May Day
May Day
Let’s bring a tradition back to schools
Growing up in Kona, actually anywhere on the islands, used to be so special especially because we used to have May Day. Not only did everyone wear lei to school and do performances for the public but the entire ambience was joyful. I can recall all the sweet scents from all the lei around my classmates neck. Everyone really got into the spirit of May Day and the parents all came to watch their children perform.
Why are schools no longer observing May Day? When schools focus solely on academics and forget about the aesthetics of our island, the spirit of oneness with one’s school disappears along with the aloha spirit.
Let’s make school fun once again and bring back the traditions of the former years.
Colleen Miyose Wallis
Kailua-Kona
BLNR decision
Aquaculture
is good for all
Carl Bernhardt (Letters, May 7) asks what changed to make the Board of Land and Natural Resources more accepting of open ocean aquaculture since 2012.
Perhaps the board members read Conservation International’s 2012 “Blue Frontiers” that concluded that hands down, far and away, aquaculture is the least impactful of all animal protein production systems on the planet.Perhaps they saw the World Wildlife Fund-sponsored Aquaculture Dialogues now providing certified aquaculture products. Perhaps they saw World Bank’s Global Partnership for Oceans— which includes WWF, IUCN, Conservation International and Nature Conservancy — portraying aquaculture as a key element in ocean conservation. Perhaps they tasted some of the superb sashimi grown at Blue Ocean Mariculture’s Keahole Point farm, which sustains local jobs with no measurable impacts on the pristine coral reef, garden eels, spinner dolphins, manta rays, humpback whales and dive tour operators that all share the area.
Perhaps they saw our Velella Project — a drifting offshore fish pen ranging from three to 75 miles offshore of Kona, awarded one of “Time Magazine’s 25 Best Inventions of 2012” — and thought maybe we can produce “fish without footprints.” Perhaps they heard about our recent research trials at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority where we are growing kampachi on diets containing no fishmeal — turning so-called carnivorous fish into vegetarians. Perhaps they thought about a planet of 9 billion people by 2050, increasingly affluent and health conscious, and hungry for great-tasting seafood, and wondered what part we in Hawaii could play in developing innovative solutions that might alleviate pressures on wild fish stocks.
Perhaps the board members are looking at the actual evidence for marine fish culture, rather than basing policy decisions on emotion or Internet searches about salmon.
Neil Anthony Sims
Co-founder, CEO,
Kampachi Farms
President, Ocean
Stewards Institute