The National Marine Fisheries Service is seeking public comment on a petition from Defenders of Wildlife that seeks to protect oceanic whitetip sharks (Carcharhinus longimanus) under the federal Endangered Species Act. On January 12, NMFS announced in the Federal Register … Continued
Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods, its principal, and a host of related businesses are being sued in federal court in Honolulu. The plaintiff, Streamline Consulting Group (SCG), alleges that the companies, all owned by or controlled by Jeffrey A. Dunster, owe around … Continued
Financing statements filed with the state’s Bureau of Conveyances don’t usually disclose the dollar amounts of loans, but they do serve as a legal notice of a claim on the property used as collateral. One such statement filed last summer … Continued
The “corporate veil” mentioned in the motion to dismiss filed by Jeffrey Dunster’s attorneys shrouds a host of companies in addition to those named in the lawsuit: The board of the nonprofit Hawaiian Legacy Reforestation Initiative includes Dunster as its … Continued
The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai`i Authority has been transformed in the few years since its former executive director, Ron Baird, departed. At a meeting of the NELHA board last month, presentations by prospective tenants suggested the state-owned facility, now … Continued
In 1989, the state Land Use Commission approved a redistricting petition that shifted about 1,000 acres of Agricultural land in South Kohala, on the west side of the Big Island, into the Urban district. Signal Puako, the landowner, had planned … Continued
Olowalu Town Nixed: Last month, at the end of a 12-hour-long hearing, the Land Use Commission refused to accept a final environmental impact statement for a residential development of 1,500 units in West Maui first proposed more than 10 years … Continued
Gardens Gone? The iconic gardens at Honolulu International Airport international terminal may soon be no more than a memory. The three gardens and their ponds – landscaped in the styles of China, Japan, and Hawai`i – have long been … Continued
More than a year after the Hawai`i Supreme Court heard oral arguments, it has issued its decision in Patrickson v. Dole, a case that revolves around harm to Central American workers exposed to DBCP, or dibromochloropropane. That chemical was widely … Continued
Carol A. MacLennan. Sovereign Sugar: Industry and Environment in Hawai`i. University of Hawai`i Press, 2014. 392 pages. $39.00 (cloth). In 1939, Harper & Brothers Publishers released John W. Vandercook’s history of sugar in Hawai`i. King Cane, it was called, and … Continued