HONOLULU — An assistant professor at University of Hawai‘i at Manoa recently told federal lawmakers the steadily increasing surface air temperature in Hawai‘i is causing reduced cloud cover and a 15 percent decline in rainfall, UH reported Friday. UH assistant
HONOLULU — An assistant professor at University of Hawai‘i at Manoa recently told federal lawmakers the steadily increasing surface air temperature in Hawai‘i is causing reduced cloud cover and a 15 percent decline in rainfall, UH reported Friday.
UH assistant professor Malia Akutagawa, of the William S. Richardson School of Law, was invited by the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to testify July 19 at an Oversight Hearing on Impacts of Environmental Changes on Treaty Rights, Traditional Lifestyles and Tribal Homelands.
“Seventy-two percent of Kaua‘i’s beaches are eroding,” said Akutagawa during her testimony targeting specific consequences of climate change. “Global sea level is expected to rise 3 feet above current levels by the end of this century.”
She said the data may explain observations made by the Native Hawaiian community that include edible seaweeds (such as limu ‘ele‘ele) dying out, spring water reductions along coastlines and protracted fishing seasons.
Hawaiian families in Hanapepe have maintained for generations the traditional practice of sea-salt making, and recent climate changes have been impacting them, according to Akutagawa’s testimony.
“Two years ago … families in Hanapepe could not harvest any salt due to sea level that overflowed the puna (springs for salt making) and flooded the entire area utilized for salt making,” she said in the testimony.
The effects of climate change are being felt more immediately by the older, lower lying Northwest Hawaiian Islands, which are collectively designated as the Papahanaumokuakea National Marine Monument, according to Akutagawa.
She said in her testimony those islands are disappearing beneath the ocean. Sea-level rising and intense storm waves will cause more loss of habitat for nesting seabirds there, and loss of beach will cause reduction of monk seal pupping areas and turtle nest sites.
Additionally, there will be an impact on fisheries throughout Hawai‘i, she said. There will be a reduced oceanic productivity along the Hawaiian archipelago due to shifting current and atmospheric wind patterns that no longer promote upwelling of nutrients in Hawaiian waters, she said.
Akutagawa recommended federal support for increasing Hawai‘i’s food security as a strategy for climate change adaptation and resilience. She also urged the U.S. Senate committee to support collaborative governance processes and the work of the ‘Aha Kiole — an advisory committee established by the state of Hawai‘i with the goal of creating a system of best practices based on indigenous resource management practices.
Akutagawa said traditional and localized land management allowed for “changes on the ground immediately” so that “individual resources could be abundant.”
Akutagawa, a Native Hawaiian cultural subsistence practitioner from Molokai, was joined on the panel by chiefs and officials of the Yupiit Nation, the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, the United Houma Nation and the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.
Visit www.indian.senate.gov/hearings for more information.
