Blog Posts

Sign the petition for a food forest at Kamaliʻi Park

6/5/2013

Many of you know about the excellent opportunity to establish a small "food forest" pilot project at Kamaliʻi Park in downtown Honolulu. The City Council acted last year to fund the project and a coalition of diverse organizations stands ready to implement it as soon as the Caldwell administration gives the OK.

We are asking you to sign a petition to the mayor and the director of Parks & Recreation to allow the project to go forward regardless of whether or not the budgeted funds can be released.

The project would have several key benefits:

Revitalizing an underused park at the gateway to downtown (Pali Highway & Beretania Street), displacing undesirable activity with constructive activity.
Making a symbolic step toward food security by planting carefully selected, food-bearing trees and perennials based on permaculture concepts and providing educational signage.
Augmenting nonprofit programs addressing mental health and homelessness issues through partnerships for park maintenance and harvest days.
Advancing the mayor's priority to "re-establish pride in our city parks."

To find out more about the Food Forest project, please visit Friends of Kamalii Park.

The petition will be up only for a few days -- please sign the petition now. Thank you!

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Organic Farmers Festival at Kahumana Farm on May 25

5/20/2013

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click image to enlarge!

In Waianae
3-8 p.m. on Saturday, May 25

Come and join an organic farm festival at Kahumana Farm and Cafe at 86-660 Lualualei Homestead Rd.

This event is a celebration of organic food and allows all people to come and meet their many organic farmers from around the island. Enjoy a beautiful day on the farm with music by Ka'ala Boys and Paul Izak, homegrown grinds, fun for keiki, check out the farm cafe!

Kahumana Farm and Cafe
86-660 Lualualei Homestead Rd.
Waianae, HI 96792
Map >>

Important: There is a road closure that requires using an alternative route to get to the farm. Please use this map as your guide. The farm is at point B on the map.

Saleh reports: A map with directions from Waianae after having passed Waianae Comp. health center and Waianae mall. The other "regular" road to the farm is closed...

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"The Hungry Tide" - free film screening on May 23 (Thurs)

5/13/2013

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Screening of the “Hungry Tide”
an award winning Best Feature Documentary Australian film
May 23, Thursday | 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Church of the Crossroads
1212 University Avenue, Honolulu -- see map

The Hungry Tide (88 min.) portrays how the rising sea level is literally “eating’ the shorelines of a Pacific Nation of Kiribati threatening the lives of 105,000 people spread over 33 atolls. It is a personal story of Maria Timon, originally from Kiribati, now lives in Sydney where she works for an NGO, raising awareness of climate change in the Pacific to schools and community groups. It describes her journey to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference as a delegate of an NGO to advocate for a legally binding treaty to require all nations both developed and developing, to agree on carbon emission reductions to keep global temperature from rising above 1.5C.

Haunani Kane, a UH Manoa MS student in oceanography and a PVS navigator will present Dr. Chip Fletcher’s ABC’s of Climate Change and share her research on Climate Change and Wetlands.

Respondents to this film will be Dr. Maxine Burkett, Professor. UH Manoa Richardson School of Law. Her courses include Climate Change Law and Policy and focuses on “Climate Justice” for vulnerable communities in the U.S. and globally. The other respondent is Josh Stanbro, Program Director of Environment & Sustainability, Hawaii Community Foundation. His work is devoted to fostering a more resilient and secure Hawaii in the face of climate Change and related challenges.

These lecture presentations are FREE but donations can be given for refreshments and other expenses.

Series information: http://churchofthecrossroadshawaii.org/mission41earth/

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Community Seed & Plant Exchange on May 5 - The full scoop!

5/3/2013

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The gist...

Sunday, May 5 (International Permaculture Day!), 1-7 p.m. on the east side of Oahu. A beautiful day of trading plants and seeds, live music, attending workshops, hearing from distinguished speakers, rubbing elbows with green changemakers, sharing food and fellowship on the path to a more reslilient Oahu. FREE - bring seeds and/or plants to share & exchange.

The flyer...

click image for larger version

The Place...

Hale Moli'i at Kualoa Ranch. Click the image for more info.

View Larger Map

Directions:

Printable Directions and Bus Info
File Size:	131 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

Food - Stay for the Potluck

There will be a potluck starting about 4 p.m. Hope you can join! Bring a dish to share, along with your own utensils, plate, and cup (this is a low-impact event). Everything wraps up at 7 p.m.

Some of the Speakers and Musicians

Representative Tulsi Gabbard

Mark Fergusson, president of HOFA and CEO of Down2Earth. Click the image for more about Mark...

On Facebook? Check out the event page on Permablitz Hawaii's Facebook page.

