New group hosts speakers, overflow crowd.A brand new organization, South Maui Sustainability, is rolling up its sleeves to help address local sustainability awareness and action through education, growing food, energy efficiency and production and sharing resources. If the standing room only crowd at the Aug. 7 meeting at the Kalama Heights Retirement Center Garden Room is any indication, expect big things to come from their combined efforts.
“It shows how many people are hungry to get more involved with issues of sustainable living,” said group member Maury King. “Our challenge is to harvest the energy of all the people that came—and translate that into action.”
South Maui residents heard four presentations, two on renewable energy and two on food production. Sandwiched in the middle was a 10-minute group brainstorming exercise, with the audience providing dozens of ideas that would help make South Maui more self-sufficient The list has been posted on the group’s Website, www.SouthMauiSustainability.org.
The concept for the group was born when Vivian Dames was motivated by the last speaker in the Focus Green Lecture Series, Chicago Environmental Commissioner Suzanne Malec-McKenna. Dames began talking with neighbors about what can be done locally. In a few short months, their conversations had melded into action, and South Maui Sustainability was ready for its “coming out party” to bring ideas to a broader audience.
Former South Maui resident Rob Parsons, now a “calabash cousin living in Ha‘iku,” provided opening comments. “Sustainability,” said Parsons, “is providing for current needs in ways that do not diminish future generations from enjoying the same quality of life, or the same natural resources. It boils down to living within our means.” He added that the era of cheap oil has allowed us to develop unsustainable and consumptive lifestyles.
While serving as the County Environmental Coordinator, Parsons said he participated in the Hawai‘i 2050 Sustainability Master Plan process. “But I couldn’t help but think… 2050? What about 2010 sustainability?” he said.
William “Willy” Bennett, founder of Energy Consulting Associates, gave the evening’s first energy presentation. Bennett worked with Maui Electric Co. for seven years as an Energy Management Consultant, and is an instructor with Maui Community College’s Sustainable Technology Construction Program.
Bennett described steps to energy independence, including reducing home energy consumption, installing solar hot water—which can reduce electric bills by 25–30 percent—and adding a solar electric system. He briefly covered “solar politics,” including state and federal tax credits that will expire at the end of 2009, unless legislators revive them.
Brad Albert of Rising Sun Solar outlined the upfront costs, rebates and tax credits possible with installing home solar photovoltaic systems to produce electricity. Albert also helped found the Hawai‘i PV Coalition, an industry group whose mission is to help facilitate greater use of solar electric applications statewide, including lobbying efforts for supporting legislation.
South Maui gardening and permaculture guru Marian Scott was ill and unable to attend the meeting. Her friend Stuart Karlan read her prepared comments with great sensitivity. “I’m going to lead you down the garden path now,” Scott wrote, “and assure you that if you can grow a lawn in the sandy desert of Kihei, you can grow some veggies.”
Scott said that lawns were created as a way to easily see a challenge coming to one’s castle and the middle class adopted them as a symbol of aristocracy. She wrote that a huge amount of land in America that could produce food is in lawn, all of it fertilized, weeded, manicured and watered intensively.
Scott said the South Maui climate is suitable for Mediterranean crops, such as tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, beams and eggplant. She said community gardens should be located in places where people already drive, such as schools, teen and community centers, parks and churches.
George Mateljan has nurtured the growth of his company, Health Valley Foods, for a quarter of a century, and recently authored a phone directory-sized work titled, The World’s Healthiest Foods. He shared scientific information on the nutritional content of foods and how they are the key to vibrant energy and health.
Mateljan’s Website receives 7 million visitors yearly and can be viewed at www.whfoods.org.
Even condo owners were encouraged to grow their own food, and information was shared about a product, Earthboxes, which could help people garden on their lanais.
King noted that Maui County was supportive of the groups initial efforts and the Office of Economic Development’s Deidre Tegarden and Agricultural Coordinator Clark Hashimoto attended the get-together. But he also cautioned the need for real action. “All the meetings in the world,” said King, “won’t put more food on the table. South Maui Sustainability has to be a group that puts ideas into action. Sharing valuable information with the community is just one step.” Several others in the room expressed that the group could serve as a template for other communities around Maui, and that a network of ideas and resources could ultimately be established.
South Maui Sustainability’s next meeting will be held on Thursday, Sept. 11, at 6:30 p.m. at the Kalama Heights Garden Room.