Jon Woodhouse, Author at The Maui Independent

State Legislature Kills Vital Pesticide Transparency Bill Secret Backroom Deal Leaves No Fingerprints or Public Record of Vote

Posted by Jon Woodhouse - March 24, 2017

Hopes ran high for a proposed bill that would have helped inform and empower Hawaii’s residents about the impact of toxic restricted-use pesticides. But House Bill 790 sank after pushback from the…

Hawai’i Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard Urges Federal Decriminalization of Marijuana

Posted by Jon Woodhouse - March 24, 2017

Hawaii’s Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has co-sponsored a bipartisan act to remove marijuana from the federal controlled substances list. She joined a fellow Army veteran and former Virginia prosecutor, Republican Rep.…

Maui’s Mayor Upsets Hawaiian Cultural Practitioners

Posted by Jon Woodhouse - February 19, 2017

Maui’s Mayor Alan Arakawa is in hot water after announcing that “there’s no such thing as sacred rocks.” He was referencing concerns about the destruction of rocks considered sacred in…

No Aloha? Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Sues Hawaiians Then Backs Out

Posted by Jon Woodhouse - January 30, 2017

Mark Zuckerberg dropped his lawsuit to force the sale of small tracts of land within his Kauai estate, the Facebook CEO announced in Kauai’s newspaper, The Garden Island. The Facebook…

GMO News – Pink Pineapples

Posted by Jon Woodhouse - February 12, 2017

The US Food and Drug Administration recently approved a new strain of pineapple that has been genetically engineered to have pink flesh instead of yellow fruit. The pineapples are set…

Hawaii State Government Wakes Up To It’s Pesticide Problem

Posted by Jon Woodhouse - December 17, 2016

The state is finally taking some first steps to address concerns about pesticide drift from large agri-chemical company operations in Hawaii. In a joint press statement, the Hawaii Departments of…

US Court of Appeals Says Hawaii’s Counties Can’t Regulate GMO Crop Production

Posted by Jon Woodhouse - November 20, 2016

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has invalidated county ordinances in Kauai, Maui, and Hawaii counties that sought to enforce public health protections (such as buffer zones,…

Europe Has Essentially Rejected GMOs Without Any Loss of Crop Yields

Posted by Jon Woodhouse - October 31, 2016

The New York Times published a report by investigative journalist Danny Hakim that slams GMOs as the food boon for the future concluding, “genetic modification in the United States and…

Earthjustice Takes on Hawaii’s Dysfunctional Department of Agriculture

Posted by Jon Woodhouse - August 5, 2016

The environmental law firm, Earthjustice has asked the US Environmental Protection Agency to revoke the Hawaii Department of Agriculture’s primary authority to investigate and enforce pesticide use violations of federal pesticide…

GMO Studies & Conflicts of Interest

Posted by Jon Woodhouse - December 27, 2016

Researchers have found that a large share of scientific studies on genetically modified (GM) crops were tainted by conflicts of interest, mostly because of having an employee of a GM…