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Workshops and speakers set for seed & plant exchange on May 5

5/1/2013

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Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is among the keynote speakers. Workshops start at 1 p.m. - bokashi, seedbombs, propagation, forest gardening, bananas, more...

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Permaculture Design Course this summer in Waimanalo

4/25/2013

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Matthew Lynch and Hunter Heaivilin are the instructors for a 2-week intensive Permaculture Design Course this summer in Waimanalo.

Dates: August 5-18 (with two days off)

Hosted at Green Row Farms with site visits to Reppun Farms, Kolea Farm, Waimea Valley, The Greenhouse in Pauoa and more.

Matt and Hunter's PDCs are getting rave reviews. The PDC is an excellent opportunity to learn about and practice the permaculture way -- and connect with a growing community of permaculture practitioners and PDC graduates involved in diverse projects for a more resilient Oahu! Early bird registration through July 5.

Get the full scoop and register >>

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Community Seed & Plant Exchange - May 5, Kualoa Ranch

4/22/2013

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May 5 is International Permaculture Day -- what better way to celebrate than a seed & plant exchange at Kualoa Ranch starting at 1 p.m.! Workshops, speakers, and live music too.

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Report from the complementary currency meeting

3/13/2013

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We had a productive Complementary Currency meeting at the end of February in Aina Haina, with fourteen of us exploring the possibilities and sharing ideas. (Thank you, Ron Robinson, for hosting this event at your home!)

Links to the YouTube videos we watched are at right, followed by some links to some sample systems, both paper currency and online mutual credit systems. (The Hawaiian Currency on is simply a conceptual art project, but it gets the imagination going...)

Outcomes & What's Next

We discussed scale for a potential system. People tended to like island-wide as the scope but to be able to zero in on local areas depending on the situation. (E.g., map based tool that allows zooming for local offerings.)
Joy articulated a draft process that received applause :-)
- define options (research, prototype, discuss)
- community survey, currency/trading games, other outreach to help select system
- decide on a system and bring partners on board
- budget and funding
- going live and multimedia outreach
...all the while gathering members/interested parties.
A few of us will be meeting soon to begin defining the various options. These are alternative answers to: 1) what purpose should our system serve? 2) what mechanism/system shall we implement?

Choosing from among the alternatives would be informed by the community survey & feedback sessions.

The stages that people would like to get involved with will vary. If you would like to be part of researching and defining what the options are, please visit the working group page and use the contact form. Thanks!

Here are links to the YouTube shorts we showed at the meeting:

Creating Our Own Money: Introduction
Ithaca Hours: Local Currency
BerkShares & Multiplier Effect
The Money Fix (we watched the mutual credit segment starting about 0:59:00)
Brixton Pound (a Transition currency)
Brixton Pound (pay by text) (they are using Cyclos software for web and SMS payments)

Here are some of the websites we wanted to show with examples:

Salt Spring Dollars (this is one of the sites that got Stuart so enthused about paper complementary currencies)
Hawaiian Currency concept designs by Kelsey Ige
Cyclos online and mobile banking software (Seems the cleanest and most full-featured of the open source systems I've reviewed; next iteration will not be generally free, but may still be for social purpose organizations. This is serious software.They have a demo area - try it out!)
Community Exchange System (a related software system -- apparently in use on Kaui where their unit is "Kalas")
Fourth Corner Exchange (based in Bellingham, WA, Life Dollar system is available)
Community Forge ("We've helped over 400 communities implement currencies") Here's a demo site. They use the Drupal content management system.
Value for People (UK based group that consults on community currencies -- they've got a Starter Pack that's a goldmine as far as suggested process -- much like the one Joy proposed)

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Food Forest Presentation to the Downtown Neighborhood Board

2/22/2013

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Earlier this month we presented the Honolulu Food Forest at Kamalii Park to the Downtown/Chinatown Neighborhood Board. Getting board support is key to moving the project forward.

‘Ōlelo films the meetings for television broadcast and also puts the shows on their website. Here is the clip with our presentation. (Spoiler alert: we got a good result!)

Having any trouble viewing the embedded video? Try viewing it on the Olelo site (our part starts at timepoint 1:21:00).

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Film & Discussion Feb. 28: Complementary Currency

2/16/2013

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Momentum is growing for launching a complementary currency system in Oahu. Join the early-stage discussion!

Thursday, Feb 28, 6-8 p.m.
667 W Hind Dr., Honolulu, HI
(a home in Aina Haina -- see map)
Potluck pupus

We will show a few selected short videos related to complementary currencies that describe LETS (local exchange trading systems), a paper currency called Ithaca HOURS, and a "transition" paper currency backed one-to-one by government-issue money.

We also plan to demo a LETS system online.

The videos are short so we have time to discuss options for Oahu and begin to chart next steps!