9 public hearing in Haiku, the crowd was standing-room-only as the State Commission on Water Resource Management heard final

Read More

GMO Crops Have Become the Hot Potato of Maui Politics Under Pressure, A&B Attempts to Mislead Maui County Council and Public About Their Plans For Former Sugar Plantation Land

Posted by - September 15, 2017

In April at the Maui Energy Conference, Rick Volner, the general manager of diversified agriculture for Alexander & Baldwin, gave a presentation on how Maui’s thousands of acres of former sugar cane land could be utilized in the future. “We have the significant opportunity to alter that landscape,” he said. “Our lands are uniquely positioned

Read More

From Standing Rock to Maui: Resistance to A&B’s Massive Water Theft Grows Residents pay 1,000 times more per gallon than a $2 billion company that consumes 80% of the public water on Maui 

Posted by - April 11, 2017

For generations, the myth that what was good for the Alexander & Baldwin corporation was good for the residents of Maui allowed Hawaii’s largest plantation and land development corporation to justify its legally questionable, ecologically destructive diversion of most of the fertile island’s largest streams.  During the late 19th century, after a handful of powerful

Read More

Maui Island Protectors Advance a Brighter, Pono Future Doubters, haters, and whiners best pay attention: Last year, activist travel throughout Hawai‘i broke inter-island mileage records

Posted by - March 25, 2017

Some pessimists predict dark times ahead for Maui, a future of more hotels, pesticide-drenched agribusiness, urban sprawl, shopping malls, and the billowing dust of endless construction. But many Maui folks are standing up, like never before, for a brighter future through collective community action. We, working island residents sometimes forget to raise our heads from

Read More

Activate Locally: Empowerment is the Answer to Despair We can’t just let unconscious people acting on behalf of oligarchs and polluting corporations crush our way of life, whether they work in Washington or Kahului

Posted by - March 26, 2017

Now that President Donald Trump and his Goebbels-like propaganda boss Steve Bannon have taken control of Washington, it feels as though fascism is back in fashion. But so is activism. As a fertile springtime begins, we are watching an exciting new form of activism evolve that is inclusive, robust, and growing more muscular by the

Read More
Water Is Life

Massive A&B Corporate Water Theft Faces Public Comment In Maui The aqueduct system and corporate water giveaway are rooted in century-old plantation-era water contracts

Posted by - February 23, 2017

On February 22 and 23, 2017,  Maui citizens will have a chance to speak out against a 30-year extension of a rigged plantation-era water system that for more than a century has diverted the majority of all the water from vibrant streams on the island to benefit the Alexander & Baldwin Corporation for less than

Water Is Life
Read More
Maui Tomorrow

Will Environmentally Restorative Practices Transform Maui’s Toxic Agriculture? Maui stands at the crossroads between America’s farming past and its green future

Posted by - May 12, 2016

Marketed as an island paradise, Maui is not the first place one would think of as ground zero in the battle for the future of agriculture. The golden beaches of Lahaina were recently ranked as the second most popular honeymoon destination in the world (after Las Vegas), and its surfing is legendary. The billions of

Maui Tomorrow
Read More